To win in today’s knowledge economy, organizations must learn and adapt faster than their competitors. While the world is getting more complex, faster, and more uncertain, our ways of managing work have changed little since the old industrial days. Most organizations fail to learn systematically because of cultural obstacles to learning, because people are overwhelmed by complexity, and because they have no system in place for continuous improvement.

In this executive lunch session we will discuss how Lean Management promises to impact the IT sector just as dramatically as it did the world of manufacturing. In addition to improved financial performance and faster product development, Lean yields competitive advantages for employers who want to attract, develop, and make good use of human talent. It also creates a more rewarding workplace for employees, involving them on a deeper level to innovate, solve problems, and shape the organization’s future.

Audience

Participation in this event is reserved for senior executives in technology companies with 100 or more employees.

Agenda

11:00 Networking and registration
11:30 Presentation (Lunch served)
12:30 Discussion
13:00 Wrap-up

Speaker

Frode Odegard is the Founder and CEO of the Lean Software Institute. He has twenty-five years of experience as an entrepreneur and trusted advisor to high-tech executives. Organizations he has helped include Sony Electronics Inc., Honeywell Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Cardinal Health, Candle, Conexant Systems, Mindspeed, and Plantronics. Frode is currently writing a book on Lean Transformations for the IT industry.

Frode started his first software company while still attending high school in Norway, and subsequently immigrated to the United States in 1990, where he founded Odegard Labs, a software R&D lab. His career gradually moved into teaching and consulting on software engineering best practices. In 2004 he founded the Lean Software Institute, a management consulting firm dedicated to bringing Toyota’s Lean business methodology to the IT industry.

Frode is currently in the process of launching several new ventures, including a support network for global nomads, a network for European Entrepreneurs, an organizational learning consultancy, and a software company in the knowledge management space. He recently founded Odegard adVentures as a parent company for his portfolio of ventures. Frode’s interests outside work include GTD, history, languages, philosophy (Objectivism), art, mathematics, psychology, skydiving, and strength training. He currently resides in San Diego, California and travels overseas about 50% of his time.