TL; DR: The ACB21 Live Stream
Welcome to this year’s experiment of the Agile Camp Berlin — ACB21 Live Stream with eight distinguished speakers from the agile community.
Learn more: ACB21 Live Stream, May 27-28, 2021.
The ACB21 Live Stream on May 27, 2021
Organizational Equanimity: Sustainable Agility at the Enterprise Level by Jorgen Hesselberg
Agile transformation efforts – despite their proven benefits – have an extraordinarily high failure rate. The root cause of this failure is that the organization rejects this new ways of working because it does not address the true needs of the organization; agility is therefore often a solution looking for a problem. For agility to become business as usual, we need to understand an organization’s equanimity; it’s balancing point. Too often, organizations implement processes, frameworks and such without recognizing the organization’s unique operational needs. Perhaps there are areas of the organization where implementing agility is not necessarily the right thing to do? Could there be areas in the organization where agility is more appropriate than in other areas – and how does this affect our transformation strategy?
Leveraging a very tangible analogy this talk demonstrates how sustainable organizational agility requires a holistic view, an intentional approach and provides concrete strategies of how to get there.
Learn more: Organizational Equanimity: Sustainable Agility at the Enterprise Level by Jorgen Hesselberg.
Real Cross-functional Teams for Creating real and better Products by Jutta Eckstein & Maryse Meinen
At the core of agile development are self-organizing cross-functional teams. Yet, this is often understood as e.g., backend & front-end developers working together. If an organization is aiming for company-wide agility, to fully benefit from agility it has to enable teams as value centers that are truly cross-functional by bringing in different perspectives from business, markets, cultures, beliefs etc. This way cross-functional teams overcome not only the limitations of organizational silos but also of a singular view on the market.
Too many products have been developed that serve one kind of client only. The reason is that the composition of the teams leads (subconsciously) to the development of products that serve only people that resemble the people in the team. One “famous” example is the soap dispenser that only works if your hands are white.
If teams are really cross-functional and are resembling the diversity of the market, the products they’re creating are also better. Thus, if the whole team has the full business expertise, knows the market, reflects the full diversity of the clients, then it can even disrupt the market and isn’t waiting for some person (e.g., the Product Owner) to decide on priorities. With this real cross-functionality the team can fully understand the company’s business and has a holistic view of it, knowing its contribution to the company’s value stream.
Real cross-functional teams are an essential building block for implementing company-wide agility and the organization benefits by creating better and in a way more real products and by having more options when entering the war of talent.
Learn more: Real Cross-functional Teams for Creating real and better Products by Jutta Eckstein & Maryse Meinen.
Evidence-based Interventions by Viktor Cessan
When we, as managers or coaches, are asked to work with a system, there’s always more to a situation than meets the eye. In this presentation I take you through common requests I’ve gotten as an agile coach, and I contrast the initial request and understanding with what we discovered was actually going on, and what we did. I also share some tips for anyone working with systems in their day to day work.
Learn more: Evidence-based Interventions by Viktor Cessan.
The ACB21 Live Stream on May 28, 2021
Linking Strategy to Everyday Work (With value creation models, and time-based goals like OKRs) by John Cutler
When teams can link their day-to-day work to a meaningful/concrete representation of “strategy”, they feel more inspired, and confidently work small while thinking big. Too often teams feel like they are iterating to nowhere, or locked into huge, prescriptive batches. Time-based goals like OKRs (alone) don’t help. In this talk we will discuss the difference between point-in-time goals and persistent value-creation models. My goal: inspire teams to adopt some form of persistent value-creation model and link their daily work to that framework.
Learn more: Linking Strategy to Everyday Work by John Cutler.
The Power and Pains of Autonomy by Jimmy Janlén
Modern organisations are convinced that autonomous empowered teams are one of the core concepts of agile and key to speed, innovation and success. In this talk Jimmy explores how to define autonomy in the context of a team. Which are the promised benefits? Common challenges, fears and pains. What new expectations are put onto the team? Furthermore, what do the wider organisation and leadership need to do (or change) in order to leverage and unleash the power autonomy.
Learn more: The Power and Pains of Autonomy by Jimmy Janlén.
Modern Management: Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success – Johanna Rothman
Too many people say, “With agile, we don’t need no stinkin’ managers.”
However, because managers create and refine the culture, modern managers create and refine the agile culture. Without modern management, any agile initiative will die. It’s time to invite managers to change their behaviors and create a real agile culture.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify the three management principles that create modern management (managing yourself, creating a harmonic whole, management innovation).
- Establish the 7 principles that create leadership (as opposed to management).
- Review many of the myths that prevent management from achieving leadership excellence and agility. Focus on three myths and offer options.
- Consider how managers can change their behaviors, realizing they don’t have to be perfect.
Learn more: Modern Management: Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success – Johanna Rothman.
Increasing the Velocity of Value by Dave West
Scrum is famous for introducing the idea of velocity. Increasing the amount of work that a team can deliver. But actually, Scrum was never focused on increasing the velocity of work it was always focused on increasing the velocity of value. The ideas of self-management, goals, and the accountability of the Product Owner were meant to provide a foundation for teams to value-centric. But over the last 25 years, Scrum has often been applied to deliver work, a subtle but crucial difference. This has greatly reduced the ‘value’ that Scrum delivers and re-enforced many of the industrial concepts that agility was meant to replace.
In this talk, Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org talks about why orienting to value rather than work is a key requirement for building an agile capability, and how the 2020 update to the Scrum Guide provides a foundation for teams and organizations to review their approach to value.
Learn more: Increasing the Velocity of Value by Dave West.