As coaches, our focus on any Agile transformation is limited to measuring IT Output (e.g. Velocity, Defects, Lead Time, Cycle Time etc.)

However the real value from Agility an organization can reap benefits are whether Agile has really harvested Business Outcomes or not. In my talk, I will talk about how to move from a focus on IT Output to Business Outcomes

In my talk, I will talk about how to move focus from IT Output to Business Outcomes.

Few important areas, I cover include :

• What is a Business Outcome?
• How Business Outcome contributes to Value Realization?
• Who formulates Business Outcomes?
• How an Agile Coach facilitate the achievement of Business Outcome
• Traceability between IT Output- Business Outcome - Value Realization
• Business Outcomes with examples (NPS, Release frequency etc.)

Psychological safety has become an integral part of an organization these days. Amy Edmondson, professor at Harvard Business School, first identified the concept of psychological safety in work teams in 1999. Since then, she has observed how companies with a trusting workplace perform better.

Through the workshop, we will be promoting the same culture that Amy has promoted.

It is going to be a hands-on exercise with the help of Lego and it will give participants

- A perspective to have innovative thinking

- A thought process to overcome conflicts

- A way to build self-motivated teams and

- An aim to encourage experimentation

This style is also known as kinesthetic learning that helps teams to be fearless. It not only encourages active listening but also promotes a Speak Up culture to create a safe environment.

Transformation has become the buzz word of the times with it spreading over various manifestations like agile, devops, business agility, organizations transformation etc. At the same time most transformation initiatives are driven in a global organizational and team environment.

In a global environment, we look at scaling and standardization quite frequently. Organizations train everyone alike with same content, same philosophy, same tools, and standards yet we struggle in producing exceptional/uniform results that are sustainable. We see teams falling back to their old ways of working leaving a question on the transformation itself.

Transformation is often seen as a series of changes in the way we work, the process rules, the way we are structured and several other things. However none of the changes mentioned above guarantees a transformation that is sustainable in delivering business value.

In this talk, we explore

• The possible areas to look at why often we fail in sustainable transformation
• Even after a transformation exercise, why do organizations have to still deal with areas of accountability, commitment and ownership and delivery at cadence.
• What really matters in a transformation exercise, are we focusing on the right things?
• Essential ingredients for a sustainable transformation

According to neuroscience - human Mind Power system consists of easily learned techniques that help you focus and direct your thoughts, and the first technique you’ll learn is visualization.

‘Visualization is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas since the dawn of humanity.’ Using visualization techniques in any gathering help to inspire creativity, focus and shared vision.

During our day to day working environment - especially in Agile WoW (irrespective of the frameworks we use) we have lot of opportunities to plan, strategize, brainstorm, innovate and generate ideas. These will always be incomplete without the application of Visualization techniques. Visualization techniques can be successfully applied to identify common goals, understand customer expectations, collaborate with individuals (multiple teams), and identify areas for continuous improvement.

Many a times, key events in our workplace are conducted in vaccum where people feel they are not engaged or disconnected or feel there is no value out of these. We can turn the table around completely by giving the dimension of Visualization using Visual Metaphors.

Agile methods have provided a framework for improving innovation, but there has been a missing piece - Visual metaphors (influenced by Innovation Games ideas) offer ideas, tools & practices to aid the innovation process at its most critical point - product management, particularly visioning & roadmaps identification. Key to innovation is creating collaborative, interactive, visually-oriented, fun, business-driven-environment for people.

In this interactive workshop participants would be experiencing some of the popular & widely used Visual Metaphors that can assist in their Agile journey through which they can experience the power of these tools to generate better visibility, collaboration opportunities, sense making and continuous improvement opportunities.

Where can it be applied?
• Business Review Meetings
• As a tool for prioritization
• Planning, Backlog refinement and Retrospective meetings
It is time for some ‘hands-on’ and ‘minds-on’ to know more about innovation through visualization.

If you are interested in increasing utilisation of the team, this talk may not be for you.

