Business Agility Midwest Conference 2019
Thanks to the generosity, branding, and momentum built by Evan Leybourn and the Business Agility Institute, I am very proud to announce the second US-based Business Agility Institute conference to be held on November 6th and 7th at the Fawcett Event Center in Columbus, Ohio.
What is Business Agility?
Up until recently, agile ways of working have primarily been adopted by an organization’s IT group, while scaling agile practices beyond IT remained elusive. As a result, agile content was largely found only within conferences catering to the IT function.
Scaling agile practices and techniques beyond IT is a top priority of all organizations seeking to increase customer focus, reduce time to market, and increase flexibility and adaptability within the markets they serve.
The primary goal of the Business Agility Midwest Conference is to build agile knowledge across all functions/departments within an organization, including strategy, planning, HR, Finance, Sales, Marketing, and IT. We are building an amazing set of international speakers covering a wide variety of topics including product management, finance and portfolio management, agile HR, building durable teams, scaling agile, tools, servant leadership and many other transformation related topics. Interactive, “hands-on” workshops focused on innovation, organizational design, and systems thinking are also included during the conference.
Who’s it for?
Anyone working in an agile way, considering or engaged in a organizational/digital transformation. Our hope is to bring more attention to not just transformations in general but to improving agility throughout the entire organization. Whether your organization is dabbling with business agility or simply starting a transformation of any kind, this conference is for you.
What’s the schedule?
The main conference is over two days. There are keynotes on both days with published authors and international speakers. The Business Agility Institute format is followed on Day 1, which includes three main themes with 3 or 4 speakers on each of the topics of Executive Leadership, Industry Thought Leaders, and Practitioners. During each theme, each speaker tells engaging 20 minute stories independently followed by a panel with all speakers on stage and then each theme finishes with a deep dive where as an attendee you have an opportunity to better digest and discuss the material you;ve just learned to use in your organization’s transformation.
Day 2 is a more traditional conference with seven tracks of content and a mix of workshops and talks of varying lengths on a huge variety of business agility and agile transformation topics.
There are also two optional pre-conference options, ticketed separately. On Nov 4th and 5th, there is an exclusive two-day event called “Flow Academy”, hosted by the creators of the Flow Framework, designed to help executives and senior managers introduce innovation in a more agile and customer-centric way. Additionally, there is a Women in Agile event on Nov 5, a half-day event the day before the conference, modeled after the tradition set at the Agile Alliance annual conference.
Who are the conference keynotes?
- Fin Goulding — Founder and CIO at the Flow Academy. Co-author of Flow & 12 Steps to Flow.
- Haydn Shaughnessy — Founder, Chief Content Officer Flow Academy, co-author Flow, 12 Steps to Flow, author Leader’s Guide to Platform Economy
- Sanjiv Augustine — Founder and CEO, Lithespeed, LLC and Agile Leadership Academy
- Mik Kersten — Founder & CEO of Tasktop, Author of Project to Product
We are also finalizing a very long list of speakers that include many published authors and agility strategists and will publicize them soon.
Who benefits from putting on this conference?
The three conference founders, myself, Bart Weaver, and Charles Kennedy, are only interested in building a midwestern U.S. agility community that expands beyond the IT function to all organizational functions. As a result, a portion of net conference revenue will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio, with any remaining profit being used to seed next year’s conference.
How much does it cost?
Tickets are are available at BusinessAgilityMidwest.com. A single day ticket for attendance on either November 6th or 7th is priced at $200, with a full conference ticket to attend both days of the conference priced at $350.
Pre-conference events include a Flow Academy two-day event, taught by the Flow Framework creators Fin Goulding and Haydn Shaughnessy, which costs $695 alone, or bundled with a full conference ticket — four days in all — priced at $850.
A Women in Agile half-day event on November 5th is priced at a very affordable $25. Please note a separate single day or full conference ticket must be purchased separately to attend the November 6+7th conference.
As a THANK YOU for taking the time to read my post, please use discount code BAM_Medium through 9/30/2019 to receive 10% off a full conference ticket. We look forward to seeing you at Business Agility Midwest!
