Design Council's 'Double Diamond' model requires teams to shift between divergent thinking and convergent thinking with regular cadence. But what does that actually feel like and how do we do it?

In this session we'll play some Improv games together that prime divergent thinking (creating options), convergent thinking (making decisions) and the pivot point between the two.

This is a participatory session with a pinch of theory and whole lot of game playing.

In this session we will cover a brief introduction to the research by Kegan and Lahey where they discovered that behind each of our habits is a strongly held belief that not only keeps us in our groove, but also fights any change that threatens the status quo.

We will discuss why personal growth and increasing our mental complexity is so important for agile and business transformations in today's VUCA world to succeed.

We will create your Immunity To Change Map which is a simple way to bring to light the your personal barriers to change. We will start by outlining your commitment to an improvement goal. Then we will sketche out the things that you are either doing or not doing that prevent progress towards the achievement goal. The Map then identifies competing commitments, as well as the big underlying assumptions behind those competing commitments.

The objective is to pinpoint and address whatever beliefs and assumptions are blocking you from the changes you want to make.

You will leave this workshop with a better understanding and tools to overcome the forces of inertia and transform your life and your work.

This is essentially the same session that I did at the recent Scrum meetup. The presentation material is here:

https://www.slideshare.net/DanielPloeg/scrum-and-kanban-92219317

I will need to go through the material a little more rapidly for the timebox and perhaps restrict questions.

Management and managers have not gone away with the advent of Agile.

Old-fashioned carrot and stick management may have worked wonders back in the early days of industrialisation, but is woefully inadequate for undertaking complex knowledge work in an uncertain and volatile world.

At the other extreme, dropping all structure in favour of radical self-management — mocked as "everyone gathering around a campfire singing kumbaya" — doesn't instantly lead to effective coördination, let alone organisational success.

In this workshop we explore the state of the art of management with a mix of design thinking and facilitated discussion to uncover rich insights and perspectives into the nature of management, and what a re-boot could look like.

Let's level-up management!

As organisations have become more agile and try to build “high-performing” teams, they have started to hire for cultural and team fit. As a result they search for people who can collaborate and are team players; who are willing to develop a deep trust in each other and in the team’s purpose; who freely express feelings and ideas; who engage in extensive discussion; who are adaptable and embrace change and who are comfortable managing constructive conflict towards a better outcome.

There are however, many people who do not meet that criteria, and for various reasons, may struggle to meet that criteria in the future.

Everyone brain is wired slightly differently and not everyone’s wiring fits the mould described above.

Does the exclusivity of the above criteria result in certain people missing out who could have significant positive value.

Despite progress in our agile processes at work, the people piece remains the pacesetter of change. How do we help people move flexibly through complexity? How do we work generously with our colleagues and tap into our collective intelligence? What control over the pace of change can you personally have by learning more about yourself? Dr Amy Silver shares her expertise in creating the psychological safety, trust and effective communication necessary for us to achieve elevated outcomes, despite the discomfort of our VUCA workplaces (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous).
Proposed

“Agile has become overly decorated. Let’s scrape away those decorations for a minute, and get back to the center of agile.”
— Dr. Alistair Cockburn, co-author of the Agile Manifesto.

Lean has become a decorated (*cough* bullshit *cough*) prefixed buzzword plastered on to every latest (and not necessarily greatest) industry trend. Steve Mitchell will strip back the fluff and guff to what Lean really means.

Leadership is challenging, but what if it could be as easy as walking? Or is walking really that easy?

Drawing upon almost a decade of experience in improvisational theatre and two decades in the knowledge sector, this interactive workshop will provide novel insights to common domains. It will make you think and feel differently about leadership in the workplace.

What does an ordinary communication look like from sender and receiver’s perspective? How much is and isn't being said when you are having a conversation? How do you recognise the unspoken and understand a complete perspective?

Agile folks know that communication is the backbone of a Agile culture. A team’s ability to work through adversity and navigate healthy conflict is what separates high-performing teams from mediocrity. Aside from that, learning to trust your intuition is important to learn at any point of your career.

This workshop will introduce one of the techniques from Integral facilitation that aids navigating conversations and improve common understanding in between participants.

The technique embeds four integral quadrants into conversation, thus making it easier to explore different perspectives.

Like the Vogon Guard in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, Do you sometimes want to stomp around, shout, throw colleagues, staff, or clients out of their spaceships? Is it when they are resisting all the good change that's coming along?

In the Death of Resistance (1979) Steve de Shazer decided on some conceptual violence. He murdered resistance. Resistance is just a concept and a strange one. It means the change agents and some clients are having a fight and when the change agent wins and the resistance is overcome, the loser of the fight gets to go home changed...mmm....Clearly then it is an idea that handicaps change agents.

We will explore how Solutions Focus can help you work without resistance. smoothing the path of change, with ideas and practices to take away. Let's start now by asking a question: If resistance didn't exist, what would you do differently?