However if you are interested in increasing the effectiveness of the team, make Scrum events very engaging and fun, want to move towards cross-skilling and remove dependencies on any team-member, or - improve knowledge sharing or minimise time taken to perform for a new team member, this talk is for you.

During this talk we'll try to find the answer to the following questions:

* Why should multiple people work on one task? Isn't it unreasonable?

* Why should we even care for collaborative way of working?

* What are the problems in solo programming and how does collaborative programming techniques fix them?

We all know that #Facilitation is a key buzz word. A difference in understanding facilitation begins with an awareness of the difference between facilitating and leading. It has been said that leadership is something you do to a group, while facilitation is something you do with a group.

Facilitator assist group[s] as they work together toward achieving group goals, and in most instances do not interject their own personal opinions or agenda. By expressing their opinions to the group, facilitators risk discouraging others with differing opinions from speaking.

They remain alert to group dynamics and encourage challenging reflection while maintaining respect and safety within the group. Although facilitators may help guide a discussion, they also recognize and foster the groups' own ability to lead itself. Thus unlike authoritative leaders, good facilitators relinquish control to the group and promote open, democratic dialogue among group members.

In our workplace - at some point of time, we have all experienced the elephant in the room—a situation probably no one wants to discuss/admit openly or obvious truths that are unaddressed.

When these issues are not addressed, it can create uneasiness, not trustworthy environment there by leading psychologically not safe workplace. More importantly a toxic work culture settles in that can wreak havoc throughout the organization thus limiting the ability as a team to grow and create a learning and innovative organisation.

In this session (more of engaged workshop) , we will be using Liberating structures for people to share their experiences and learn from others, while also providing them a safe environment to discuss the elephant in the room (their version) they might have experienced in their workplace.

By the end of session participants may probably come up with some ideas to address and tame their elephant.

Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland founders of Scrum mentions that Scrum is a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products through (as mentioned in Scrum guide).

In my experience when people who are newly introduced to Scrum they always had challenges in having better understanding of Scrum which is most of the time due to in-adequate training, support or guidance received during their transition path.

Most of the times I found that people are engaged and carry better understanding when new concepts are taught/explained/experienced through 'fun' & interactive learning.

Through this simulation activity we will cover below aspects through interactive,fun, engaged & collaboration based exercise

• Sprint
• Timebox
• Business value in product delivery
• Sprint Goal
• Definition of Done
• Product Vision
• Scrum Events
• Scrum Values (Openness, Courage, Respect, Focus, Commitment)
• Sprint Backlog
• Empiricism

The activity consists of 3-4 rounds (all of equal duration) where team would be going through the journey of product development & execution in Sprint fashion.

94% of Agile Transformations fail to generate the capability to adapt to changing market conditions according to the 2018 State Of Agile survey. 97% said their organisations practice Agile delivery methods ... but if what you deliver doesn't fit your markets, that's a trainwreck.

In a business environment, any potential startup may be your potential competitor and customers are served with varied choices, ability to respond to these changes quickly and with ease (agility) is the need of the hour for many organisations. Many such orgs spend millions and sometimes billions of dollars for such Agile transformation initiatives. What if all such spend doesn't change a bit in your bottomline and you're at the square one after couple of years of effort?

This is what happening to many orgs. I have been associated with half a dozen of Agile transformations since 2011. And I see a pattern in why such initiatives keep failing.

This session helps you to understand the repeated issues and provide options in handling them.

Microstructures of liberating structures are easy to learn and it enhances relational coordination and trust. These are the best approaches to group interaction and facilitation. Its collection of 33 microstructures and their purpose is to involve and unleash everyone, which is essential in complex environments.

Every microstructure has a different meaning and usage, We need to select these microstructures wisely which suit properly in our eco-cycle.

This talk will give participants to :

• Select the proper microstructure in a specific scenario
• An understanding of the division of microstructures in different parts
• Case studies to use these microstructures.

Once we will facilitate these microstructures well with proper flow, it becomes smooth and effortless while sparking the important conversation as we go.