2008 Lean Product & Process Development Conference a Go!!

Today, the Lean Enterprise Institute agreed to sponsor our Lean Product and Process Development conference in 2008! This was the final piece needed before we could make a "go" decision.

This conference will reflect Dr. Allen Ward's vision for Lean Product Development, as represented best in the Lean Product and Process Development book that just came out this year. Our intention is to have a two day conference filled with practitioner presentations, plus a set of pre-conference workshops from some of our thought leaders. You can get a lot of the theory out of books or from websites like mine. But where else will you be able to hear from some of the pioneering companies out there that have been using this stuff to get results like faster time-to-market, lower product costs, more new products and more profits from new product development?

I will co-chair the conference with Tricia Sutton of Sutton Enterprises. We've also been in contact with a terrific roster of speakers including Rich Gildersleeve of djOrtho, who won PDMA's Innovator of the Year award in 2005 for their lean product development efforts. Durward Sobek has of course already provided some unofficial guidance.

We will base the conference on the same model as the Lean Accounting Summit, with a panel of thought leaders guiding us as we finalize the agenda. But first we need to nail down location and dates (and take care of some administrivia to set up an infrastructure).

Watch this space for more news as things evolve!