Lead with Speed

In this talk, I will share concrete examples about being in an organization optimized for cost & efficiency and the shift to optimizing for speed. I will talk about the leadership mindset shift required and how to still achieve cost and efficiency by leading with speed. This journey started for me at Nordstrom and I carried this philosophy into my roles at Starbucks, Nike and Zulily. I will share the similarities and differences in each role/context, but how the one thing stayed constant – leading with speed. 

Many of us face pressure from our organizations to “save money” and justify the cost of technology. I truly believe focusing on speed as the primary objective will deliver strong results, including managing costs. Some tactics I will share include:

• Outcome based teams
• Making all work visible
• Limiting WIP
• Understanding velocity and viscosity
• Architecture/Standards Evolution (some amount of discipline enables speed/agility)
• Myth busting (speed means sacrificing quality, only unicorns can focus on speed, cloud is more expensive and can’t be managed)