Agile Business Conference 2018 In Review
Highlights and key messages from just a few of the pioneers speaking at this year’s Agile Business Conference in London.
Last week’s Agile Business Conference was packed with renowned speakers and forward-thinking experimenters all advocating for Generation Agile. A future of work where an Agile approach is the new norm for not only product and service development but for building a company culture for tomorrow’s employees and giving everyone — the world’s consumers — a stage, a voice and genuine value.
With many talks and roundtables happening simultaneously for attendees to pick and choose which interested them based on their roles and interests, we have our own highlights from the two days, and will briefly introduce the topics and their speakers which stood out and inspired us.
Day 01
Creating an Agile organisation: Insights from Neuroscience
Hilary Scarlett, Founder and Director of Scarlett & Grey
Our brains are only 2% of our body-weight, but take up 20% of our energy. It’s therefore often in ‘conserving’ mode, taking shortcuts and less challenging routes in order to save energy (schemas is one shortcut our brains take, formed by constant predictions and creating connections).
This is a key reason we become comfortable so easily in our routines and habits, and is something we see daily in organizations, especially larger, legacy organizations when things have been done a certain way for a long time.
Our brains don’t like change that seems uncontrollable or unpredictable. This is something that makes change at scale in an organization so challenging, as those further down the hierarchy have a greater perception of uncontrollability and unpredictability, placing them in more of a “threat” state. This state of “threat” has existed since our time of being hunters and gatherers, affecting us even today in situations of uncertainty.
Our brains can deal much better with really bad news than no news at all. Our brains crave certainty.
So what should organizations do when planning to initiate change?
SPACES (Self-Esteem, Purpose, Autonomy, Certainty, Equity, Social Connection) is a practical planning tool embodying six key human traits to consider and to address when introducing and executing a change. If even a few are addressed it can make a huge impact on the success of a transformation.
One approach that could be used to introduce a change with minimized resistance from the organization is storytelling.
Telling a story, especially how one individual (CEO etc.) came around to the idea of becoming Agile or towards any type of organizational transformation over commanding the change activates different areas of the brain.
In essence, storytelling “drops” an idea into the mind as a result of empathizing with the protagonist, making it more likely that we also change what we think.
Retrain your brain; How games can help you become more Agile
Helen Routledge, CEO of Totem Learning Limited
The designs of all our favorite games are mapped on our intrinsic approaches to learning. Whether this is done by tapping into our empathetic and “human” emotions to develop our interpersonal traits or our more strategic and analytical parts of the brain to train our problem solving abilities, every game has an agenda and enhances our learning in some way.
Classrooms have begun to take note of the benefits of switching focus from one “teacher” speaking to a crowd of listeners, to the listeners becoming the focus and leading the class with a “facilitator” guiding them.
Within a game, the player themselves are at the center. They are the decision makers and need to come to solutions themselves. No matter their past experience or knowledge, each player is given the same opportunity to find a solution in their own time and by taking their own route.
Bringing it back to Agile — with all the discussions around how to develop an Agile mindset within organizations, games may just be the tool that we’re searching for to facilitate learning of the skills needed, particularly critical thinking and collaboration.
At this point in the presentation, we divided into teams to develop ideas on potential games for individuals or teams to learn how to become more Agile.
Get Agile with LEGO
Olivia Köhler, Strategy Consultant at LHBS & Kathleen McCaffrey, Analyst at LHBS
We were lucky enough to be representing LHBS with a roundtable session on getting Agile with LEGO, which simulated the sprint working process. A condensed version of the activity we often do with our clients to introduce the Agile mindset, instead of simply telling them the benefits of working in iterations, it enables us to show them.
This tied in nicely with the keynote we just highlighted on “How games can help you become more Agile,” and through first-hand experience we find this game helps teams to not only understand the process and benefits of Agile quickly, but also to become more comfortable with one-another.
We introduced a “vision” for a product from the point of view of the Product Owner, in this case it was a scene from a movie. The team was divided in two and tasked with deciding which of the backlogged items (features to be built, e.g. houses, vehicles, people, streets, areas) they believe they could take on in each sprint. In total there were three sprints each only lasting 4 minutes, and each with the steps of 1. Sprint planning 2. The Sprint (4 mins) 3. Sprint review and 4. Sprint retrospective.
By the third sprint, participants were on their feet, communicating constantly and building better and faster.
Speaking together with our participants after the activity we asked for their opinions and thoughts about the process. While fast-paced, they felt they became more adept at being creative and completing items in the short amount of time.
The regular feedback and re-planning of focus brought them much closer to the desired end goal as opposed to having one longer duration of development and receiving feedback at the end.
