Agile2019

Abstract:
Agile, or any kind of organizational transformation, requires a level of leadership equipped to skillfully navigate their organization through massive change, in both the external and internal dynamics that are present throughout the change. That level of leadership goes beyond just outcome-creating (Creative) leadership, and extends to the next stage, which is Integral Leadership. Integral Leadership is built on an integral mind, one that is able to hold polarities, unresolvedness, tension and contradictions. We've been using The Leadership Circle's developmental tool to talk about moving from the Reactive to the Creative. This development allows for a person to move from the Competent Manager, to the Visionary Leader, who operates from passion, rather than fear-based Reactivity. The developmental shift to Integral Leadership moves the focus on 'Results' & 'Relationships' to a focus on the 'Whole'. This developmental shift to Integral Leadership allows for Servant Leadership, with the whole system's welfare as their focus, and operates from a place of compassion. It is Integral Leadership that has the developed capacity to lead transformational change.
In this session, we will take a practical and fun approach to explore each person's own orienting quadrant and potentially inherent translations (perceptions) of other's orientations. Being able to skillfully see another person's way of seeing things requires us to first understand our own way of seeing. As transformation leaders and coaches, our ability to shift our structure of attention to focus on the whole, rather than coming from our own inherent bias', is the single most deciding factor as to how far we can take our organizations and our clients. This session will help you see why Integral Leadership is a developmental journey and an imperative for the next stage of leadership needed in our world.

Learning Outcomes:

• - Understanding the context for Integral Leadership and Transformation
• - Understanding the Universal Model of Leadership (The Leadership Circle), from Reactive to Creative to Integral
• - Exploring Integral Leadership and the Integral Mindset
• - Exploring the developmental path to Integral Leadership

Attachments:

• 19-3407-Agile2019_Wash_PP_16-9_1 - ver 3a.pdf

Abstract:
As we wrote the distributed agile teams book, we realized that many of the agile problems we’ve seen are similar---regardless of whether the team is collocated or distributed. Even if the team “practices” a specific framework, the teams are not agile-in-culture, nor are they teams. They don’t have a project rhythm of delivery or reflection. They work as “silos of one” instead of collaborating together or being transparent in their work. Too often, the team members (and managers) share knowledge on a need to know basis and no one needs to know. People blame each other when things go wrong. Teams don’t have a culture of resilience and perseverance.
That’s a laundry list of “agile gone wrong.” Why? Too often, it’s because the teams don’t (or can’t yet) work according to seven principles that work for distributed and collocated teams. Instead of practices, people need principles that work so they can work. Here are the seven principles we describe in the book:

• Create transparency at all levels.
• Create a culture of continuous improvement with experiments.
• Practice pervasive communication at all levels.
• Create a project rhythm.
• Assume good intention.
• Create a culture of resilience.
• Default to collaborative work, not solo work.
• Establish Acceptable Hours of Overlap.

In this workshop, Mark Kilby and Johanna Rothman will walk you through seven principles that work for every agile team. You’ll see where to place your team on a continuum, and learn several approaches for managing each principle.

Learning Outcomes:

• Learn 7 principles to help any team become more agile
• How to think about agile principles, past the manifesto values, for your team
• See common traps that teams and organizations fall into that stalls their agility
• See how the recommended principles can help release the team from a trap

Attachments:

• 7.Principles.forAnyAgileTeam.workshop Agile2019 - Johanna and Mark.pdf
• 7Principles.Handout - Mark and Johanna.pdf

Abstract:
Wait! Stop! Don't hire that highly talented person with the great resume, numerous certifications and years of valuable experience! Believe it or not, that person could undermine your cultural agility.
One of the biggest mistakes companies make in trying to scale the mountain we call organizational cultural change is bringing in the wrong people to help support that change. Too often we remain stuck in old hiring practices based on keyword searches, years of experience or quantity of certificates. While valuable to know, this does not mean, though, that they will fit what you are trying to do within the organization. You may even be creating a cancerous situation that is causing leadership to question whether or not Agile methods were the right way to go at all!
Robert Woods, President and Lead Consultant at MindOverProcess, will be outlining the absolutely critical adjustments required to how we look for people, hire and why they are so impactful to the success of any cultural support. These adjustments impact areas ranging from Product Development to Change Management, Business and IT alignment, Team Building, Leadership and Facilitation on up to Executive buy-in. Learn how to watch, engage, hire and retain the people you need before its too late!

