Your team has hit a plateau in their performance and is no longer improving at the pace you are used to. You, as their leader, are racking your brain to determine what the issue might be. What would cause such a team to stall out. Have you considered that the cause might be you?

The level of consciousness of an organization cannot exceed that of its leader. (Frederic Laloux). Enabling your team to reach ever higher levels of performance requires that you do so first. In this workshop, we will guide leaders through the Immunity to Change framework developed by Robert Keagan and Lisa Lahey and demonstrate how the Immunity Map can be used to catalyze change in your leadership. Participants will practice using the Immunity Map to identify areas of improvement, limiting beliefs, assumptions and behaviors that are holding you and your team back from higher performance. You know that you need to change. Now’s the time. Start here!

Everything we do carries some amount of risk, from getting out of the bed in the morning to skydiving. Even writing software is risky! How do we handle those risks? Are common approaches to risk management still applicable in the Agile world?

If you've ever struggled with how to handle risk on an Agile program then come join us to see why our brains make is react in a mostly risk adverse way, what we can do about it, and how Agile specifically addresses many aspects of software risk. Also, we will look at how an Agile program can live in harmony with enterprise risk departments.

ELEVATOR SPEECH:
“We can’t make decisions or agree on priorities. So, we have the same meeting over and over. Literally, the same meeting.” If that could be said about your workplace, this interactive session is for you. Learn simple strategies and ideas for meetings that matter - those you run or those you attend.

SUMMARY:
Too many bad meetings. That's one of the most common sources of workplace whining. Today, especially in software development and delivery, our work is too complex for one person to make all the decisions or know all the answers. Everyone's contribution is needed. So, we have meetings. And some are a painful mix of frustration and boredom. When we can’t make decisions or agree on priorities, we have the same meeting over and over.

When we're the one hosting the meeting, there are lots of facilitation techniques we can employ to keep the discussion on track, on topic and on time so we can reach good decisions and plan effectively. But what if it's not our meeting? What can we do when we're not in charge?

Join Sue in exploring some simple techniques you can use at your next meeting to make the experience better for you - and for others who attend.

INFO FOR REVIEWERS:
This new talk is inspired by several years of leading the workshop, Facilitation for the Agile Workplace, accredited by ICAgile. Learners often wonder, "What about the meetings where I don't have control?" It draws on communication and facilitation techniques I've used in a long career in business and tech. Sources will include "Mining Group Gold," "Facilitating with Ease," "Liberating Structures," and "Leading Geeks."

It's an interactive session with an element of play - a simple board game with dice and cards.

By the time of TAC, I will have presented this session at PRDC Deliver and will have had an opportunity to tweak it, based on that experience.

Have you ever struggled to gain buy-in from your boss, a stakeholder or an executive for a key direction or product decision? Do you have good ideas, but find that no one is listening? In this 90-minute workshop, you'll learn how to meet executives on their level, build rapport by using their language, and create an elevator pitch to gain buy-in for your ideas. You'll leave this workshop with a strategy to analyze stakeholder needs, a formula that lays out information in a way that grabs and keeps executive attention, an elevator pitch you can use in your work and an action plan for delivering your pitch successfully.

One of the first actions organizations follow after deciding to jump into an agile transformation is assembling an agile team. To come with the "team" a hiring process begins. The hiring managers rush to pick the people following a generic profile of the ideal members.

After some time the selected candidate decides to leave you earlier than expected, generating high levels of stress across the project to was he/she was allocated. In other cases the organization is “forced” to keep the person as part of the team even though the performance of the employee is not the desired because of the person’s replacement process can be very complex.

In this workshop, we will share some tips to find the “perfect fit” for your organization. Furthermore, we will learn the power of asking the right questions at the right time so that your organization can get the right fit for your team.

Join us and learn how to improve your hiring process and start enjoying the benefits of finding the right people in your organization.

Ever wonder if climbing the ladder of success is really worth it? So much competition. So many people to out-perform. So many people to compete for to get the best jobs, the highest raise, the biggest bonus. And that frustrating bell curve! There's a better way. Forget the ladder! Take the Escalator instead.

In this talk I will share my personal experience with the uselessness of climbing the ladder just to find out that you have reached the top only to be miserable and alone. What I have learned through countless experiences in my career is that ladder climbing is a futile way of progressing. There is a more powerful, effective, and satisfying way to achieve success. Take the escalator instead.

The escalator turns what doesn't seem to make sense -- helping others succeed, helping your competitors win, giving away what others are selling - into your golden ticket to success. Join this talk to understand more about why the ladder method does not work long term and how the escalator model can bring more fulfillment, greater rewards, and financial security without the stress.

The Scrum guide specify specific roles, ceremonies, and artifacts. Initially, and after going through the official training, aspiring Scrum Masters assume, "this is so simple" I am just ready to go and start working.

But "surprise, surprise" after getting your dream job you realize that you have more questions than answers. You struggle to navigate very uncomfortable situations such as: justifying your value to your organization, resolving team problems.

Come and join this session to hear about some tools that you can add to your toolbox that will make you a better version of yourself. You will be able to make a difference and show your actual value to your organization and improve your reputation as a professional.

This is a known fact that most of the people leave managers not companies. So why do people leave because of managers? Are we missing an important skill in managers’ profile?

This is an important puzzle to solve if you want to grow as a good leader and have a positive impact on your teams. Come and join this session to unleash your leadership potential through coaching skills. We will discuss easy to learn coaching skills that can be incorporated in your one to one sessions with employees or your day to day conversation with the team.

You’re a project manager and you’ve just been given an Agile project to look after. You ask for reports and you get burndown charts, velocity graphs, and cumulative flow diagrams. What in the world are these, and why do you suddenly have a migraine headache?
Metrics are different in Agile, but the questions remain the same. Come and see what your brain needs to understand the tracking of products built in an Agile way. We’ll build an Agile dashboard that you can take into your next meeting.

Learn how to co-create with your customers using modern collaboration techniques

To be successful at innovating for your customer, teams need a solid understanding of how to engage and collaborate with their customers and users. It is only then that teams can deliver high impact projects/products that are important to their user base. Embark on a journey and with the latest set of techniques that help teams discover insights sooner and delight their customers faster. Take part in our latest workshop and learn everything you need to know at succeeding in collaborating with your customers. After all, innovation is best served when co-discovered with customers.

Our interactive and fast-paced workshop is based on design thinking, lean startup, and lean UX principles. It is designed to help you uncover better ways of working with your customers and boosting collaboration and creativity on your team. After many iterations and essential feedback, we’ve developed a fun and thought-provoking workshop where you will learn by doing and engaging with real people, working on challenges that will enrich your learning experience.

Using the game "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes", we'll explore and highlight teamwork, communication, developing shared language, creating a shared understanding, and much more. This session will be an interactive session for a small group, with other observing, however with multiple rounds, anyone and everyone who wants to participate will be able to! This is a very practical team activity, which easily scales beyond the team, and while it works well in-person, it's even better with distributed teams as we explore the ways we interact and communicate when not co-located.

Raise awareness of how memories form, demonstrate these through examples and exercises
Discuss practical examples that can aid the memory formation of the message that we want to get stick.