agileMany finance teams have meetings that feel expensive and wasteful. Ceremonies get bloated and lose focus. Herb Kelleher built Southwest Airlines by stripping away everything non-essential. You can apply that same low-cost thinking to design lean, purposeful team ceremonies. (1/7)
Kelleher didn’t just cut prices. He removed complexity. He used one type of plane to simplify maintenance and training. He avoided hub airports to cut fees and turnaround times. His core principle was radical simplification for efficiency. Every part of the service was questioned. If it didn’t help deliver safe, low-cost travel, it was cut. This mindset fits agile’s focus on value and eliminating waste, especially in service work where time is your main currency. (2/7)
Here’s how to use the DSDM framework to run a Timebox and redesign your ceremonies. A Timebox is a fixed period to hit a specific goal, ideal for a small team of two to five people. (3/7)
Start by defining the ceremony’s Minimum Viable Product. Hold a short kick-off. For each ceremony, ask: What’s the absolute minimum we need to accomplish here? For a daily stand-up, it might be Identify blockers. For planning, Agree on the next three priorities. Write this MVP down as the only success criteria. This is like Kelleher defining the core service as getting a passenger from A to B safely and on time. (4/7)
Next, conduct a waste audit. The team lists every part of the current ceremony that doesn’t serve the MVP. Use a whiteboard with three columns: Activity, Purpose, and Cost (time spent). Be honest. Does a 30-person weekly review need a 10-minute presentation? That’s high cost. Does your team of four need a two-hour refinement? Probably not. This audit finds the hub airports and multiple aircraft models in your meetings. (5/7)
Then prototype and iterate on a new design. Build an agenda that only includes activities serving the MVP. Timebox each part strictly. If the new stand-up should take 7 minutes, stop at 7 minutes. Run the ceremony once in this stripped-down format. Right after, hold a five-minute retrospective. Did you hit the MVP? What worked? What was missed? This is your test flight. Use the feedback to adjust for the next cycle or change the MVP if needed. (6/7)
A lean ceremony saves time and pays back in clarity. Try this with your team and share what you cut. #Finance #Meetings #Efficiency #Agile #Productivity #Lean #Teamwork #DSDM #Timebox #WasteReduction (7/7)