A number of organisations have implemented Scaled Agile of various forms, but what problems are they really trying to solve? and is it really worth the investment? In this presentation a look at the various scaled methodologies available to support strategy execution and the problems they are trying to address. Things to look out for and things to consider like the importance of cultural change when embarking on the Scaled Agile Journey. This presentation will cover lessons learned from an implementation, why a hybrid scaled model is needed and tips if you are about to start an implementation. It will cover how industry certifications help and where to find resources to support your journey.

It will also cover the difference between being and doing Agile, Agile Portfolio Management and Agile practices that can be applied to both traditional and non-traditional approaches to improve Organisational Agility.

Why do so many Transformational initiatives fail?

Why does anxiety spread through your organisation when another Transformational initiative is announced?

When trying to introduce agility in organisations, the guiding principle should be "People and interactions over Frameworks and process".

We will explore why introducing agility into your organisations should be people-centric, emergent and containing multiple layers of feedback. We will examine how to create the conditions to amplify agility within your organisation and empower your people. 

To leverage Business Agility within your organisation, it needs to be people-powered!!

Imagine if we were able to bring organisations to change direction like a school of fish or a murmuration- how do we create environments that enable people to do great things?

Experiments I've completed, things I've learnt

Orod is an Agile Coach, public speaker, Accredited Kanban Trainer, Scaled Agile Consultant, Scrum Master, and food vlogger.

Since 2013, he has helped many organisations in various industries to design sustainable systems and supported them in improving their business agility gradually.

Lean Thinking is one of the greatest cultural Improvement methodologies that creates huge change easily. Join me for an interactive session where you will experience the power of Lean Thinking through fun!

Often in Agile transformations, organisations use off-the-shelf scaling frameworks. But these frameworks have limited success when deployed as-is and should be customised to cater for varying needs across people, processes, and technology. A hybrid scaling of the agile approach, evolved and deployed iteratively, helps adapt to these needs — informing how practices, teams, interactions, and value streams should be designed. The execution of strategy continues to be a challenge for most organisations, with some looking to new ways like Hybrid Scaled Agile approaches. What is a Hybrid Scaled Agile approach?

In this presentation, Mansoor will explain this and cover some examples of Scaled Agile frameworks and how these can support the implementation of the strategy by incorporate changes to.

• Organisational structure
• Leadership style and management
• Development approaches
• Funding and governance structures
• Continuous learning and innovation culture

Mansoor will also cover what some of the Hybrid approaches are and what this means: Agile and Lean Portfolio Management, participatory budgeting, guardrails, portfolio performance aspects and ways to improve strategy execution.

Concepts and knowledge levels for this event are people new to strategy, students and emerging strategy professionals. No prior knowledge of the IASP Body of Knowledge or strategy frameworks is required.

How often do you find teams drifting off target? How often are stakeholder expectations not met? How often does work done fail to amount to anything meaningful? 

Often the root of the problem is people haven't been telling the value story frequently or clearly enough.

And the barrier to that is we actually struggle to tell a simple sharp version of the value of what we are working on. 

Go on, test yourself right now. Write down the value of the program you are on right now. Do it in one or two sentences. Does it pass the grandma test? 

This session will cover the issues, share some tools and collectively iterate on telling our value stories. 

You'll walk away with improved ability to align your team and stakeholders,and improve your chances to make an impact on the world. 

We are complex individuals operating in a VUCA world (VUCA²), but we are not trained as professionals to deal with this level of complexity. Leaders need to possess not only technical skills and competencies but also a strong inner capacity to navigate complexity and ambiguity effectively. This workshop will use a paired gallery walk, small group discussions, and all-group sharing to introduce participants to the Inner Developmental Goals framework, a set of inner abilities that can be developed to enhance leadership effectiveness. The workshop will provide practical tools for participants to improve their inner game of leadership.

In late 2022, we interviewed a suite of Product Managers and execs/senior leaders that work in partnership with Product Managers. Some sobering truths surfaced around how the Product Manager role is perceived by those holding the position, together with their partners in industry. Three key themes (and multiple sub-themes) emerged around what frustrates Product Managers and their stakeholders, together with key blockers that stand in the way of progress. In consideration of how each is addressed, hypotheses will be workshopped and shared.

Customer centricity and design thinking are integral to Agile team methodologies such as SAFe. 

LUMA Institute have developed 41 different methods to apply design thinking to Agile practices like:

• Ways to kick off a sprint by exploring future possibilities
• Ways to inform and invigorate daily scrums, standups, and other team meetings
• Ways to groom a backlog, prioritize tasks, and clarify requirements
• Ways to keep customers top-of-mind throughout a project
• Ways to collaborate with customers to understand their needs and expectations
• Ways to incorporate iterative feedback loops through rapid prototyping and testing
• Ways to frame business challenges & respond to changes or requests
• Ways to enhance retrospectives and reviews through regular reflection
• Ways to improve cross-functional collaboration, communication, and teamwork

In this interactive, fun, and dynamic session we will apply just 3 of the LUMA methods, focusing on understanding stakeholder needs as the foundation for a successful and well-governed project. 

We will focus on 

1. Ways to keep customers top-of-mind throughout a project and
2. Ways to collaborate with customers to understand their needs and expectations

The scales of the chameleon - how to secretly scale your organisation

This presentation delves into high-performing teams’ characteristics and the communication strategies that enable them to reach their full potential. The presenter discusses the key factors contributing to a high-performing team, including effective communication, collaboration, and a shared vision. The presentation then explores the role of communication in team performance, including the VAKOG communication model and the impact of perception on our communication styles. The presenter also explains the concept of conscious vs unconscious thought and how this thought processes impact team dynamics.

