We often come into (or observe) situations where the idea is clear, the benefits irrefutable … and yet there is so much push-back.

The reasons for clearly disregarding the suggestion before seriously considering it can be multitudinal and they are very likely to also include biases which can be formed from almost anything – even unrelated events commuting to the office.

In this workshop we will explore why our experiences limit our ability to approach topics differently, and we will explore ways they can be overcome.

Given that Kanban is more than just "Post-its on wall", getting started is often misunderstood and leads to shallow implementations that don't give you much bang for your buck. In this talk, I will give you a brief introduction of how to get a Kanban implementation underway effectively using a technique that has been tried and tested worldwide. We will look at STATIK - the "Systems Thinking Approach to Introducing Kanban". As we unpack it, you'll see that it can be very helpful in getting your Kanban system started in the right way and will help guide the conversations that you need to have to get started.

The easy case for coaching looks something like this: a prospective coachee wants to change, can articulate their goals, and is matched up with a suitably experienced and competent coach, the two are a good fit, and they quickly get down to the challenging yet rewarding business of growth and change.

But what if a person (or team) doesn't want to change and would rather not be coached? And despite this an external power deems that change is needed and that coaching will bring this change about. What's a coach to do? What about the coachee(s)? What about the role of the client who's engaged the coach?

This situation is not uncommon, and bears more that a passing resemblance to what often goes on in addiction treatment. A person with a drug addiction (and often other problems) doesn't necessarily welcome therapeutic intervention at the outset. But an external authority has ordered it.

In this session we will explore the parallels between the two modalities of addiction therapy and coaching, including the applicability of the Transtheoretical Model of Change and the related technique of Motivational Interviewing.

These approaches offer insights into how to flex and adapt your coaching approach in the face of some of the most common human impediments to change.

A couple of years ago Christiaan Verwijs and Johannes Schartau coined the term ‘Zombie-Scrum’. What's it all about?

Well, at first sight Zombie Scrum seems to be normal Scrum. But it lacks a beating heart. The Scrum teams do all the Scrum events but a potential releasable increment is rarely the result of a Sprint. Zombie Scrum teams have a very unambitious definition of what ‘done’ means, and no drive to extend it. They see themselves as a cog in the wheel, unable and unwilling to change anything and have a real impact: I’m only here to code! Zombie Scrum teams show no response to a failed or successful Sprint and also don’t have any intention to improve their situation. Actually nobody cares about this team. The stakeholders have forgotten the existence of this team long time ago.

Zombie Scrum is Scrum, but without the beating heart of working software and its on the rise. This workshop will help you understand how to recognise the symptoms and cuases of Zombie Scrum and what you can do to get started to combat and treat Zombie-Scrum. Knowing what causes Zombie Scrum might help prevent a further outbreak and prevent the apocalypse

Using Origami, attendees will see how flow can work in a "pull system" and compare that to the way it responds to a "push system". From this simple simulation, attendees will experience how increased WiP actually slows down our ability to deliver something to a customer.

Come along and experience flow and how you can start to improve your customer outcomes, not by doing more but by doing less!

This is a practical workshop where the participants will work in two sprints to build a city using the material given to them.

The intention of this workshop is for people to understand all the ceremonies better and it also helps teams understand that collaboration and working together as a team is the best way to achieve the results.

This is going to be a very interactive workshop while teams get to learn Agile while having fun.

Is Winter coming for PMOs? Like Game of Thrones the PMO has long been a subject for debate and controversy.

Game of Thrones was originally based on George R Martin’s books and the scripts, but then the TV series bypassed the timeline of the books and developed a life of its own, some think in a bad way!

PMOs have followed a script. We are so used to having them that we haven’t questioned why they were established or challenged why mechanisms may have been put in place. In introducing Agile or agility we haven’t rethought what is the PMO there for or what are the new areas of focus for a PMO.

How do we change the PMO script, how do we influence and change its destiny and rewrite the next chapter?

If the PMO can’t learn to adapt it will die as agility takes over.

If agility can’t learn how to embrace governance it will always be second class in the eyes of larger organisations (eg financial considerations).

How do we use Agile and agility to start to transform the PMOs in our organisation?

Come and learn about how you can disrupt your PMOs.

Hearing a lot about Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), but still a little unclear what they're about? Maybe you're hearing all the chatter and it's tweaking your interest! Well, join me for a farside chat and all will be revealed.

In this session we'll get under the hood of OKRs to understand the history, the core concepts and cut our teeth in a manner which allows us to take them back to our teams for further exploration.

