Orchestrating the work of hundreds or thousands of people working at different locations around the world presents a set of challenges specific to that kind of context. It is not simply a matter of “scaling up", we need to understand underlying principles and patterns and make them work. With this session we invite you into a conversation about how to improve the way leaders and teams collaborate in our organizations. You will experience a workshop that you can reproduce for your organisation to create supporting structures that scale

Target Audience: Thinkers, Decision Makers, Architects, Managers, Coaches, Scrum Masters, Product Owners
Prerequisites: Curiosity and some experience in working in large organisations
Level: Advanced

Extended Abstract
Orchestrating the work of hundreds or thousands of people working at different locations around the world presents a set of challenges specific to that kind of context. It is not simply a matter of “scaling up” what works for orchestrating the work of a small number of co-located people, or even a small number of distributed teams. The specific practices necessary for success will vary and evolve. Variety of practice is essential to creating successful outcomes.
There is a useful set of underlying principles and patterns that we bring to our work. They enable us to create a wide variety of context-aware practices that serve the needs of the people in our organizations, and support them in collaborating to create value for our customers.
With this session we invite you into a conversation about how to improve the way leaders and teams collaborate in our organizations. We will look at teams’ needs regarding autonomy, leadership, and support, and at leaders’ needs regarding strategy, challenges, and responsibility. One specific theme we explore in this session is that of the relationships between leaders and teams, and how we leverage those relationships to orchestrate work and outcomes.
Through this session you will experience a workshop that you can reproduce for your organisation. We will share our setup guides, tools, and materials with you so that you can create supporting structures to more effectively orchestrate collaboration at different scales in your organization.

Women in technology leave the industry at a higher rate than any other profession. In her invited talk, Nicola Marsden draws on deep research into what women love about work and what they don’t. Together with Karen Holtzblatt, the visionary behind Contextual Design, she has developed a research-driven framework and best-practice interventions to achieve better retention and work life culture for women in technology. She presents the framework and looks at Scrum as an example in terms of challenges and benefits for women.

Target Audience: Managers, Decision Makers, Agile Coaches, Project Leaders, Developers
Prerequisites: Interest :-)
Level: Basic

What have we learnt from the transformations in large companies? And how can that help you improving your chances for success?

The DACH30 group is a workgroup of experienced transformation drivers and coaches from over 30 large companies across different industries. One sub-workgroup has been working on these two questions and we recently published our findings.

In this workshop we will share our transformation experiences and work out with you on patterns, that have proven to be helpful in driving agile transformations successfully.

Target Audience: Leaders especially on executive level and organizational development coaches
Prerequisites: Experiences in driving an agile transformation in a large organization
Level: Advanced

Extended Abstract

As internal Agile Transformation Coaches from large enterprises we have been supporting quite a number of transformations in various contexts. And as members of a workgroup for Business Agility we were asking ourselves „What can we learn from the different company transformations in the different markets and branches with different cultures? Is there anything they have in common?“ We were quite thrilled to identify some principles and helpful insights and learnings based on success and failures which we found applicable to most of the transformations.

To provide inspiration for others, executives and leaders especially, we summarized these principles and learnings in a Transformation Travel Guide for Growing Adaptive Organizations, including a Travel Map, Travel Tips and also some exemplary Travel Routes based on real-life case studies.

In this session we will provide an overview on the Travel Guide and some deeper insights into learnings from two Transformation Journeys. Study.

Our focus is not on scaling Agile working but rather on achieving Agility on an enterprise level. Hence we are not only looking towards Agile but rather at various methods, thinking models, and techniques in order to find the right approach for specific business problems to solve and for developing organizational towards more adaptivity and resilience.

We are a smaller group from the DACH30 Initiative working on ‚Growing Adaptive Organizations’. growing-adaptive-organizations.org

(Agile) Games are sounding throughout the land. Everyone plays games and anyone guides games. However, what makes playing games "interesting" from the business owner's perspective? 

We look into the criteria of effectiveness and efficiency of games and thus the capabilities of creating business impact for the company.

As such, it turns out a game - is just a game and remains a play if one does not align with underlying business needs. Sounds familiar? But you wonder how to do so?

In this talk, we will look in a 4-Step-Modelmaking the obvious tangible. And in the end, it becomes a structured approach how one might create business impact too.

