Many companies attempting Agile are not getting the benefits they hope for. I believe most of these companies are more focused on blindly following practices than living the agile principles. Many of these companies have not fully embraced the principles and some do not even know the principles! For an organization to reap the benefits that agile offers, it must live the principles. In this workshop, I'll teach you exercises and techniques to reset the people in your organization around the 12 Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto and the 4 Modern Agile Principles.

Agile is a set of values and a mindset. As such, it can be hard to answer questions that leadership often asks. These questions include: How agile are we? Are we getting more agile? What are the growth opportunities for our team?

Many organizations use assessments to determine their level of agility. This session will introduce several assessment approaches and tools. Like medicine, when used incorrectly, the results can be toxic. We will explore the merits, potential uses, and possible downsides of each approach.

You will leave this session understanding more about your options, as well as insights for framing an assessment that fit your needs best when trying to measure your organization's culture and teams.

Agile is a set of values and a mindset. As such, it can be hard to answer questions that leadership often asks. These questions include: How agile are we? Are we getting more agile? What are the growth opportunities for our team? To address this customer desire, there are now many assessment frameworks available in the Agile space.

Many organizations use assessments to determine their level of agility. This session will introduce several assessment approaches and tools. Like medicine, when used incorrectly, the results can be toxic. We will explore the merits, potential uses, and possible downsides of each approach.

You will leave this session understanding more about your options, as well as insights for framing an assessment that fit your needs best when trying to measure your organization's culture and teams.

Have you heard people talking about Test Driven Development (TDD) but never tried it? Now is the time to try! This session will lead its participants through a programming challenge. Don't worry, it's safe. We're going to do a technical version of "follow the leader," where you will do the programming by following along with the session's facilitator. We'll debrief the exercise at the end. Please do bring a laptop or be willing to pair up with someone who does.

We will use the Python programming language, and PythonAnywhere web-based environment to avoid setup and configuration activities. You do NOT need to know Python (or any programming) to participate.

It seems like "Agile" goes with everything these days; government projects, not-for-profit initiatives, scaled agile, startups, etc., etc.. This session will explore agility, management, and product lessons using excerpts from the hit Netflix series Orange is the New Black to illustrate these concepts. This light-hearted, yet valuable, session will take you inside the confines of Litchfield Penitentiary and expose you to the lives of the women who are incarcerated there. We'll use a series of vignettes from the show to highlight lessons in agility. No prior knowledge of the series Orange is the New Black is required for you to enjoy and benefit from this session.

Participants will leave with a handout that contains reminders and tips based on the scenarios we cover in the session.

Have you heard people talking about Test Driven Development (TDD) but never tried it? Now is the time to try! This session will lead its participants through a programming challenge. Don't worry, it's safe. We're going to do a technical version of "follow the leader," where you will do the programming by following along with the session's facilitator. We'll debrief the exercise at the end. Please do bring a laptop or be willing to pair up with someone who does.

We will use the Python programming language, and PythonAnywhere web-based environment to avoid setup and configuration activities. You do NOT need to know Python (or any programming) to participate.

It seems like "Agile" goes with everything these days; government projects, not-for-profit initiatives, scaled agile, startups, etc., etc.. This session will explore agility, management, and product lessons using excerpts from the hit Netflix series Orange is the New Black to illustrate these concepts. This light-hearted, yet valuable, session will take you inside the confines of Litchfield Penitentiary and expose you to the lives of the women who are incarcerated there. We'll use a series of vignettes from the show to highlight lessons in agility. No prior knowledge of the series Orange is the New Black is required for you to enjoy and benefit from this session.

Participants will leave with a handout that contains reminders and tips based on the scenarios we cover in the session.

Many team challenges can be tracked back to cognitive biases: our judgement gets anchored, we think we're better than we are, and we are our own favorite reference point. And even though we're encouraged to "think outside the box," there are conditions where we have a bias against creativity. If that's not a recipe for a tough team environment, I don't know what is.

Improve your game by learning about bias! You'll leave this session with strategies for identifying and mitigating bias on your team.

Many team challenges can be tracked back to cognitive biases: our judgement gets anchored, we think we're better than we are, and we are our own favorite reference point. And even though we're encouraged to "think outside the box," there are conditions where we have a bias against creativity. If that's not a recipe for a tough team environment, I don't know what is.

