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Change can come without warning. Coping with a wholesale shift to Agile began as an exercise in surviving but rapidly turned to thriving by learning to love a new way of working.

This is my story of learning to lead through change.

Digital transformation is often a multi-year and multi-million-dollar journey for large enterprises. Adopting the ‘Agile way’ is no longer a question; it’s the norm. At Tanzu Labs, we recently concluded an engagement, where we advised a large Australian organisation against following their program plan. The transformation program had a valid business objective and the support of its executives. When we partnered with the customer, the program was already three years into its journey. Projects got delivered on time with cutting edge technologies, modern programming languages, and teams with the right skills. How did the organisation still end up sinking millions of dollars without any return on investment? What went wrong in the middle? How did the right objectives yield poor results?

As Agile has increased its dominance as a software delivery methodology, it has grown tentacles into every part of software development companies, and many that have little or nothing to do with software. In some places, it has morphed from a simple set of principles and practices to a full blown process methodology. But it could be that companies have totally missed the point, focusing on making Agile into something familiar – and in some cases, completely at odds with what historically made it successful in the first place.

Perhaps process improvement and development methodologies are not what has made Agile such a success in improving outcomes for delivery teams and companies. Software, and ultimately business value for software company customers, is delivered by people. Those people are the most important factor in success for a product or a project. Not ideas, not tools, and certainly not processes. If this is true, perhaps we have been focusing on the wrong things – and changing the things we value and promote will deliver that increase in productivity that Agile promised – but for many companies, has failed.

From threat-based versus threat-free values (yep we all have both), to the importance of values diversity, to their explanatory power around interpersonal dynamics and differences in prioritisation during decision making, you will walk away with a deeper understanding of something often used yet superficially understood.

Following over a decade of research and practice, Greta shares the evidence-based “what” of values and gives you a front row seat to her process developed across countless values sessions with commercial companies, nfps, family offices, executives and clinical clients. Gain new insights and ‘how to-s’ around values and actioning them in decision making both as an individual and within the organisation. Information relevant for people leaders interested in leveling up people and culture, and for those asking the omnipotent questions of “I’ve parted ways with my authentic self and I want to find my way back!” and “I want to let go of other people’s ‘shoulds’ and do more with my one awesome life”.

The Agile Manifesto emerged 20 years ago, and Lyssa Adkins’ foundational text Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Manager in Transition was published 10 years ago. What was Agile coaching like then? Where is it at now and how can we shape the practice into the future?

Join us for a panel with Chris Chan, Jon Gedge, Katrina Kolt and Alexandra Stokes who are paving the path for this profession and the vital role it plays in helping organisations succeed.

Hear from an experienced CIO/CTO as he gives some tips on what C-suite executives look out for in organisations on Agile journeys. You’ll learn tips on how to communicate to those on the Executive level about Agile, and common questions they might have.

This talk won’t tell you “how to Agile”, but rather shine some light on how to make Agile relevant and sticky in the C-suite!

For some background, Michael Fagan was previously CTO for Kmart group and drove a rapid adoption to AWS cloud certification for 100% of technology alongside a transformation to a scaled Agile way of working.

These stories illustrate how a deep focus on Authenticity, Vulnerability & Connection can create not only an amazing culture and competitive advantage, but also help (corporate/student/professional) athletes find a whole new perspective on what it means to be a good human first and a great athlete* second.

*If you play, have fun and compete… you’re an athlete!

Come and hear a short funny story about the most embarrassing moment in my career. Be prepared to laugh, cringe and cry!

We know from Kotter’s Leading Change that to change the culture of the organisation we first have to change the habits of the organisation.

So what are the habits of effective Lean-Agile leaders? Join this session to explore the habits of effective Lean-Agile leaders, their origins in Lean/TPS/Japan and their application in today’s world.

Have you noticed lately that being an exponent of Agile often means being a defender of Agile?

To me, this is completely reasonable and points at this moment as a critical one in the history of the movement. 20 years after Snowbird, it falls to us to show that what we have built is more than a flim-flam show.

It might be that your house is in order and performing, but you can’t find the words or evidence. It might be that you really need to shape up. One thing’s certain though, barking words like “trust the teams” and “micro-management blah blah” alone will not (and should not) cut it.