The collaborative nature of sprinting meant our teams quickly became more familiar and comfortable with one another, as well as revealing who had which skills, despite them only having met for the first time.
This was incredible to see and to facilitate, and we implore anyone interested in bringing this game to their own team to reach out and see how we could work together.
You can also download our free Agile Sprint Guide to train your team on the sprint process.
Day 02
Design driven change
Lee Sankey @leesankey, Founder of Door & Rebecca Kemp @rebeccakemp, Director of Customer Journey at Citizens Advice
The definition of design is changing, from simply how something looks to how something works. Today it embodies much more than graphic design, as it merges with UX, whether something is valuable and answers a real need etc.
Design and Agile have many parallels, but can offer different and complementary things to an organization (design’s sensibilities, approaches and tools which are the building blocks for Generation Agile). The two approaches make a powerful combination when facing today’s complex, fast paced and ambiguous environment.
“Success requires being Agile — and more”
When discussing how Citizens Advice transformed their way of working, they quoted their leader: “To take the next step on digital, we dropped the word ‘digital.’” He wrote a medium article expanding on this decision here.
Their Agile approach focuses much more on the real world needs of their customers, which they discover through continuous engagement, either through their call-center agents, street surveys and pop-ups or asking for feedback online.
They described how other organizations should use design to compliment and build on Agile ways of working.
The art of asking
Tamsin Anastasi-Pace @TamsinAPace, Business Coach & Mentor at The Economist Group
The OODA loop is a simple concept of how people make decisions, developed by military strategist and United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. We first explored each step, from Observe, to Orientate, to Decide, to Act. Knowing even the fundamental steps the majority of people take to coming to a decision can be incredibly helpful in the common event of asking for something from colleagues within a business, whether this be a favor or simply their time.
Essentially, before asking for anything we should ask ourselves “who is the person i’m in front of?” This means considering their position in the business, their place in the hierarchy and their individual personality. We need to see things from their point of view if we want them to care about what it is we want, because their motivations and priorities could be entirely different.
We then need to ask ourselves “what do I want?” When we are clear about what we want from this person and why we’re asking them in particular, it makes it easier for them to understand and make an informed decision. Whatever it is we are requesting, it needs to be asked in context, it needs to be personalized and considerate of the person we’re asking and it needs to be clear why it’s good for them to accept.
Removing barriers before they arise is the most surefire way of someone accepting your request. Being specific about what it is you need from them and what exactly they will get in return is the way to ensure this happens each time.
Agility in an ambiguous & complex digitally transforming world
Prof. Eddie Obeng, Spatial Collaboration Revolution Evangelist QUBE at Pentacle The Virtual Business School
The closing keynote of the conference was full of energy and entertainment with a healthy dose of reality.
There is so much we do without questioning it as businesses, simply because it’s the way things have always been done. This is true for hierarchies, responsibility, working times and styles as well as developing new products and services.
However, the next generation coming into the workplace today are questioning it. It’s up to us to make sure we are making changes to attract both loyalty and the right skill sets from new employees which will be vital for tomorrow’s markets.
Speaker Eddie Obeng has built an online virtual tool for teams to stay connected and working Agile no matter where they are in the world. He spoke about a key moment in his life that happened several years ago, when he walked past a store who were holding a small event for people to try out virtual reality glasses, an opportunity he grasped with both hands.
While in this world where he could see a castle, a dragon and a sword, he was immediately immersed in the new world and naturally went about fighting dragons. When he took off the glasses it was a culture shock — he had been completely lost in this other world.
Similarly, in this online world for teams to connect, plan tasks and track progress people can easily immerse themselves here and very soon adopt the mindset needed to really be in that world.
The ability to work flexibly doesn’t need to come with compromise of productivity or disconnected teams if it’s tackled with the use of today’s vast technologies. It can also facilitate even more of the desired traits and skills embedded in agile’s principles.
For example flat hierarchy, clarity in goals and defined tasks, focus and equal opportunities for communication. In a virtual world, it’s easier to give each person an equal time to speak and share, and to also counter opinions and comments without the positions of people holding them back.
Generation Agile is here and it’s human. Reshaping culture and encouraging human skills of empathy, collaboration and creativity will set the stage for an Agile approach to working to be embraced and for businesses to succeed in the age of innovation and experience. It should be embraced by every organization, all we need to do is make the change today.
If you’re also interested in Agile and want to change your business to face a more volatile and fast-paced future with greater sustainability, don’t hesitate to contact us for a hands-on, LEGO introduction to Agile and it’s processes and to discover more about our end-to-end services.
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