Something a little bit different. There’s a great exercise for conference speakers (or anyone else) to practice their craft - Presentation Karaoke.

Wikipedia describes presentation karaoke as “an improvisational activity in which a participant must deliver a presentation based on a set of slides that they have never seen before.” What it doesn’t say is that it is absolutely hilarious and fun to play. I describe it as; 1 minute, random topic, random slides — GO!

You can step up and give it a try, or sit back and watch. Either way, you will not forget this!

The world is changing more rapidly than ever before and organisations of every size are struggling to remain relevant in the eyes of their customers. The simple fact that the average lifespan of a company has decreased by more than 50 years in the last century demonstrates that not all organisations are prepared for this new reality. It is only high-performing, adaptable and agile organisations that will leverage, lead and thrive in this ambiguous and unpredictable market. We call this business agility.

The problem with a statement like that is that there is no common definition of what business agility means. And that’s actually a good thing. In a dynamic and changing market trying to lock it down will defeat the very advantage it brings. Instead, I want you to start thinking of business agility as the common thread. An adaptable and sustainable narrative that binds & guides, rather than directs, us into the uncertain future.

This talk will share the state of business agility around the world. We'll look at the Domains of Business Agility, interspersed with case studies from 4 multinational organisation in both the banking and utilities sector .

In most agile teams, the focus on delivering projects has continued to distance them from what's important - delivering value to their customers. All too often we’ve been measuring activity and cost, not outcomes and value. And it's important to understand that an organisation that plans for growth outcomes (without binding a team to a specific output) can fundamentally adapt to a changing market. By creating clearly defined, non-conflicting, outcomes and common working principles senior management can delegate the ‘how’ to their teams, while retaining ownership of the ‘what’ and ‘why’.

This interactive presentation will help participants define the real outcomes and associated measures for their work and teams. Participants will come to understand that outcomes can be complex, interdependent and occasionally conflicting. Therefore we will create 3 elements; 

1. the profile of the outcome,
2. the relationship between outcomes, and
3. the principles that align work across all outcomes

Traditional business models are struggling to keep up with the needs of the modern economy. While business has never been predictable, technological and cultural change is occurring at faster rates than ever before. In this climate, modern enterprises live or die on their ability to adapt – which is where Business Agility comes in. Business Agility provides a context for organisations to embrace change; changing how to think, changing how to work and changing how to interact.

But is your business agile? I don't just mean IT - I mean Finance, HR, Marketing - your very organisational DNA. If not, let's hack your organisation to embed business agility.

What is a hackathon. Hacking is creative problem solving. (It does not have to be about technology) and a hackathon is any event of any duration where people come together to solve problems (from https://hackathon.guide/). In this mini-hackathon, bring your business ideas and problems, and let’s solve them together. It could be an ineffective business process (project management to #noprojects anyone), a market opportunity, or maybe you want to find new ways of engaging staff and customers.

APPROACH

Before the hackathon:

• Come prepared and understand your problem
• Bring a team. They don't all have to be from your own organisation, bring folks who are passionate. Don't have a team, don't worry - we'll form teams on the day as well.

During the hackathon (Phase 1):

• Split into teams of 3-6 people.
• We'll dive deeply into the problem domain - examining stakeholders and existing processes
• Using design thinking techniques, we'll ideate, rank and refine potential solutions

During the hackathon (Phase 2):

• Hack it - this could involve creating future state value-stream-maps, communication and change plans, new organisation structures.

After the conference:

• We'll regroup (virtually) as a team a week or two after the event to see how effectively the adoption of the hack is going...

Traditional business models are failing to keep up with the needs of the modern economy. While business has never been predictable, technological and cultural change is occurring at faster rates than ever before. In this climate, modern enterprises live or die on their ability to adapt – which is where Business Agility comes in. Business Agility provides a context for organisations to embrace change; changing how to think, changing how to work and changing how to interact.

Whether you've heard of Holocracy or Teal Organisations; it seems that lean and agile business models are gaining interest across different business sectors. This is relevant to you whether you are a software developer or a CEO.

This presentation will provide engaging and enlightening stories of Agile beyond IT; from lean startups to large enterprises. These will be reinforced with practical approaches for the design and leadership of teams, divisions and businesses across 4 key domains;

1. The Structure of an Agile Organisation - Efficient, transparent and collaborative techniques to manage cross-functional, self-organising and potentially self-managing teams.
2. You, the Agile Manager - What makes a good agile manager and how do their responsibilities change?
3. Integrated Customer Engagement - Collaboration and communication techniques to build trust and deliver Customer needs efficiently, with minimal waste, and to everyone's satisfaction.
4. Work, the Agile Way - Managing all types of business functions, from software, HR, finance to legal, by using Just-In-Time planning and incremental or continuous delivery processes.

You’re probably here at this conference because you want to become a better developer, but I’m here to tell you that that you’re focusing on the wrong area. The difference between a good programmer and a great one isn’t the ability to write a kernel module in LISP, but the ability to communicate with your colleagues and customers. Skills sharing, collaboration and functional communication are critical for the success of any software project, and yet usually overlooked and undervalued.

Developers who strive to be great, cannot afford to neglect their professional development in these areas. You don’t to reinforce the dreadful stereotype of the shy, stuttering, geek, do you?