• What kind of an Agile environment do you have?
• How does it operate?
• How effective is it?
• Why is it better than other ways of managing software delivery?

If you think you might struggle with these questions in a conversation with your CEO, Founder or investors then ask yourself another question.

• How can I reasonably continue asking them to fund this system?

In this talk, I will share the 10 most useful tools and models (conceptual, statistical and visual) I have found over the last 15 years, for analysing Agile team environments and explaining them to others. Some I have borrowed, some I have built.

I don’t promise proof that Agile is a silver bullet for all industries’ problems, but I might be able to arm you with some devices and words that are helpful in explaining WTF we are all on about!

By the time we’re done, I believe you’ll have some useful new tools (and maybe even some new ideas) that you can use in your own work, to keep the Agile dream healthy and alive.

Social distancing and lockdowns have forced an unexpected shift to remote working, and many businesses have been caught unprepared. While some had no remote working capability at all, others were able to successfully enable their whole company to work from home. However, once the initial shift was made, few have clear processes or procedures in place for how to work together remotely over a sustained amount of time. Traditional Agile leadership and governance structures are specifically designed to help teams excel when they are co-located, what can you do when that’s not possible?

As the ongoing impact of COVID-19 continues to emerge, organisations with Agile teams are among the best-positioned to succeed, given their ability to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment. With organisations focused on their ability to maintain profitability and survive, effectiveness and efficiency counts greatly. However, to sustain the effectiveness of their Agile teams, leaders must now overcome a new challenge. We need to collectively modernise how we govern our work for both the next normal and a sustained remote working context. “There ain’t no going back….”

Attend this interactive talk to learn:

• The compelling need for Agility in governance
• To traditional governance everything looks like a nail
• What is Agile governance?
• Transitioning from onsite to remote governance
• Overview of the “Guiding Hand of Governance”:
  • Organisational Transparency
  • Work Patterns
  • Data based Decisioning
  • Humanistic Leadership
  • Deep Dive into Agile leadership
  • The Thumb – The Digital Obeya – tying it all together
• Agile Works
• The future of remote work – why it’s here to stay!

Sarah Goldring, NWoW Transformation Lead, IDEAology Consulting & Stephanie Stevenson, Head of Technology Production and Services, IAG.

Attend this talk to hear how to make it easier when dealing with a highly complex tech estate, aging technology, having to do more with less, and needing the customer to be at the center of everything we do.

On the surface, Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) appear to be a simple way to set goals and measure progress, however the real world application of OKRs (especially at scale) is filled with unexpected challenges and some surprising benefits. Adopting OKRs successfully requires supportive leadership, sophisticated change management, investment in learning and more time and patience than you might think.

In this talk Ben shares his experiences from introducing OKRs across 100 teams in a 1200 person publicly listed organisation in Berlin. He will share his hard-won lessons of what not to do, and outline a low risk way to evaluate OKRs in your organisation. Join this Circle to learn about getting executives onboard, learn why cascading OKRs can be a mistake, learn how to set up an OKR champions and training program and more.

Are you wondering why an Agile transformation hasn’t worked? Why new ways of working were rejected or have fallen away? Are you involved in driving a ‘mindset shift’ to increase your organisation’s agility?

Achieving real agility and beyond, involves understanding how the human mind works, and the interplay it has with agility’s critical elements. A key part of this is recognising human biases in action, and having ways to overcome them.

Through his study and experience across human psychology and business agility, Andrew connects these two worlds for the audience, bringing them to life with relatable examples and stories. Human biases are explained and linked back to a practical model for business agility. Real-life strategies are discussed for disrupting and overcoming these human biases in ourselves and others.

For anyone looking for what can be done on an individual, team or organisational basis to take agility beyond the usual limits of the human mind, this is the session.

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding the link between business agility and human psychology
• Examples of how specific human biases undermine agility transformations and uplifts
• Practical solutions to apply when overcoming the challenges of reaching agility and beyond

In 2017, Bankwest embarked on a Transformation to become a more Agile, responsive and customer centric organisation. In the current environment, this is more critical than ever. Hear the story of Bankwest’s Transformation journey from the very beginning to how the model has continued to iterate and improve.

