In the rush towards business agility, let's make sure we don't create unsustainable change via Prescriptive Mandates. What's the problem with Prescriptive Mandates? People tend to ignore them or do the minimum required to wait until the storm passes. And the prescription might not work in the specific context we're applying it to. This is especially dangerous when leaving the relative comfort zone of Agile Development into new Business Agility areas.

So what's the alternative? Invitation and pull-based change. Manage change as an internal market - Don't force people to buy into it but sell it to them and help them consume it at their pace. In other words - Figure out and optimize the "customer journey" for your internal change.

Also make sure that you don't apply a "one size fits all" and you aren't religious about methodology and practices. Emphasize values and principles and experiment with what practices work in each context and allow some variability at least initially.

There's a real danger that as people go into Business Agility what they'll take as inspiration from the Agile Development world is the iterations but not iterating. Real agility comes from iterating and experimenting. In this talk we will issue grave warnings as well as point towards concrete tools and practices that can support the real agility mindset of learning as fast as possible what works.

Using marketing as an example, we will see how to apply approaches and tools such as Lean Startup, Minimum-Viable-Play, Validation Boards, Learning as part of the flow, Popcorn Flow, not just when developing products but also when developing experiences/journeys/processes.

How can large, traditional marketing organizations - those that rely on functional departments, and annual marketing plans / budgets hope to keep up? We believe the answers lie in an Agile approach, and we are working hard to transform our marketing department from a plan / interrupt driven culture to one that can quickly sense and respond to customer needs and market changes.
This is easier said than done in a 350 person organization, but we are finding the solutions are familiar, and are rooted in a scaled agile approach.

Our journey isn’t complete yet, but we are seeing real results. Hear the highlights of CA’s journey to marketing agility - The achievements, challenges, learnings that you can apply as you set about implementing Agile Marketing or Business Agility at large in your organization

In this workshop we will experience key aspects of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe(tm)) like Cost-of-delay based WSJF feature prioritization and the Program Increment planning across an Agile Release Train comprised of several teams using Mark Richard's SAFe City Game. These and similar simulations are some of the highlights of any SAFe training workshop. You will experience them and then be able to go home and run them for your team/group as a learning experience. 

People keep saying SAFe is a very prescriptive methodology with zero room for engagement and participation. In this session we will uncover the many opportunities for participation/games in a Scaled Agile implementation. We will also share Kahoot - a useful game platform I've been using in recent years to quickly drive participation with large groups. 

Kahoot is an awesome online Quiz/Discussion/Survey tool that is free and easy to both setup and use. We will use Kahoot to learn and experience a couple of the key activities in a Scaled Agile implementation - Planning an implementation, Generating Buy-in, Prioritizing Features, Estimating Features, Gauging confidence for plans, Managing risks, Retrospecting a session and more. 

Using the SAFe/Scaled Agile context we will experience both a couple of ready games as well as the full cycle of game thinking/design from identifying need/purpose all the way thru creating an outline, the questions, and running and debriefing so you can use it on your own. 

Along the way you will also learn and experience some aspects of SAFe(tm) - The Scaled Agile Framework. 

In recent years I've been using Kahoot and other similar techniques to help me facilitate agile workshops and sessions all the way from the team level to the enterprise scale (and even conference talks). 

Kahoot is an awesome online Quiz/Discussion/Survey tool that is free and easy to both setup and use. I use it to assess knowledge in order to focus learning, assess level of maturity in order to focus coaching, as a fun quiz to generate some laughs, an estimation game, as a safe way to gauge confidence level in plans drafted in a workshop as well as to run audience surveys during conference keynotes or as a quiz that drives a learning session. 

In this workshop we will experience the whole game design/use cycle - from identifying the need/purpose all the way through game design to actually experiencing play.

We will review the thinking behind some of the games I designed and use on an ongoing basis.

Then you will work in teams to create and experience your own games addressing your own needs. 

More and more organizations have already reached some level of Agility. Some of them reached what we call Stable/Recharge which means they stabilized some structure/process that works for them. They had a couple of months or even years to “digest”/”recharge” and are now waking up hungry for the next level. Others got stuck along the way with some process that frustrates them but they didn’t really know what to do with it and just continued to suffer. These ones typically have a grudge towards agile when we meet them. People in these two groups have some common ground - they have a lot to benefit if they get exposed to some practical tips and tricks from the trenches that can help connect “by the book” agile to the day to day reality in the typical organization.

In this "Agile Boost Camp" session we will give participants ideas/tips for working through typical boost/reset challenges. These tips/ideas are inspired by working in the trenches with real world organizations.

Each time this session/workshop runs is different because the workshop runs in an agile form where the participants act as the “Product Owners” choosing and customizing the agenda. The trainer brings in the experience and best practices as well as orchestrates the workshop experience.