Learning Outcomes:

• - Identify how a company's current hiring practices could be undermining its agile cultural changes
• - Gain techniques a company can use to change those practices
• - Learn how to measure the results of hiring into an agile environment

Attachments:

• PEOPLE WATCHING.pdf
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Abstract:
Exciting news! Colleagues from a non-software department, interested in adopting Agile, have turned to you for advice!
While you’d like to help them, you realize that copying your Agile practices for software/IT won’t cut it. Maybe even a popular process framework (name starts with “S”) wouldn’t be right for their work. They are already starting to use Agile bits – boards, stickies, sprints, and standups – but you’d like to help them go further and enjoy a context-specific Agile implementation that will transform their world.
What you need to do is help them design their implementation based on Agile values and principles. While you don’t have to be a process expert, you do need to have the right conversations. And, you need to discuss the Agile approach in a way that empowers your colleagues to make suitable choices, without being tied to any prescription, tool, or so-called best practices. Come to this session, led by the author of “The Agile Mindset,” to learn how to facilitate a rigorous, collaborative process for successfully customizing Agile to a given context.

Learning Outcomes:

• Outline the first conversations you must have, and how to conduct them, for an Agile implementation that works
• Empower your colleagues to make Agile-minded choices without being tied to any prescription, tool, or so-called best practices
• Facilitate a rigorous, collaborative process for customizing Agile to a given context

Attachments:

• How to Help Your Non-Software Colleagues Adopt Agile.pdf

Abstract:
How did a virtual band top the Billboard chart for World Digital Songs? Was it a coincidence? Was it a one-time wonder? Hopefully not! It was an unexpected yet desired result of building the foundation of business agility, not to avoid disruption or adapt to external forces, but to operate in a universe where we place our players firmly in the center of our universe. In this session, we will discuss the Copernican Revolution that informs our mindset for business agility and how we balance the interplay between top-down strategy and bottom-up ideas to delight our players. We will also describe the implementation of key components of business agility, including Leadership, Individuals, Operations and the core Relationships that enable or hinder business agility. We will also explain why business agility is a journey that relies on what we call “the grind” and learning through experimentation rather than a framework, model, or methodology. We hope to illustrate the power of a new mindset for business agility by sharing the outputs, the outcomes, and the journey we’ve experienced at Riot Games.

Learning Outcomes:

• Ability to identify key elements for business agility
• Ability to inspire and engage your top talent
• Ability to support both top-down strategy and bottom-up ideation and creativity
• Ability for leaders to create mission-obsession and engagement
• Ability for backoffice functions to enable, not stifle or govern, innovation and agility

Attachments:

• HandoutsKDA.pdf

Abstract:
The product owner role was introduced in Scrum in 1993. So, the role has been around for ~25 years. Yet, still we struggle with the nature of it. Is it simple or complex? Is it inward or outwardly facing? It is about backlogs and stories or something more? And is ‘ownership’ the whole point?
In this talk, Bob Galen will be sharing his 4-Quadrants model for what effective (good) product ownership looks like in the real-world. It will start with balance, because the role is so broad and deep in its nuance. The essence of the 4-quadrants says that there are product, project, analyst, and leadership parts to the role. We’ll explore each in turn and talk about cross-connecting each area. We’ll also explore the partnerships that are key to success.
And finally, we’ll even explore product ownership at-scale, which is its own can of worms. So, we’ll help with that too. You’ll leave this session certainly understanding what Product Owner Excellence looks like and how crucial it is for team success.

Learning Outcomes:

• Introduce the 4-Quadrants of Agile Product Ownership as a framework for skills, responsibilities, and expectation management.
• Deep dive into each of the quadrants and explore that aspect of the role; wrapping up with quadrant interactions.
• Finally, explore Product Ownership at-Scale and the challenges associated with it.

Attachments:

• What does Good Look Like - The 4-Quadrants of Product Ownership, v1_compressed.pdf
• 4-Quadrants of Product Ownership worksheet.pdf
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Abstract:
If your team uses velocity for planning but you don't find it very useful, this session is for you.
If your manager or scrum master or other pseudo-authority figure keeps obsessing over your velocity, this session is for you.
If you want to know about better ways to forecast when a piece of work will be done or how to gather data that actually helps your team, this session is for you.
Doc Norton shares stories and science detailing why velocity isn't a very good metric, talks about some common velocity anti-patterns, and shares what metrics you could use instead. You'll be able to better forecast when work will be done and you'll be better able to diagnose issues with your process and work toward correcting them.

Learning Outcomes:

• Why Velocity alone is a poor indicator
• Simple ways to measure code quality
• How to create and read a CFD
• Forecasting probability

Abstract:
Mix it up with an outrageously distinguished panel and moderator exploring agile leadership.

• What is it?
• How is it different?
• How do you become an agile leader?
• What works?
• What doesn’t?

