Organizational and team culture is rooted in implicit assumptions about how individuals relate to one another in getting work done.  To foster alignment or change, it’s critical to have open and frank discussions about what we assume and what we value: this workshop will demonstrate how to have that conversation using LEGO Serious Play

“They are resisting the changes I am trying to implement!” It’s a common refrain when people don’t embrace a change with the speed or enthusiasm desired. Do you keep pushing, give up or call in the big guns? How you respond to resistance can doom the change to failure, or boost the chance of success.
As coaches, we introduce new ideas in many different contexts. Relying on positional authority (our role as coach), or calling on outside authority (the managers who hired us) isn't likely to get those ideas a fair hearing.
In this talk, Mike will help you see resistance from a new perspective. By understanding how much influence you have, what forces are interacting around you and seeing different ways to re-frame your issues you can still get your message across without “inflicting help” on others.

As a leader are you struggling to find a way for your team to improve and have that change stick? Here’s a thought: What if the point isn’t to have change stick?

Successful organizations look at change as the way we work. This is where Leading for Change comes in. Leading for Change requires all of us, regardless of our title, to take a different approach in leading ourself, the people around us and the system.

Drawing from my upcoming book of the same title, I will help you start thinking of leadership in a different light. We will start by looking at how you lead yourself, then expand into leading those around you. Finally we will examine what it means to lead a system so you, the people and the system will never stop improving.

Leading for Change is about providing the leadership in support

Continuous delivery is the capability to release new features or changes at any time, dictated only by the needs of the business and not restricted by technical limitations. Some companies use this to deploy dozens of times a day, others release less often.

The benefits of continuous delivery are fairly obvious today. Companies that have the ability to release on demand have a distinct advantage over their competitors who can’t.

The challenge is planning the journey. Given where we are today, what steps should we be taking? What measurements should we be tracking now to know if we’re moving in the right direction? What do we need to change in our process to make this happen?

In this workshop, we will explore several milestones and measurements for continuous delivery to allow participants to create a roadmap for their specific environments.

Mike has been helping a variety of companies move towards continuous delivery, from startups to the Fortune 500 and brings that experience to the discussion.

This workshop shows how Test-Driven Development (TDD) is used to enable emergent design. Using a simple but representative example in Java, the presenter will demonstrate how a low-level design naturally emerges when using the TDD cycle of test/code/refactor. The audience will be involved by suggesting the next steps and also by pairing with the presenter.

Note that the goal of the session isn't necessarily to have a complete working example at the end, but to illustrate the process of low-level design through TDD.

As a customer how do you define “value”? What does it take for a business to shift Value from "Meh" and create “Wow” experiences?

Why does the software industry struggle to deliver valuable results? Every team I work with talks about delivering valuable features. When I question how they define value I might get text book answers about ROI, sales, efficiencies or other quantifiable measures. Although they are important measures, I don’t believe “Wow” comes from anything you can quantify. If that’s true then how do we get from Value to Wow without going broke?

We will start by examining two similar customer experiences. Both experiences are valuable, but one is over the top in terms of “Wow!”. Using these as a basis we will examine the system of delivering value at the corporate, team, employee and customer levels. There’s no magic formula to creating “Wow!” moments but if can align your system you might have a chance of creating a few.

Culture is often stated as the top obstacle to transforming into an agile organisation.  This misunderstood obstacle can limit teams in reaching their full potential or even expel any hopes for meaningful change. During this session, we’ll explore ways to uncover the dominant culture of your organization, identify the contrasts with an agile culture and how to empower every individual to lead change initiatives.

To win work, consultants are asked to price their work competitively. To win repeating work, consultants must do a good job. In this session, we'll explore some of the approaches Amanda has taken as a Product Owner to create great, meaningful and lean deliverables.

Together, we'll examine how traditional UX and Change Management artefacts can be tweaked to deliver more value in less time. Some examples of these tweaks include: varying the level of fidelity, varying the direction, substituting appropriate alternatives and identifying and focusing on priorities. By using the basic lean principle of prioritizing the end product, instead of the content that is produced to create and support it, you'll learn how to make the most out of the budgets that surround the activities unrelated to writing or testing code for a product or site.

While this advice may cause your standard process to be sacrificed, the quality of the resulting product and the alignment with its user's needs will not. Resulting in more bang for your (or your client's) buck.

The White Bead Corporation is looking for Above Average Employees for expanded production.  On the job training provided.  Earn bonuses!  The White Bead Corporation is a proud producer of shiny, perfect, white beads. We work hard to meet our customer’s exacting demands and won’t settle for anything less than perfection. We need Willing Workers who are Above Average Employees to handle this rigorous task in an inspiring environment. Apply within.

Come watch, and participate, in the classic experiment made famous by Dr. Deming. Let’s explore the link between typical management techniques, human factors and overall quality.