For those interested in Agile at scale transformations this session will provide an overview of the Bankwest Transformation journey itself, including pivots and adjustments along the way, the key models implemented and priority focus areas that taught over 1000 people a new way of working and the lessons learned including key Enterprise Agile model data points that guided iteration and improvement to continually evolve and simplify how we create even better experiences for our customers.

Numerous industry surveys have shown organisations receive a number of benefits from being Agile – improved ability to pivot, reduced costs, and improved delivery effectiveness. Unfortunately, the collection and analysis of empirical evidence is rarely conducted. Without robust empirical measures, many turn to the symbols they can see – measuring velocity, team happiness, and getting teams to “self-assess” their capability. While useful, self-assessments and surveys provide only a snapshot of what agile teams have done in the past. What, though, is needed to accurately predict the behaviours that will take Agile teams and programs to the next level?

This talk with enterprise Agile coaches Matthew Hodgson and Mia Horrigan will give you a playbook to truly measure and predict agility based on a data modelling approach:

• The empirical evidence and data on what makes an enterprise Agile
• How you measure an Agile culture from an organisational psychology perspective
• The antecedents of Agile leadership
• How to grow and sustain an Agile culture across the enterprise

Eytan will present the case that digitisation and decarbonisation are interrelated and that the tech community has a key role to play in the transition to a thriving zero-emissions economy.

The construction industry is a major industry globally and accounts for more than 10% of global GDP. Despite that, the sector’s innovation, productivity and efficiency are lagging behind as compared to other economic sectors. The positive results observed through the application of Agile in other industries have encouraged construction project teams to explore the concepts of Agile to drive innovation. Not only did Agile methods originate from the IT industry, but digital technology itself has become a useful and necessary tool for many construction projects.

There is no one size fits all for wellbeing in the workplace, nor does any one person have all the answers! During this interactive panel, you’ll hear different perspectives and approaches that will be food for thought for anyone committed to making their workplaces a better place for all.

They (can) both contribute to success or failure. As an adherent of both, I’m going to talk about the relationship between them, what causes bumps and tussles, and how to ensure that they play nicely together. There may be some metaphors.

Ever since the fabled “Scaling Agile @ Spotify” paper came out, a little over 9 years ago, the Agile industry has had a love affair with the “Spotify Model”, leading to huge transformation efforts in the hope of achieving Agile nirvana, off the back of one Sweden’s biggest success stories. With all the promise of Agile salvation, it seems rare that we hear genuine success stories off the back of adopting a ‘model’ that, if we’re honest, was never designed to be adopted. In this talk, Brendan will go beyond the squads, chapters & tribes model to give you 3 key components of culture, leadership and organisational design that were essential to its success at the company and likely missing from most transformation efforts.

Once upon a time, I met and fell in love with a handsome young Business lecturer. Recently, we got married. Wedding planning was one of the most grueling experiences I’ve ever been through, and I’ve been through a couple of rough digital transformation projects! Even though we used Agile methods during our year of wedding planning, it turns out we fell into many of the same project pitfalls that teams fall into during their Agile journey.

On the other hand, there is the idea of hostile tech, which makes us think of protecting innocent users from criminals and other nefarious actors, from unintended users of technology – but there’s more to it than that. Hear from author Lizzie O’Shea on how we can avoid ending up being complicit in the creation of hostile tech by taking a human rights approach.

We need to recognise that while new technologies bring some consolation for overcoming the challenges of remote working, the real secret to success is hidden in the cultural shift. The highest performing teams have one thing in common – psychological safety. Leaders who focus on providing psychological safety in a remote workforce culture are helping their employees be the best versions of themselves, both physically and mentally.

Drawing upon more than a decade of working with remote teams, Dipesh explores these notions and provides clear guidelines, organised around seven key areas that will be useful for any organisation wanting to unleash the full potential of their remote teams. If you are an Executive or a Leader of Agile teams working remotely, this session will provide clear implications for where to focus your efforts to create a collaborative environment, in which every team member can thrive.

An education business getting itself educated. A bit ironic, right?

If you’ve worked in a Contact Centre, or know someone who does, you’d know the daily struggles they face. Staff with stiff targets, trying to get a ‘sale at any cost’, often ignoring the real needs of their customers.