Leadership -- much less agile leadership -- is a complex reality. There’s no one right way, no proven Top 5 traits, no single approved developmental path.
Instead, there are multiple valid perspectives with complimentary, interlocking, and sometimes even conflicting patterns. But patterns are sure to emerge.
Provocatively moderated by Jake Calabrese, the diverse panel includes

• Angela Tucci, CEO, Apto
• Tricia Broderick, Coach at Agile For All
• Soo Kim, Executive Director, English Services Media Operations, CBC
• Michael Sahota, Agile Culture & Leadership - Trainer & Consultant
• Christopher Avery, The Responsibility Process Guy

Get ready for an Agile Panel: You’ll be involved the whole way by providing questions and responding to polls from start to finish.
We’ll laugh, gasp, and be amazed together. Don’t miss it.

Learning Outcomes:

• Fill your palette by exploring leadership as a complex reality with multiple valid perspectives
• Get inspired with your own path for growing leadership
• Discover what leadership styles resonate with you
• Learn the growth paths and personal transformation required to develop other leaders
• Decide for yourself who’s a real leader and who’s not

Attachments:

• Agile2019 Leadership Panel Handout Final.pdf
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Abstract:
Even experienced teams struggle to make accurate project forecasts. After all, Agile projects embrace uncertainty and welcome changing requirements over the course of development. How do you get a sense of your project timeline when you know the least you ever will about it? You can't eliminate the unknowns in a new project, but by using the Monte Carlo method for forecasting, you can work with them. This session will introduce the Monte Carlo method and how it works through the real story of how it was used on a year-long project. Attendees will learn how to use Monte Carlo to create a project forecast, and how forecasting can help manage scope and schedule releases to make a project more successful. The session will cover lessons learned that help to work with (or around) the limitations of the technique. Attendees will also get an opportunity to try out a Monte Carlo forecast for themselves using a spreadsheet they can take to their real-life projects.

Learning Outcomes:

• What the Monte Carlo technique is and how it works
• How to create a software project forecast using the Monte Carlo method
• Constraints and assumptions of the method, and how to work with them

Attachments:

• Agile2019 - Monte Carlo.pdf

Abstract:
While Personas have become an accepted part of the user-centric development practices, all too frequently Personas are simply printed on posters, taped to the walls, and easily ignore in the day-to-day and Sprint-to-Sprint development processes that characterize Agile development. That's a shame, because Personas can breathe life into impersonal market segments and help all members of the organization make decisions aligned around a common purpose.
This presentation introduces Role-Playing with Personas as a technique that Agile teams can use to build the empathy and insight needed to build the products and services meet customer needs. We'll start by having teams quickly build Personas for a simple case case study. Next, we'll play a variety of Discovery, Planning and Prioritization games using these Personas to illustrate how Role-Playing with Personas can create empathy and insight. We'll conclude with a discussion of how Personas can improve many Agile artifacts, including Persona Stories and Persona Done!

Learning Outcomes:

• What a Persona is and how to create one
• How to integrate Persona role-playing into Agile Development
• How to leverage Personas in other Artifacts

Attachments:

• 2019-Aug-07 Playing with Personas for Better Products.pdf

Abstract:
I imagine, like me, you have goals and aspirations. Things you'd like to change or improve about yourself, your home, your job, your team, your career, your relationships, etc. If you are anything like me your list goes on and on. I want to be stronger, thinner, more patient, less judgemental, listen more, drink less. Let's face it, intentions are not the problem. The challenge is finding the energy to do these things. Often as agile coaches and change agents, so much of our jobs is helping people to improve, that we sometimes hold ourselves to higher standards regarding our own self improvement. Yet if we expend all our energy helping clients improve, how do we find the energy to improve ourselves?
In this workshop I want to explore things that give you energy and things that take your energy away. I will share my own personal learnings about how I have managed to create enough energy to tackle some of my goals, and I will share some of the things that have happened that have obilerated my energy and made it very difficult for me to do anything, and how I dealt with that.
In groups I will then invite you to explore this for yourselves. My hope is that you'll be able to identify some patterns that can create energy as well as find out things to try to avoid that drain your energy. By focusing on understanding your own energy levels first, what you can influence and what you can't , I hope you'll find some practical tips to balancing your own needs with those of your work. I'm not an expert in this and I am still learning to do this for myself. My hope is that we can inspire each other.

Learning Outcomes:

• Identify things that give you energy
• Identify things that take your energy
• Be okay with not doing things you don't have the energy for
• Have some simple things you can do to increase your energy

Attachments:

• selfcare.pdf

Abstract:
Does your Scrum team start all its stories on Day 1 of the Sprint? Do stories sometimes carry over into the next Sprint? Or perhaps testing always gets crammed in on the last day of the Sprint? If any of these sound familiar, your team may benefit from improving its flow.
Flow metrics are commonly associated with Kanban, but can provide tremendous value to any team, including those using Scrum. In this interactive workshop, we’ll start by exploring the value of achieving a smooth flow of work versus simply achieving maximum utilization. Next, we'll introduce lead time, cycle time and throughput metrics and explain how to create and interpret a cumulative flow diagram (CFD). We'll review what each represents, discuss easy ways to collect these metrics, and show how they are similar and different from common Scrum metrics. As each metric is introduced, we will provide sample sets of metrics for you to review in small groups, practicing how to read and interpret them in order to find opportunities for team improvement. You will leave the workshop knowing how to interpret and capture all these valuable metrics, so your agile team can improve its flow!

