Every Agile Transformation Related Topic

Sometimes I say the phrase “Business Agility” assuming everyone knows what I’m talking about. So, instead, I’ve started using the phrase Agile Transformation related because I think more people at least understand what I’m talking about. But yeah, that word “transformation” isn’t the best. It implies that your company will stop changing at some point when the reality is that all companies must embrace a constant state of change to survive. So, Business Agility, is really just that — whatever a company needs to do to make the whole company agile to adapt to the rapidly changing market conditions and keep its customers and employees satisfied. After all, “It’s a VUCA world” (great link there to explain what that means)

So what are all these things you might ask?

The list of things you might learn to help your company improve their transformation is astounding. The obvious starts with agile basics, the mindset, the manifesto, building longstanding product teams, lean principles, design thinking, agile roles, Scrum, Kanban, a culture of experimentation, a culture of learning, a culture of continuous improvement, a focus on customer-centric products, servant leadership, and lightweight scaling techniques (LeSS, Nexus, Scrum of Scrums, Scrum @ Scale, and the scalingmanifesto.org)

As your focus broadens from the team to the rest of the organization, you have an overwhelming number of topics to start learning including: design sprints, agile supply chain, systems thinking, communities of practice, portfolio management, a whole world of DevOps, agile HR, culture change, product management, emotional intelligence, agile marketing, technology strategy agility (mainframe/cloud/microservices/platform agility), value streams, tying vision to agility, psychological safety, stakeholder engagement, obeya room strategies, kata thinking, both team and transformation metrics, big room planning or product increment planning, navigating agility with politics, sales agility, deterministic process design, agile ux and more.

And where might you learn about all these things?

I will frequently post lists of books on this blog to help guide people new to Business Agility and broader agile topics. But if you’ve read my blog recently, you know I can’t stop talking about the conference I’m planning with Bart Weaver and Charlie Kennedy.

Every single topic above will be covered at the Business Agility Midwest Conference (BusinessAgilityMidwest.com) Use discount code BAMC225 for $125 off the $350 two-day conference ticket!

It may not be every agile transformation related topic (as my title implies), but it’s a huge list. And we have an incredible set of keynote speakers, published authors, and experts and passionate agilists of all kinds speaking at the conference.

Keynote speakers

• 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 and Amber Field — Director of Software Development at Singlewire Software
• Mik Kersten — Founder & CEO of Tasktop, Author of Project to Product
• Maureen Metcalf — Founder & CEO of Innovative Leadership Institute and author of many leadership books is keynoting the Women in Agile event

Published authors

I’ve mentioned these authors before here: https://medium.com/practical-agilist/agile-authors-at-business-agility-midwest-9a607aa1afb9

Most of these authors will be readily available to talk to you, answer your questions, and sign their books.

Day One of Conference — Business Agility Institute Format Speakers

The first day of the conference follows the unique format of the Business Agility Institute where everyone who attends gets to really experience and internalize the content presented in three tracks: Executive, Thought Leader, and Practitioner tracks. These speakers will tell short engaging stories and will answer questions in a panel format and a subsequent deep dive discussion.

• Sam Rassekh — Senior Vice President Omni Channel Journey Execution Director, Huntington National Bank
• Tamar Williamson — Vice President for P&C Shared Business Services, Nationwide Insurance
• Dan Manges — Co-founder and CTO, Root Insurance Company
• Mareen Metcalf — Founder & CEO of Innovative Leadership Institute
• Jeff Dalton — Chief Evangelist, AgileCxO.org
• Mark Hill — Agile Delivery Leader — Business Agility and Leadership Consultant, Eliassen Group
• Daryl Kulak — Consultant, Author and Speaker, Accenture
• Thomas Morris — Product Manager, Nationwide Digital Center of Excellence
• Carina Silfverduk — Agility Practice Lead, CAS
• Mark Schettenhelm — Product Owner, Compuware

Day Two of Conference has 36 Sessions and Workshops

On Day Two is where those agile transformation reated topics above are really covered with great depth and breadth. Look at all the amazing content from this long list of speakers:

• Jeff Dalton — Workshop: Agile BS and the Leadership Impediment
• Jon Terry — Costing Agile: Win the Timesheet Debate with Finance
• Charlotte Chang — Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement
• Phil Nesmith — From Landmines to Post-Its: The Invisible Servant Leader
• Jon Terry — Making the Product Shift: What the heck does that mean?
• Jon Stahl and Brian Link — Obeya: A Systems Thinking Approach to Business Agility
• Elizabethe Kramer — The $65 Million Strawberry: Agile in Supply Chain
• Douglas Ferguson — Design Sprints Make Agile Better
• Elizabethe Kramer — A Sea of Moving Parts: Agile in Marketing
• Jack Maher — Blend and automate people, process and technology concepts with Deterministic Process Design
• Gary Monti — Team Safety — The Politics of Business Agility
• Brett Buchanan — The Mission of a Product Manager
• Brett Buchanan — Product Discovery
• Brett Buchanan — The Future of Product Management — A Panel Discussion
• David Lim — 7 Psychological Insights to Accelerate Your Agility
• Stacey Ackerman — Beyond the Boardroom: How To Make Customers the Center of Your Universe
• Scott Showalter — Icebox Zero: Agile UX and the Lean Backlog
• Gordon Withrow — Manage What You Find, Not What you Hoped To Find
• Elina Greiff and Bernadette Dunn — Workshop: How to create psychological safety in an agile team
• Keith Circo — Balance in Agile Adoption
• John Riley — Workshop: Agile Big Room Planning
• Daniel Greenleaf — Engaging Your Stakeholders
• Elizabeth Tolia — Destroying The Walls That Agile Built
• Mark Hill — Narrative Vision Workshop — Experience Unlocking Human Potential
• Jennifer Lai — 24 Gemba Walk
• Daryl Kulak — Workshop: The Politics of Business Agility
• Doug Gouty and Daryl Kulak — Agility Anonymous: A Panel Discussion
• Tom D’Alessandro — Agility from the Front Lines
• Padma Sastry — Connecting the Dots — Over the Agile journey
• Jennifer Bleen and Tiffany Scott — Identifying and Measuring Effective Agile Teams
• April Jefferson — Learning through Reflection
• Rebecca Scott — The Importance of High-Functioning Teams in the Future of Work
• Sameh Zeid — Hands-on Activity: Managers coaching the transformation using Kata Thinking
• Jason DeVelvis — Sales Agility
• Todd Cotton — Servant Leaders Wear Pink
• Srinivasa Badrinarayanan — How I Learned to Live Another Day, Why Transformations don’t stick and how to Internalize Change

The conference is November 6 and 7 in Columbus, Ohio. We hope you can make it. And again, please use our deepest discount code BAMC225 to save $125 off the $350 two-day ticket.