This interactive presentation will examine a few of the critical “soft skills” that are needed to thrive in corporate team environments. For example, how you can:

• write effectively and speak clearly; i.e. get to the point,
• move beyond your technical silo to work effectively as a team,
• build trust and rapport with your project customers,
• mentor, motivate and encourage others,
• mediate or negotiate between competing points of view,
• lead others and manage vendors

I want to be controversial for a moment and propose an end to IT projects, project management & project managers. I propose that the entire project process is flawed from the start for one simple reason. If you need to run a project, you've already failed.

By definition, an IT project is a temporary structure to govern and deliver a complex change (such as a new product or platform) into an organisation. However, to be truly competitive, an organisation needs to be able to deliver a continuous stream of change. Managed properly, this negates the need for a project and the associated cost overheads.

This is fundamentally what #noprojects is. The approach, structure, tactics and techniques available to successfully deliver continuous change. At its core, #noprojects is predicated on the alignment of activities to outcomes, measured by value, constrained by guiding principles and supported by continuous delivery technologies.

This presentation will introduce you to #noprojects. You will learn how to define an outcome and create an Outcome Profile. You will also learn how to manage change within the context of an outcome through the Activity Canvas.

Skills sharing, collaboration and cross-silo communication, necessary for Agile projects, can be difficult in matrix organisations where common business practices may be shared across multiple business units. Organisations that strive for continuous improvement in these practices need a mechanism to identify, track and circulate the latest industry trends, techniques and tools. Additionally this mechanism should support the consistent management, and development, of common skills across the organisation.

This presentation will look at ways in which organisations can utilise informal ‘Communities of Practice’ (CoP) as a means of improving overall communication between business and technical functions. CoP's are informal, self-organising, & self-regulating groups of people who share a passion for something they do and regularly interact with each other as a means of continuous improvement. We will examine how organisations can;

• Provide a forum for the cooperation of activities (outside of projects) between business functions;
• Identify linkages & opportunities to collaborate on strategic business projects and coordinate the delivery of specific business practice projects;
• Provide an informal point of contact for organisational staff on topics that affect the business practice;
• Utilise Lean Coffee and other Agile practices for efficient and fun meetings.

You’ve started on Agile project. You've probably got IT management on board. You've read the manifesto. You've got a wall covered in post-its. You’re probably not using pair programming but you’re following most other Scrum and XP practices. But now you have a problem. Operations, HR and finance can’t keep up. Ops is having problems (or just refusing to) deploy each iteration. HR won’t let you form self-organising teams and don't know how to write KPI’s to support collaborative work practices. And finance wants a 3 year budget with fully costed initiatives.

Like many cultural problems, change comes from understanding. This presentation will explain how non-IT business functions operate and why they have legitimate problems with Agile delivery.

We won’t stop there however.

By understanding your business, this presentation will provide you with the tools you need to align your corporate business functions to your agile development approach. From improved communication integrated sales, rolling budgets, agile KPI’s and aligning to revenue drivers. You will learn how to build a truly agile organization.

So you’ve heard about this Kanban thing and want to know where to start, or maybe you’ve been using it for a while and you want to know where to go. In this hands-on workshop, we'll start at the very beginning and teach you how to build a Value Stream Map and use that to define your inital Kanban and WIP limits.

If these terms don’t make sense to you, then you need to come along for a fun interactive workshop.

Other talks and games will teach you how to run a successful Agile project. Only this one will teach you how to ruin an Agile project*. In this game we will break every Agile rule, disregard the manifesto and ignore common sense in the singular pursuit of failure (and fun).

Each of you will be part of an Agile team with a dis-engaged Customer and micro-managing boss. Being Agile, there will be daily stand-ups, planning sessions, retrospectives, and kanban boards but nothing will go as you expect.

* More importantly, this activity will teach you "how" Agile projects can fail and the reason behind many common Agile practices.

Traditional models of management and corporate governance are failing to keep up with the needs of the modern economy. Change, both technological and cultural, is occurring at faster rates than ever before. In this climate, modern enterprises will live or die on their ability to adapt. This is where Agile, and Agile Business Management, come in. Agile is change; changing how you think, changing how you work and changing the way you interact. This is important whether you are a software developer or a CEO.

In this presentation, Evan will provide engaging and enlightening case studies of Agile beyond IT; from lean startups to large enterprises. These will be reinforced with practical approaches for the leadership of teams, divisions and businesses. 

Taking the successful concepts and methods from the Agile movement and Evan's new book, Agile Business Management is a framework for the day-to-day management of organisations regardless of industry, size or location. We will discuss processes, techniques, and case studies for the 4 key domains from Agile Business Management;

1. You, the Agile Manager - What makes a good manager and how do their responsibilities change?
2. Integrated Customer Engagement - Collaboration and communication techniques to build trust and deliver Customer needs efficiently, with minimal waste, and to everyone's satisfaction.
3. The Structure of an Agile Organisation - Efficient, transparent and collaborative techniques to manage empowered staff.
4. Work, the Agile Way - Managing all types of business functions, from software, HR, finance to legal, by using Just-In-Time planning and Incremental or Continuous Delivery processes.

Ultimately, the goal of this presentation is to make you think about your role as a leader.