Learning Outcomes:

• Participants will learn about flow in the context of an Agile team
• Participants will be able to explain the difference between utilization and flow
• Participants will be able to describe why flow matters for both Scrum and Kanban teams
• Participants will learn how to interpret and capture lead time, cycle time (average, median, and scatterplot), throughput, and a cumulative flow diagram (CFD)
• Participants will learn how flow metrics can be used in both Scrum and Kanban contexts
• Participants will get practice using the metrics to identify bottlenecks and gain insight into the flow of their team or system

Attachments:

• Agile2019_Measuring Flow_Metrics That Matter_8.8.19.pdf

Abstract:
Are you struggling to build a positive agile culture and foster the agile mindset? Juggling countless tasks and multiple stakeholders’ expectations in a volatile environment with little or no time? Unsure whether the decisions you make are the best to deliver successful business outcomes?
The most effective agile leaders are those who invest in their own personal development as well as the development of those around them. Transparent, flexible, adaptive and supportive, the agile leader encourages and empowers teams to become autonomous and high performing. Core personal skills such as self-awareness, emotional self-management, and social awareness are the basis of emotional intelligence, which is a key indicator of leadership success. Mindfulness is a foundational skill that can grow and deepen emotional intelligence and successful agile leadership.
In this session, you will hear why mindfulness is the secret ingredient to develop effective agile leadership. Beyond just simple awareness, you will learn how mindfulness help leaders to show up as the very best versions of themselves. Through mindfulness, you will improve your focus, think more clearly and make better decisions that lead to more successful outcomes.
We will take you beyond individual meditation, sharing techniques to apply mindfulness in meetings, presentations and everyday activities, to build greater self-awareness in your teams, and to help you become a more inspirational agile leader.

Learning Outcomes:

• What mindfulness is and how it helps agile leaders become more effective
• How mindfulness can help increase your focus, enable clearer thinking and better decision making to benefit you and your teams
• How to practice mindfulness and practical ways to introduce and use it within your teams and wider organisation
• The Elements of Mindful Success - how mindfulness enables greater awareness and better leadership

Attachments:

• Mindful Agile Leadership Agile2019 Final.pdf
• Elements of Mindful Success.pdf

Abstract:
An Agile transformation probably is never complete. Even when an Agile way of working is introduced company wide, there’s always more to wish for regarding your time to market, customer satisfaction or employee engagement. This certainly also applies to ING where a large scale Agile transformation was started in 2015. The Agile transformation already lead to many valuable results, but there is room for improvement. How do you keep the daily work of hundreds of squads aligned with the strategic goals of the organization? How can you help Agile leadership taking the right decisions, at the right time, based on the right information? It was necessary to explore what practices could be added to ING’s Agile Way of Working to help the organization to better deal with these challenges.
Inspired by a few local initiatives, ING chose to adopt Obeya as an add-on to the Agile Way of Working. An Obeya (“Big Room” in Japanese) is a place where top-down information about the strategic direction is connected with bottom up information about the actual results that we are achieving. This makes an Obeya a great enabler for effective Agile leadership. Based on the content presented in the room and a structure of rhythm and routine for meetings Agile leaders can apply validated learning in their day-to-day work.
The Agile Coaches initiated and supported the introduction of Obeyas in all Tribes of ING in the Netherlands and Belgium. Nienke Alma was one of them. In this presentation she will show the standardized approach the Agile Coaches used to set up the Obeyas from scratch and get them up and running. Based on her experience in multiple tribes, she’s able to compare the success of the introduction of Obeyas between these tribes. The significant differences in the success rate have provided valuable insights in the do’s and don’ts for the introduction of Obeya as a new Agile practice.
Do you want to know more about Obeya and how it fits in an Agile Way of Working? Are you looking for tips & tricks for how to set up an Obeya? Or learn how Obeya can help smoothen the flow of information about strategic direction and actual results in large organisations? Then this is a presentation you’d like to hear!

Learning Outcomes:

• - Learn what an Obeya is and how it fits in an Agile way of working
• - Learn how Obeya can help smoothen the flow of information about strategic direction and actual results in large organisations
• - Get tips and tricks for how to set up an Obeya from scratch
• - Get inspired by ING's Obeya Coaching successes and failures

Attachments:

• Agile2019 - Obeya - Nienke Alma.pdf