Yes. Well-defined procedures, good Knowledge Management, Telephony and Customer Relationship Management systems may exist. Yet, the ‘traditional’ approaches often create ‘micromanaged’ environments of frustrated leaders and staff. Most teams yearn for a better work culture, that could make it easier for them to provide a better Customer Xperience!

In this engaging and thought-provoking presentation, Anand and David tell the story of the journey of the Student Advisory team at Open Universities Australia (OUA). They share how the team successfully transformed its culture by embedding an Agile mindset, which led to:

• Continuous learning, unlearning, and adapting v/s traditional approaches
• Simplified sub-systems across recruitment, remuneration, IT projects, etc.
• Highly empowered leadership, team engagement and collaboration
• Improved Customer Experience, Employee Experience and Financial Results, turning around a 5-year decline into 3+ years of new student growth

They had many challenges along the way (and still have a few!). But, the team has found a better WoW (Way of Working) and continues to raise the bar in their ongoing journey. As Anand shares his leadership vision and David shares his 360-degree experience of starting out as a Student Advisor, became a Team Leader and is now an amazing Agile Coach, we hope you’ll gain a few good ideas to help you in your own journey.

Like any tool, the better you understand how it works, the better-equipped you will be to make effective use of it. The goal of this talk is to give you that understanding.

No experience with Machine Learning, Software Development, or Maths is required! We’ll learn what Artificial Neural Networks are, how they work, and the importance of good data.

By the end of the session, you should feel confident enough with the inner workings of Artificial Neural Networks to recognise opportunities for their use, identify risks in implementation, and bore friends and family at your next BBQ.

Stories and storytelling can inspire people where bullet points may not. Isn’t it always the story, the anecdote, the example that you remember long after the event?

Business storytelling is storytelling with a purpose and for results. Whatever you are trying to do in business – leading people, managing change, or building your career – storytelling can help you do it better…that’s a guarantee.

In this power packed session you will:

• Discover business storytelling
• Explore the use of storytelling
• Identify storytelling applications in your context

In this session, Bernard Salt AM will assemble the latest data, cite relevant benchmarks and give live examples of how the Australian workforce, consumer and business community is being transformed by the pandemic. New ways of working. New business models. New consumer preferences. The next five years to 2026 is not for the faint-hearted. It’s for those who grasp the significance of the times, who are bold and ambitious for their country, and who want to be part of the brave new post-COVID world. Bernard will show which jobs, which parts of the country, which demographic cohort can be expected to be on the rise in the near term future. The common denominator behind the new drivers of success will be adaptability and agility. The future belongs to those whose skills fit into the new way of living, working and doing business. Don’t miss this compelling and eye-opening session!

In this talk about accelerating software delivery and test automation, Ram Sankaralingam will demonstrate how you could:

• Adopt a Continuous testing approach to eradicate testing bottlenecks and thereby speeding application delivery.
• Leverage Artificial Intelligence to reduce test creation time, boost test coverage, increase resiliency of testing assets, and cut down on test maintenance efforts.
• Enhance Software quality with a Shift Left & Model based testing approach.

Design Thinking is a human-centric approach for creative problem solving while putting humans at the centre. It encourages organisations to focus on the people they’re creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. When done right, Design Thinking ensures that greater user empathy, reinforced with targeted research and experimentation, is translated into more useful products for customers, and greater value for the company.
If Design Thinking is so powerful, why do only designers use it in so many organisations? Shouldn’t leaders in other parts of our businesses adopt this method to improve their team’s results and culture?

In my talk, I would argue that Design Thinking is NOT a designers only tool, it should not be owned by the design team, as every single one of us can benefit from using this approach. It allows non-designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges in a creative and innovative way – whether it’s in our products, our teams, our business processes, or even in our personal lives. I will share my story and my experience as the Head of Design at PageUp going through the challenge of implementing a human-centric approach across the organisation; the successes, the failures and most importantly, the learnings.

The aim was to communicate Agile values and principles – and embed new working practices – that would change the way teachers work, both in the development of online courses and for classroom teaching. To help achieve this, we created an Agile Learning Design microcredential for Haileybury, which is now being made available to any teacher. In this talk, Peter tells the story of successes, and what was less than successful, and where we go from here.