Our Company History
Foundations
Founded in 2008 the David J Anderson School of Management gives managers a fresh way of interpreting the world around them and equips managers with the skills they need in order to lead with confidence and manage with competence. The fundamental principles of our management training enable greater organizational agility through managed evolutionary change, rather than defined or designed processes. Our passion lies in helping people produce better business results for their customers, their employees, and their owners.
The company was originally named David J Anderson and Associates, hence the domain name djaa.com. The consultancy business David started was very successful and won global clients. With the knowledge of his findings back in 2010 he published the book ‘Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business’ which is in the top 5 agile books ever published.
This success led to recognition in the industry and an early enthusiast market who were looking for an alternative to the other Agile methods being prescribed. This core group of enthusiasts led to the founding of the Kanban University which acts as the body for the Kanban Movement, standardizing the body of knowledge and the training through the network. This network now includes over 400 licensed Kanban coaches, trainers, consultants, and over 40,000 certified Kanban Practitioners globally.
Although the David J Anderson School of Management started in Seattle we have since expanded into Europe and have further plans for expansion into South America. During the last year, the company restructured to be under the Mauvius Group Inc holding company which is comprised of Kanban University, Kanban Conferences, Mauvisoft, and the School of Management.
David continues to develop and Pioneer the Kanban Method, Kanban Maturity Model, Enterprise Service Planning, and Fit for Purpose Framework. Kanban is the solid foundation on which our solutions for greater organizational maturity, agility, resilience, and leadership are based.
Brand Purpose
Our brand purpose is to bring clarity and rigor to management in professional services, intangible goods industries, with a goal of driving similar economic improvements to the 200x improvements seen in tangible goods during the 20th century.
Our brand essence is to give managers pragmatic, actionable, evidence-based guidance.
Following our brand essence ensures managers leave knowing what they can implement on a practical level as early as next week. In confidence that our guidance is based on real evidence of results across different industries and company sizes.
Coaching Philosophy
Unlike other companies, we don’t pretend to prescribe the magic bullet for agility. Our methods and practices are firmly embedded in managed evolutionary change. Start with what you are doing now and improve from there.
Our philosophy in our coaching method is to be like sports coaches to the managers that we are working with. To use a golfing analogy; If I taught you to stand like Tiger Woods and to copy his swing would you play as well as Tiger Woods? No. You are unique and require a coach who can develop your swing to hit the ball in the right way in order to be competitive. Prescribed pre-designed roles, processes, and organization charts for agility all fail in the same way and the coaching is highly unlikely to be effective. People, and the organizations they work in, are all unique and therefore require a method of management and training that understands them and is able to consistently achieve the best results.
Our training coaches managers using guidance based on proven evidence that the methods and practices actually work in the real world. We help them apply the knowledge and skills to their own situation. It is not a pre-prescribed process plan that we give and we do not ask that anybody changes roles or identity or a reorganization is necessary. Instead, we enable managers to be the best they can be and equip them with the right tools and guidance they need for 21st Century business management. Enabling them to make clear decisions with confidence, build in resilience, and evolving organizational maturity for greater business agility.
Our Services
Our solutions enable managers to become successful leaders, making confident decisions for greater agility and resilience through evolutionary change.
Our management training is focused solely on professional services, intangible goods business – any business where the work is often invisible from view (until a final product is available e.g. advertising campaign, engineering designs for construction, software application, geological survey report, the offer of a bank loan) and where the people are primarily paid to think and make decisions, rather than perform any specific physical task. Anything that can be construed as a service involving intangible goods as deliverables i.e. you can deliver the product via email, and not in a pizza box by courier.
Our services include;
- Leadership Development
- Training and Development for consultants, coaches and change agents
- Management Training
- Custom Training Courses
- Executive Summaries
- Kanban University Certified Training
Our Team
The David J Anderson School of Management management team is led by David J Anderson. As well as using our own trainers to deliver training we also have the possibility of working with our extended network of 400 coaches and trainers to deliver our training in multiple languages around the world.