Behind the scenes and out on Twitter, small groups of people are busy investing in their #lssc12 conference experience by planning huddles around topics of special interest.

Here are three of mine:

1) Portfolio-level problems

We’ve had enough offline discussion to agree that portfolio management (if that’s the right phrase) is full of context-specific problems, that there can be no one-size-fits-all solution, and that (surprise, surprise) an evolutionary, problem-solving approach would seem to be a good starting point.  I can’t be the only one tired of hearing that portfolio management is mainly about allocating people, backlog grooming, or layers of additional organisation and process.  We can do better than this.

2) Simulation

My early career was in simulation (of aircraft) and I’ve used simulation to good effect at various times since.  It has been good to rekindle that interest recently by experimenting with Troy Magennis’s simulation package. We’ve spoken a few times over the past few months but never face to face;  at #lssc12 we are both speakers on the Risk track.

3) The process of introducing Kanban into organisations

In recent months we’ve seen some very interesting posts on the use of Story Mapping techniques and ideas from Lean Startup to guide Kanban introductions.  It’s an area of active creativity and experimentation and we have plenty to learn from each other.  My small contribution is around the way we describe the foundational principles, encouraging proper attention to initial conditions.  I’ll be touching on this in my talk in Madrid (#lkse12).

Have you planned your #lssc12?  Who will you meet?  Do they know?