• Agile transformations often require teams to change the way they operate.  Change is hard and we frequently hear from individuals and teams “agile won’t work because….” and we can fill in the blank with a variety of answers.  This includes: we don’t have time, why change the way we have always done things, and we have too much work to do.  In this workshop attendees will work together to brainstorm on specific use cases and ideas on how to address them.

• Any organization transformation relies on frequent communications to the affected people to ensure we meet the information needs.  As transformation leaders we need to have a strong communications plan defined to help bolster the effort.  In this talk I will outline a real life example of a multi-channel communications plan that proved invaluable to the success of a transformation effort.

Big Room Planning.  A technique where we bring key stakeholders from an organization together in a room and we collaborate together.  We can collaborate on a variety of topics: business strategy, solving a potential problem, brainstorming a new competitive solution.  The sky is the limit. 

When we try to enable Business Agility Big Room Planning is a technique that can be used to align delivery teams to business strategy. 

My talk will describe how  Big Room Planning can be used at various levels in an organization, all with the goal of alignment and transparency.

We have recommended best practices for implementing agile methods in an organization.  However, some organizations are not suited for the best practices and we need to adjust our approach.

In this session I will cover some of the recommended approaches and offer some hybrid models that can be implemented as alternatives.  These approaches could be used at the team, program, and enterprise level.  While these alternative approaches can work, there are trade-offs, which we will discuss as well.