Target Audience: Moderators, (young) Scrum Masters, Project Leaders, Managers, Decision-Makers, Facilitators
Prerequisites: General understanding of games and agility, and how to lead games successfully
Level: Basic

So many challenges, so little time. As testers or quality engineers, we need to sharpen the saw, but how? Gamification can be a way to look at how you're doing and find out where to improve. It's a great way to have everyone engaged and get the best out of people.

In this presentation, Ben Linders will show how playing games (onsite or online) with the Agile Testing Coaching Cards and Agile Quality Coaching Cards help to explore your current quality and testing practice and decide as a team on what to improve or experiment with.

Target Audience: Testers, Agile Teams, Tech Leads, Technical Coaches, Scrum Masters
Prerequisites: None
Level: Advanced

Extended Abstract

The Agile Testing Coaching Cards and Agile Quality Coaching Cards are a deck of cards with statements that help people to share and reflect. Examples of cards are "Testers help developers design acceptance criteria for user stories", "Failing tests get proper attention even when no defect in the product has been detected", and "Refactoring is done to keep code maintainable and reduce technical debt".

Playing games with these coaching cards (onsite or online), you can learn from each other. Teams can use the coaching cards to discuss quality and testing values, principles, and practices, and share their experiences and learnings.

Different game formats can be used to share experiences on testing and quality principles and practices and explore how they can be applied effectively. The playing formats from the Agile Self-assessment Game (benlinders.com/game) can be used to play with these cards. This presentation provides an overview of playing formats and will inspire you to come up with your own formats.

Facilitation is key when playing with these coaching cards. Ben Linders will present how to prepare a game session and facilitate it, what can be done to keep people engaged, and how debriefing can help to pull out learnings and ideas for improvement.

Takeaways:

- Show how to use gamification to self-assess your current way of working.

- Present examples of playing games with the Agile Testing Coaching Cards and Agile Quality Coaching Cards.

- Explore how facilitating games can help to enhance quality and testing in agile teams.

Wollen wir unseren Enkeln eine lebenswerte Welt hinterlassen, müssen wir das grundlegende Paradigma unseres Wirtschaftssystems umbauen: Weg vom ausbeuterischen Wirtschaften, hin zu einem regenerativen, demokratischeren und inklusiven Wirtschaften.

Der Vortrag ist ein Plädoyer dafür, nicht auf Politiker, Konzernchefs oder ein Wunder zu warten, sondern selbstbewusst aktiv zu werden. Wir stellen erste Ansätze vor, wie Agilität konkret genutzt werden kann, um den Umbau der Wirtschaft in Angriff zu nehmen.

Zielpublikum: Manager:innen, Entscheider:innen, Projektleiter, Teamleiter, ...
Voraussetzungen: Fachkenntnisse agiler Methoden,
Schwierigkeitsgrad: Fortgeschritten

Extended Abstract

Vor über 20 Jahren entstand das agile Manifest, das eine radikal neue Arbeitsweise für die Software-Entwicklung proklamierte. Was damals von vielen belächelt wurde, ist heute auch außerhalb der Software-Entwicklung gang und gäbe. Wir haben gesehen, dass agiles Arbeiten Teams effektiver machen und damit das Leben von Menschen positiv beeinflussen kann. Doch auch wenn sich das „Wie“ des Arbeitens verändert hat: Neue Geschäftsmodelle sind dadurch kaum entstanden.

Heute stehen wir jedoch vor einer neuen, ungleich größeren Herausforderung. Wenn wir unseren Kindern und Enkeln eine lebenswerte Welt hinterlassen wollen, müssen wir das grundlegende Paradigma unseres Wirtschaftssystems umbauen: Weg vom ausbeuterischen Wirtschaften, das Finanzmittel konzentriert und massive Ungleichheit erzeugt, hin zu einem regenerativen, demokratischeren und inklusiven Wirtschaften.

Die Sache ist: Einerseits weiß kaum jemand genau, wie nachhaltige Geschäftsmodelle tatsächlich aussehen müssen, welche Technologien noch entstehen und sich durchsetzen werden. Andererseits läuft uns die Zeit davon. Es herrscht Unsicherheit, gepaart mit Zeitdruck.