At minimum, you'll walk out of the session with some clear goals for the coming quarter!

Do we know our stuff?
OKR Quickstart coaches and consults businesses on how to create strategic clarity, achieve audacious goals and build high performing teams. We've helped hundreds of people and businesses introduce OKR so that everyone finds crazy value out of them (not just the exec team). We've made every mistake in the book and this session summarises some of our biggest learnings!

Skilled facilitators help groups to collaborate effectively, generate and explore ideas, make better decisions, innovate, challenge each other constructively, and more.

In this workshop we explore three relational exercises that will help you to begin or continue to develop as a facilitator:

1. Facilitator power and presence
2. Listening as a super-power
3. Exploring perspectives without getting triggered

Practicing and refining these skills will help you not just in facilitation, but also in leadership and coaching.

Prepare for a contentious and deeply personal story.

I was an Enterprise Agile Coach. I am now a Consultant. But can I be both?

Discover why I made the leap to "the other side", what I have learnt in the process and why, if we don't do something soon, Agile in Australia risks imploding.

Product Road Mapping can be a challenge for those that are new to this and also for those that are experienced. Conventional product road mapping models have several limitations. We will explore how various Agile Product Road Mapping approaches and models can provide relevant information and direction to different stakeholder groups that are responsible for product development.

RMIT Online were looking at a number of ways to create alignment and promote collaboration. We tried Scrum of scrums, Walk the boards and other tools and now we're experimenting with OKRs at RMIT Online. This resulted in a number of stumbles and gnashing of teeth along the way. We're less than 1 year into our experiment so this is a great time to review what has worked so far, and what challenges remain.

Does the question "Can I give you some feedback?" strike fear into you? You're not alone! We've probably all been on the receiving end of what someone has called feedback but which we know is anything but. We may well have also been given the proverbial "sh*t sandwich", which most certainly is not palatable! This sessions aims to remedy the situation by examining what feedback is truly meant to be and how to apply it appropriately.

Feedback is all the rave with both management and Agile, yet it is so poorly understood and, unfortunately, so badly practiced. We know for organisations and individuals to grow that feedback is essential, but we rarely stop to reflect on how to do this effectively and in a considerate way.

This session will explore the fundamentals of what is genuine feedback, why it is valuable, and where, when and how to provide it in a way that creates desirable outcomes.

Using a simple model of feedback, we will share personal experiences where feedback has and hasn’t worked, and the learning obtained from these situations. With some light role playing, we’ll also experiment with the delivery of feedback, exploring the patterns and anti-patterns of common scenarios you may encounter in the workplace.

Due to requests and feedback, this is a repeat of last year's session for those who missed it.

How do you develop an agile mindset? You can't teach it, but you can grow it by changing your beliefs.

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 sketch 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.

Seeking to understand how you can be a change agent in your organisation beyond Agile Team Coaching?

At this interactive session we’ll explore the world of Enterprise Agile Coaching.

Learn how to:

1. Radically interrogate your organisation’s reality
2. Diagnose the reinforcing behaviours affecting change in your organisation
3. Uncover the stories folks tell themselves that limit change
4. Implement a lean change model to fuel Agile adoption

An interactive session where we’ll play a short version of the Kanban pizza game to demo how you can supercharge your team to see great flow of work.

We’ll explore classic limiters to flow and how you can overcome these.

Expect to:

• Delve into the world of Kanban in a non-scary way
• Understand how to become a waste removal superhero
• Learn three easy metrics to fuel your team’s continual improvement

As a coach there are natural tensions that come into play as you execute your role to affect the system of work, influence culture and change behaviours. The EGDE that good coaches are able to find allows them to navigate these tensions whilst maintaining the balance of stance in the moment that the situation requires.

Think of seeing the "trees versus the forest" but on multiple levels/layers concurrently. Being an actor on the stage versus maintaining distance from the system of work (being in the audience).

In this workshop I will take the audience through some of the tensions I've recently experienced and navigated as a coach and how I have assisted other coaches to learn this skill and how you can develop it yourself.

I've been lucky to work with some of this city's most skilled of agile coaches scrum masters and agileists. More often than not group sessions are lost to the more mechanistic aspects of facilitation. The straws and lego become the focus instead of impacting the hearts and minds of those participating.

In this brief but jam packed session I'll will convey a brief deconstructed view of 5 key themes for what makes facilitations stick.

I will share with you what they don't teach in agile, coaching or even workplace training certifications.