Improve your game by learning about bias! You'll leave this session with strategies for identifying and mitigating bias on your team. 

Are you ready to begin your journey as an agile coach? Are you already a coach who is looking to grow your mindset and skillset? Are you in an organization and want to see its agility go to the next level? If so, invest just 45 minutes in this experience report about growing coaching within an organization.

Building coaching skills isn't the exclusive domain of a multi-day training session. In fact, the best way to build a new skills is to gradually introduce them over time and use intentional practice to build those new skills into a habit. This session is based on running coach mentorship programs that spread the learning and practice over a period of months.

Questions we will answer in this session include:

Why is a coach mentorship program integral to growing an organziation's agility?

What are some mistakes to avoid when creating a coach mentorship program?

How can intentional practice be integrated into a coach mentorship program?

What can be done to have an effective program where participants are in different time zones?

How do you build support for investing time and money into a coach mentorship program?

You will leave this session with a set of practical tips for setting up your own coach mentorship program.

While this experience report is based on multiple iterations of building a Coach Mentorship Program within a Fortune 500 company, the lessons apply to an organization of any size.

Attention coaches, Scrum Masters, and facilitators! This session is for YOU! Come get hands-on experience with a variety of games and activities that you can use to help people understand the power of Agile ways of working.

When working with people who are new to Agile it is important to engage them in the experience. Talking about the wonders of collaboration and communication rarely changes anyone’s mind, but creating an environment where they can experience the value of rapid feedback, creative communication techniques, and collaborating as a team can help them see new opportunities for application in their day to day work.

In this session you will not only get to experience these activities, you’ll come away with new skills in how to conduct them and debrief them as well.

Experience agile in a fun, insightful, high energy, simulation where you will work in iterations to build products, test them, and apply feedback.  You will participate on a team and use a backlog, business values, sizing, and prioritization.  You’ll plan, execute, deliver, and reflect.  

This session is a great way for you to experience working on a team in quick iterations and to see first hand how team members can gel quickly, combine skills, learn by doing, and achieve together.  If you have  been working on teams for a while, this simulation will help you see your current process in new ways and open up new opportunities for improvement.  

Don’t worry, no technical skills are required - anybody can participate.  We have run this exercise with a number of different groups and the results are consistent - lots of energy, lots of insights that can be taken back to the real world, and lots of fun!

Are you ready to begin your journey as an agile coach? Are you already a coach who is looking to grow your mindset and skillset? Are you in an organization and want to see its agility go to the next level? If so, invest just 30 minutes in this experience report about growing coaching within an organization.

Building coaching skills isn't the exclusive domain of a multi-day training session. In fact, the best way to build a new skills is to gradually introduce them over time and use intentional practice to build those new skills into a habit. This session is based on running coach mentorship programs that spread the learning and practice over a period of months.

Questions we will answer in this session include:

Why is a coach mentorship program integral to growing an organziation's agility?

What are some mistakes to avoid when creating a coach mentorship program?

How can intentional practice be integrated into a coach mentorship program?

What can be done to have an effective program where participants are in different time zones?

How do you build support for investing time and money into a coach mentorship program?

You will leave this session with a set of practical tips for setting up your own coach mentorship program.

While this experience report is based on multiple iterations of building a Coach Mentorship Program within a Fortune 500 company, the lessons apply to an organization of any size.

Do you want to have a high functioning Agile team? If so, this session is for you! We're going beyond the rules of agile frameworks and learning to apply those principles to improve our teams and companies! The 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto capture the reasons we are able to deliver better software. This is the "why" for some of the rules behind Scrum and Kanban. The principles ought guide our decisions about practices, scaling, and solving tricky problems!

In this session, we will use the 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto as our foundation. Then, we will  apply techniques such as Force Field Analysis to apply the principles to your challenges at work. Lastly, we will use principles of change management to make the change more likely to stick.

The outline for the session is:

1. Explore the principles; which ones are present or absent in your environment?
2. Introduce Force Field Analysis
3. Use Force Field Analysis to explore what drives a specific behavior
4. Use the Agile Principles to generate new options for tackling your team's challenges
5. Explore effective change management techniques

With these five activities, you will leave with a framework for change to apply when you return to work and continue on your agile journey.