Ready for your Boost?

DevOps is a very popular buzzword. Many people associate it with tools like Chef, Puppet, Continuous Deployment etc. But DevOps is really a higher form of agility. It is a blueprint for a great culture and and process between the different groups involved in the delivery pipeline. The big question is how to achieve it. If you are founding a startup today, it can be quite easy to take that blueprint and use it to create your process, hire the right versatile flexible people, and start delivering without any technical/automation debt or friction. But most of us are not founding new startups. Most of us already have a running operation with people, culture, process that matured over the years and despite its flaws is currently the way we do things. Changing that is non-trivial.

For things to change people need to understand WHY change, what we are changing, and we need an effective process for managing the change itself (HOW to change). So what ARE we changing to? DevOps is highly focused on looking at the whole value stream from idea to value and ensuring effective flow through this pipeline.

Kanban is ONE way of HOW to change towards an end to end flow. It starts by visualizing all the work flowing in the pipeline, then managing the flow focusing on finishing things end to end rather than starting in order to stay busy. It continues to what we call the “Work in process Diet” – Straining the flow more and more in order to identify obstacles to tighter and tighter DevOps culture/operation and faster feedback cycles. You can expect to come out of this session with ideas how to take your current operation and DevOpsify it in a safe evolutionary way using the Kanban method as well as an understanding WHY DevOps tools are required as part of this journey.

In fall 2015 there is no question that business agility is required. You will also be hard pressed to find anyone arguing against the core principles of lean/agility or against most of the practices. Many teams are implementing agile with varying levels of success.

But most enterprise organizations have not yet reached the levels of agility you read about in books or hear about at conferences. As Lean/Agile is crossing the chasm into the mainstream, Scaled Agile approaches like "Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)" and "Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)" are positioned as the next logical move.

A big question is HOW to drive this kind of change in the organization. Through stories from the trenches of enterprise change management we will discuss different approaches to change and when each is appropriate. We will see how approaches like evolutionary change , "free market" / "pull based change management" , "invite-based change" help accelerate the journey towards agility across an enterprise without risking its stickiness. I will share some hard-learned lessons that resulted in patterns like “Manager’s first”, “Document/Methodology later”, “Market & wait for Pull”, “Case Study”, “Opt-in vs Mandate”, “Guidebooks OVER guided tours”. 

ScrumBan is a hybrid Lean/Agile approach combining Scrum and Kanban. It combines the team-focused rhythmic nature of the Scrum Framework with the Lean/Flow focus of Kanban to create a winning combination. This session provides attendees with sufficient knowledge about Scrum, Kanban and Scrumban to decide whether they want to pursue ScrumBan as the next step of their agile journey

Scaling Agile is the hot trend these days. There are various options people are currently using to scale agile across their organization ranging from the trendy SAFe through the evolutionary Kanban all the way to classic LeSS. As an enterprise agile coach with straddling both the Kanban and SAFe worlds with experience helping various global enterprises to be more agile at scale I have a wide perspective of the agile scaling approaches landscape which I will share in this session. Together we will look at the various leading approaches to Scaling and understand how they compare, where each is appropriate, how to mix and match them. We will also spend some time discussing change management/implementation aspects of using the  the various approaches and how to move through the selection, kickoff, stabilization and recharge phases and ideally move to improve mode at some point. 

In fall 2014 there is no question that business agility is required. You will also be hard pressed to find anyone arguing against the core principles of lean/agility or against most of the practices. But most enterprise organizations have not yet reached the levels of agility you read about in books or hear about at conferences. Lean/Agile is now trying to cross the chasm into the mainstream enterprises where effective change management for today’s context is the name of the game. Through stories from the trenches of enterprise change management we will discuss different approaches to change and when each is appropriate. We will see how a combination of the Kanban evolutionary approach to change combined with "free market / pull based change management" helps accelerate the journey towards agility without risking its stickiness, and share some hard-learned lessons that resulted in patterns like “Manager’s first”, “Document/Methodology later”, “Market & wait for Pull”, “Case Study”, “Opt-in vs Mandate”, “Guidebooks OVER guided tours”. 

ScrumBan is a hybrid Lean/Agile approach combining Scrum and Kanban. It combines the team-focused rhythmic nature of the Scrum Framework with the Lean/Flow focus of Kanban to create a winning combination. This workshop provides attendees with sufficient knowledge about Scrum, Kanban and Scrumban to lead or guide a team in their adoption of ScrumBan – from system design through to evolutionary change. They will have an understanding of the principles and thinking behind Scrum and Kanban to help them drive meaningful focused continuous improvement using context-specific strategies/practices.

