Management is cake walk, Leadership is not and Servant Leadership is definitely not. Becoming a great Servant Leader and creating legacy is beyond any of the certifications. I will unpack some useful aspects of servant leadership which delegates can start implementing in their life and working environment from the very next day

It is really hard to communicate in a good way, but we all think “we” do it, it’s just the other people who struggle. Effective communication is a fundamental requirement for agile modeling. There are various modes of communication that people may choose to apply when working together. What are the Communication Technologies? When is communication most effective? How to set up good, solid communication mechanisms that will allow teams to grow their communication, and ultimately their collaboration skills. We will have some insights on all those questions and a taste of games with a focus on experiential learning.

Product Owners and others responsible for creating and maintaining the Product Backlog often focus on functional items.

With good engagement in the Backlog Management process from the Development Team and Architects, technical and architectural items also find their way into the Product Backlog.

But what about the human-centric items related to accessibility, inclusivity, internationalization and sustainability?

Through the talk and with the help of several supporting examples and a short exercise, I would like to highlight the importance of addressing these aspects in the Product Backlog. The examples will include examples of good and bad backlog items and design decisions.

I will also share some tips on how Product Owners and supporting roles can work these aspects into the Backlog Management process. These will include some ideas from Design Thinking but will not be limited to that.

Individuals, their interactions and communication are highly valued in Agile.

These values frequently find application in the form of big visible charts or information radiators.

Yet, in a lot of large, traditional organizations who have started their journey in Agile, the public display of information, uniformly accessible to all, is unsettling.

Through a “scary” analysis of the impact of the lack of transparency, I aim to build a really strong case for more transparency at the workplace.

Research says that happy and motivated team members leads to success in business. It is pertinent to create a culture of right mindset for every individual to learn, provide open feedback and help cultivate one's and other's ability to grow and succeed.

Carol Dweck through her research has introduced us to Fixed and Growth mindset.

This workshop will provide practical tips, experiences and suggestions on how to develop a growth mindset and apply it in our workplace as well as in our daily life. It will be an interactive session involving brainstorming, situational activities and video presentations.

In Agile ways of delivering software products we often hear people talking about adopting 'Best' practices to improve their delivery.

If you try looking for BEST practices definition in Wiki you get -

A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing things, e.g., a standard way of complying with legal or ethical requirements.

In my view, Best Practice must surely be able to demonstrate a superior outcome achieved because of the way the thing has been done.

Do we have BEST practices in Agile ?

As per Cynefin framework - Agile practices fall under 'Complex' domain category.

In the complex domain, we find the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect and the results are unpredictable. Here, we need to create safe to fail experiments and not attempt to create fail safe design. We cannot solve complex problems with best or good practices alone.

In this domain we get emergent order and practice that is often unique.

Emergent practice, behavior or order results and the approach is to:-

PROBE — SENSE — RESPOND

Probe - Experimental input

Sense - Failures or successes

Respond - Decide what to do

When BEST practices can be applied for Simple problems why should we do the same for problems where there is a demand of exploration/innovation ideas to arrive at a solution - that is where majority of our Projects/Product implementations fall under :)

Just because “Company A” had success with a particular initiative doesn’t mean that “Company B” can plug-and-play the same process and predict the same result.

• BEST practices forces one to stay in 'Fixed' mindset
• BEST practices forces to minimize experimentation
• BEST practices are always Static as they are applicable for specific issue/cause

Working in Agile ways is always about exploration (experimenting) and making course correction (inspect & adapt). Agile is not silver bullet, approach that works for one organization/team may not work for other and at the same time Agile is not a recipe of success either !!

By nature Agile is about working towards flexibility, improvisation and continuous learning & exploration culture. None of the teams/organizations can stay in successful path when they run behind 'BEST' practices. The moment they stick to Best/Good practices teams lose the focus of staying in Continuous learning/improvement journey.

Agile Practices/processes that work for one team/organization/program may not work well for another. So Scrum Masters/Agile Coaches/Management/teams should always look to learn from their mistakes and assess before taking next steps.