Genau das ist doch das ursprüngliche Spielfeld agiler Denk- und Arbeitsweisen! Gerade die Community hält alle Tools in den Händen, mit denen Unternehmen regenerative Geschäftsmodelle entwickeln können, die sogar wirtschaftlicher sind als die existierenden. Lasst uns doch die Zukunft gemeinsam gestalten, so wie wir es vor 20 Jahren schon mal gemacht haben. Arbeiten wir mit Unternehmen und Menschen, die diesen Planeten durch enkelfähiges Business erhalten wollen!

Der Vortrag ist ein Plädoyer dafür, nicht auf Politiker, Konzernchefs oder ein Wunder zu warten, sondern selbstbewusst aktiv zu werden. Wir stellen erste Ansätze vor, wie Agilität konkret genutzt werden kann, um den Umbau der Wirtschaft in Angriff zu nehmen.

This is a letter from the future: we are working in an organization in a galaxy not so far away … we have a #diverse #social #digital #remote #culture - and we will tell you how we got there. We leave it open to the audience to guess how far this future is away. Or how near they want it to be. Disclaimer: may contain fragments of reality.

Target Audience: Manager, Idealists, Realists, Change Makers
Prerequisites: Open mind
Level: Basic

Stories from a High Performing Team is a talk about the teamwork in a software development team at ThoughtWorks, a global Tech Consultancy. The team including the speakers - Jennifer (Developer), Xiaofan (Experience Designer) and Ursula (Business Analyst) - have been working for 14 month together which is a rare case in the consultancy business. The team is known for being high performing and today they want to share stories and practices for agile software development teams on how to reach this level.

Target Audience: Developers, Business Analysts, Architects, Project Managers, Delivery Principals
Prerequisites: Agile Mindset, Modern Softwaredevelopment understanding
Level: Advanced

Are you wondering: How is a diary connected with leadership? How can YOU and OTHERS benefit from written reflection?
In this session you will get answers! You will benefit from my extensive (business) journaling experience. You will be introduced to psychological science that makes written self-reflection so powerful.

• You want to change habits in your life's "departments"?
• You want to harvest outstanding outcomes - at work and beyond?
• You want to spark change - in yourself and others?

Then join and get your leadership in ACTion!

Target Audience: All curious human beings (including Developers, Architects, Managers, Project Leads)
Prerequisites: Openness for new ways of thinking (and behaviour) is helpful
Level: Advanced

Extended Abstract
During my career in IT and people development I had several turning points where I either was made to use journaling techniques or experimented with them myself to successfully tackle the next challenge.

Over the years some turning points "beyond business" in life followed. Also I got serious scientific foundations in my psychological studies. Having both – the science and my experience – I started reflecting, why those 'written self-reflection' techniques are so powerful and – at the same time – they are still quite rarely used in the business context.

This session is suitable for all humans: curious newcomers as well as seasoned written-self-reflection experts as I'll share some stories, more than 10 years of experience and actionable tools and techniques.

The world in which a software system lives is filled with meaning. The structure, concepts and names that inform the code, its changes and the mental models held by developers are expressions of meaning. The very act of development is an exercise in meaning — it's discovery, its formulation, its communication.
But just because we are immersed in concepts of meaning from an early age, and just because the daily work of software development is about wrangling meaning, that doesn't mean we're necessarily good at it. Let's talk about what we mean.

Target Audience: Developers, Architects, UX, Product Owners
Prerequisites: No specific prerequisites
Level: Advanced

Extended Abstract
"It's just semantics." How many conversations about philosophy, politics and programming are derailed by this thought-stopping comment?
Semantics is all about meaning. If there is one thing we struggle with and need to get better at, it is the search for and clarification of meaning. The world in which a software system lives is filled with meaning. The structure, concepts and names that inform the code, its changes and the mental models held by developers are expressions of meaning. The very act of development is an exercise in meaning — it's discovery, its formulation, its communication. Paradigms, processes and practices are anchored in different ways of thinking about and arriving at meaning.
But just because we are immersed in concepts of meaning from an early age, and just because the daily work of software development is about wrangling meaning, and just because it's just semantics, that doesn't mean we're necessarily good at it. It takes effort and insight. Let's talk about what we mean.