Evan Leybourn
Author
Directing the Agile Organisation
location_on Singapore
Member since 7 years
Evan Leybourn
Specialises In (based on submitted proposals)
Evan pioneered the field of Agile Business Management; applying the successful concepts and practices from the Lean and Agile movements to corporate management. He keeps busy as a senior IT executive, business management consultant, non-executive director, conference speaker, internationally published author and father.
Evan is known for getting things done by bringing enthusiasm, energy and humour to motivate people and drive his clients corporate objectives. He has a passion for building effective and productive organisations, filled with actively engaged and committed staff while ensuring high-levels of customer satisfaction. Evan's experiences when holding executive and board positions in both private industry and government has driven his passion for lean business management and he regularly speaks on these topics at local and international industry conferences.
As well as writing "Directing the Agile Organisation", Evan currently consults to organisations around Australia and SE Asia on Agile management and governance.
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Presentation Karaoke
Evan LeybournAuthorDirecting the Agile OrganisationJeremy KriegelUX LeadThe Broad Institute of MIT & Harvardschedule 1 year ago
Sold Out!90 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
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!
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#NoProjects - Why, What How
Shane HastieDirector of Agile Learning ProgramsInternational Consortium for Agile (ICAgile.com)Evan LeybournAuthorDirecting the Agile Organisationschedule 2 years ago
Sold Out!90 Mins
Workshop
Intermediate
Today success comes from building products people love, creating loyal customers and serving the broader stakeholder community. In this thoughtful exploration on the future of work, the authors explore the past, present and future of the “project”. And why, in today’s fast changing & hyper-competitive world, running a temporary endeavour is the wrong approach to building sustainable products and how #noprojects is fundamentally changing the way companies work.
The metrics by which we have historically defined success are no longer applicable and we need to re-examine the way value is delivered in the new economy. This book starts from the premise that our goal is to create value, for the customer, for the organisation and for society as a whole and shows how to empower and optimise our teams to achieve this.
The authors draw on modern management approaches to provide proven techniques and tools for producing, and sustaining, creative products that go beyond “meeting requirements”. By creating teams who are accountable for business outcomes, engineering for customer delight, and creating value for all stakeholders - profitability, customer satisfaction and employee engagement are all increased.
This book is far more than just a catalogue of practices and tools which you can apply in your product development. It contains inspirational stories from individuals, teams and organisations who have switched to this new way of thinking and working. It exposes the risks on the pathway and how others have overcome these obstacles
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Certain Uncertainty
45 Mins
Case Study
Beginner
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 .
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Designing Business Outcomes (#noprojects)
45 Mins
Workshop
Advanced
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;
- the profile of the outcome,
- the relationship between outcomes, and
- the principles that align work across all outcomes
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Business Mini-Hackathon (no coding necessary)
480 Mins
Workshop
Executive
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...
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The structure of an agile organisation - a business agility primer
45 Mins
Talk
Beginner
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;
- The Structure of an Agile Organisation - Efficient, transparent and collaborative techniques to manage cross-functional, self-organising and potentially self-managing teams.
- You, the Agile Manager - What makes a good agile manager and how do their responsibilities change?
- Integrated Customer Engagement - Collaboration and communication techniques to build trust and deliver Customer needs efficiently, with minimal waste, and to everyone's satisfaction.
- 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.
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The Soft Skills in Software
90 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
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
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If you need to start a project, you’ve already failed #noprojects
45 Mins
Talk
Beginner
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.
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Breaking Down the Barriers: Communities of Practice and Cross-Silo Communication
60 Mins
Talk
Beginner
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.
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Selling Agile across the Enterprise
60 Mins
Talk
Intermediate
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.
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Starting with Kanban: A practical workshop on Value Stream Mapping and WIP
90 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
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.
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How much will this cost?
45 Mins
Talk
Beginner
"How much will this cost?"
"How long will it take?"
"What am I going to get?"
These are the questions that every Agile project gets asked at some point. And while "as much as your willing to spend", "as long as necessary" and "whatever you ask for" are perfectly acceptable, many customers are uncomfortable with these answers. This may reflect more on the customer then the team, but can lead to the misconception that the development team is writing themselves a blank cheque. How then does an Agile team define and scope a project where the customer requires fixed time, cost or scope?
This presentation will provide guidance and direction on how to quote for and budget Agile projects, as well as how to change the questions in the first place. -
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Let's Kill an Agile Project
45 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
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.
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From Lean Startup to Agile Enterprise (beyond IT)
45 Mins
Talk
Beginner
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;
- You, the Agile Manager - What makes a good manager and how do their responsibilities change?
- Integrated Customer Engagement - Collaboration and communication techniques to build trust and deliver Customer needs efficiently, with minimal waste, and to everyone's satisfaction.
- The Structure of an Agile Organisation - Efficient, transparent and collaborative techniques to manage empowered staff.
- 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.
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No more submissions exist.
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No more submissions exist.