The second half of the presentation focuses on the cause-and-effect relationship between high-performance teams and their impact on an organisation. The presenter highlights the various benefits of high-performing teams, such as increased productivity, improved morale, and enhanced innovation. The presenter also emphasises the importance of recognising and addressing the unconscious biases that may hinder team performance.

Throughout the presentation, the audience will gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to create a high-performing team and the critical role that effective communication plays in achieving this goal. The presentation will conclude with practical tips and strategies for building and sustaining high-performance teams in any organisational context.

The target audience for this presentation is likely professionals in various industries and fields, such as managers, team leaders, human resources personnel, and executives. It may also be relevant to employees at any level interested in improving their teamwork skills and understanding the dynamics of high-performing teams. The presentation is designed for individuals who want to learn practical strategies for building and sustaining effective teams in their workplace or organisation. It may also be helpful for those involved in team-based projects or initiatives who want to learn how to communicate and collaborate more effectively with their team members.

Is This The End of Agility?

Is that too provocative a question for an agile conference?

I hope not. Surely this is exactly the place where we should be discussing such things?

Are you afraid of this question? Is the agile community afraid of this question.

We shouldn’t be afraid of it of critical thinking and less than positive results.

Agile is based on empiricism which is evidenced based just like medicine and science.

Medicine and science both embrace positive and negative test results to get better.

If we also believed in evidenced based results why would we be any different?

Perhaps this is the question we need to step change an organisations chances of success?

Join me, lets debate this question.

I will tackle this question in 5 key parts

• Is this the end of agility, what went wrong?
• Who has achieved agility mastery and what do they do differently
• What is agility and what are the most common pitfalls
• Helping organisations put the why into their agility journey
• How to custom design your agility journey for success

I have written a book on this very topic – I will have 20 free signed copies for people who attend my session

When I read the Scrum Guide for the first time, one word, in particular, stood out to me: empiricism. Making the jump from software developer to Scrum master was that much more a direct line with my years of university research behind me. In this talk, I will share some techniques I borrowed from my past and rediscovered through my work today as an agile coach with one of the most important financial institutions in Australia you've probably never heard of before!

When large scale organisations go 'agile' - the first thing to disappear is transparency.

Transparency, Inspection, Adaption are the foundations of agile.

So can you be agile without transparency?

Let me take your through my journey of

making the invisible visible for 1000 people/80 squads

How was it done? how long did it take?

And what did we find when actually achieved transparency?

We found something that we did not expect at all!

Transparency made us realised we were on the wrong path 

and that we needed to pivot

Come hear the story or what we did and why we did it and why it game changed success!

The 11 herbs and spices of agile transformation.

What are the key blockers to creating value in an organisations

What is flow? How can it help you remove blockers and impediments

What are the 5 key steps to implementing flow successfully?

How can you use it in an organisation for success?

Case Study on the benefits of using flow and lean in an organisation

GET MORE OUT OF AGILE...

Agile is not only about implementing a new project management tool – it begins with teaching the Agile philosophy and starting to transform the work culture. But without a holistic understanding of Agile, managers often act in conventional ways that are in contrast with the principles of Agile and unwittingly undermine their Agile teams. In fact, one of the key tenets of Agile is to put people over process – but ironically, Agile itself often has been interpreted as a process and is being imposed on people. Born out of years of experience, the Semco Style Framework and Roadmap provide a growing library of practices to build an Agile Culture. Agile Culture Essentials (ACE) makes this Framework and Roadmap available for use by aspiring organizations that are looking to build a truly Agile workplace.

WHAT’S NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER IN LEADERSHIP AGILITY . We find ourselves living in a time of volatile uncertainty. Times such as these can make or break individuals, organizations, and even civilizations. Times like these also shed light on the interconnected nature of all living things, including our own little place in the vast organization we know as Humanity. It is times such as these that call forth connection — and elevation — of consciousness, service, and leadership. Times like these illuminate what really matters — to be of service to our customers — and society — in the ways we are uniquely qualified to do. Historically, business organizations have been designed to be top-down, results-driven machines controlled by leaders who primarily operate out of individualistic, Reactive frames of mind. This structure and culture has gotten the job done for countless businesses and organizations for generations…as long as the business and social environments remained stable and predictable. Which is clearly NOT the case today. V.U.C.A. (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) rules…and will from now on. The Leadership Circle’s work of evolving the conscious practice of leadership has shown us what it actually takes to help leaders recreate their old-school organizations into flexible, agile, self-transforming organizations that can adjust on the fly to the changing conditions in the business environment. We’ve found that the key to creating truly agile organizations is held in the mindsets of the leaders. As Einstein said, “Our current problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” As leaders’ mindsets evolve from a Reactive level to a Creative level, new possibilities open up for: • moving from rigid hierarchies to flexible, network structures • sharing power and decision-making widely • creating value in new ways to meet customers’ quickly changing needs • engaging all stakeholders in collaborative ways that build loyalty and trust

In todays world a new playbook is needed to be effective. This talk looks to introduce the need for business agility, not having specialists such as leaders and workers, we need both in appropriate amounts. In fact, the modern organisations hierarchy is flatter and the role of worker and leader are blurred or non existent. This applies not only to software or tech enterprises but every organisation seeking the benefits of business agility. This talk has a fun and amusing theme and link to the movie the Matrix and its lead characters Morpheus and Neo, among others, who are facing transformational change challenges and how they overcome their challenges.