So, you started adopting Agile practices, maybe you took a course or read some books and articles and decided to jump into the water. Good for you! However, you quickly realize things don’t work the way they used to. It feels like chaos, it is typically painful and frightening and you have many questions and concerns. Over time, you might find a way of working that makes sense, but most likely, you will still stay stuck with some of the pains or avoid challenging some of the things that do not allow you to become truly Agile.

In this workshop we will leverage our vast experience with AgileSparks clients all over the world to provide participants with practical tips and tricks, patterns and anti-patterns and good practices that can accelerate your path to a stable, healthy and sustainable Agile way of working as well as boost your performance.

In fall 2014 there is no question that business agility is required. You will also be hard pressed to find anyone arguing against the core principles of lean/agility or against most of the practices. But most enterprise organizations have not yet reached the levels of agility you read about in books or hear about at conferences. Lean/Agile is now trying to cross the chasm into the mainstream enterprises where effective change management for today’s context is the name of the game. Through stories from the trenches of enterprise change management we will discuss different approaches to change and when each is appropriate. We will see how a combination of the Kanban evolutionary approach to change combined with "free market / pull based change management" helps accelerate the journey towards agility without risking its stickiness, and share some hard-learned lessons that resulted in patterns like “Manager’s first”, “Document/Methodology later”, “Market & wait for Pull”, “Case Study”, “Opt-in vs Mandate”, “Guidebooks OVER guided tours”.

In this interactive workshop we will explore the various techniques in depth through case studies, consider their pros and cons compared to classic change management approaches like the mandatory/perscriptive rollout and establish criteria for when to use which approach in the field.

DevOps seeks to extend the agile benefits of Flow, Collaboration, Inspect and Adapt thinking all the way to Production. While DevOps and Continuous Delivery were born in the world of web operations in companies like Etsy, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Flickr (also called Unicorns in the DevOps community) it is now clear that Enterprise IT/Product Development companies (also known as Horses) can  also benefit immensely from the ideas and practices and achieve similar results if they manage the change/journey towards DevOps in a way that makes sense in their context. In this workshop we will introduce the concepts of DevOps and Continuous Delivery and help attendees figure out how DevOps can fit into their world as well as how a “DevOps Implementation” might look like.

In fall 2014 there is no question that business agility is required. You will also be hard pressed to find anyone arguing against the core principles of lean/agility or against most of the practices. But most enterprise organizations have not yet reached the levels of agility you read about in books or hear about at conferences. Lean/Agile is now trying to cross the chasm into the mainstream enterprises where effective change management for today’s context is the name of the game. Through stories from the trenches of enterprise change management we will discuss different approaches to change and when each is appropriate. We will see how a combination of the Kanban evolutionary approach to change combined with "free market / pull based change management" helps accelerate the journey towards agility without risking its stickiness, and share some hard-learned lessons that resulted in patterns like “Manager’s first”, “Document/Methodology later”, “Market & wait for Pull”, “Case Study”, “Opt-in vs Mandate”, “Guidebooks OVER guided tours”. 

DevOps is a higher form of agility. It is a blueprint for a great culture and and process between the different groups involved in the delivery pipeline. The big question is how to achieve it. If you are founding a startup today, it can be quite easy to take that blueprint and use it to create your process, hire the right versatile flexible people, and start delivering without any technical/automation debt or friction. But most of us are not founding new startups. Most of us already have a running operation with people, culture, process that matured over the years and despite its flaws is currently the way we do things. Changing that is non-trivial. For things to change people need to understand WHY change, what we are changing, and we need an effective process for managing the change itself (HOW to change). So what ARE we changing to? DevOps is highly focused on looking at the whole value stream from idea to value and ensuring effective flow through this pipeline. Kanban is ONE way of HOW to change. It starts by visualizing all the work flowing in the pipeline, then managing the flow focusing on finishing things end to end rather than starting in order to stay busy. It continues to what we call the “Work in process Diet” – Straining the flow more and more in order to identify obstacles to tighter and tighter DevOps culture/operation and faster feedback cycles. You can expect to come out of this session with ideas how to take your current operation and DevOpsify it in a safe evolutionary way using the Kanban method.

Scaling Agile is the hot trend these days. There are various options people are currently using to scale agile across their organization ranging from the trendy SAFe through the evolutionary Kanban all the way to classic LeSS. As an enterprise agile coach with straddling both the Kanban and SAFe worlds with experience helping various global enterprises to be more agile at scale I have a wide perspective of the agile scaling approaches landscape which I will share in this session. Together we will look at the various leading approaches to Scaling and understand how they compare, where each is appropriate, how to mix and match them. We will also spend some time discussing change management/implementation aspects of using the  the various approaches and how to move through the selection, kickoff, stabilization and recharge phases and ideally move to improve mode at some point.