By Sander Boeije
Looking Back at Agile & Scrum 2022
June 2nd, 2022 marked the live day of IIL’s Agile & Scrum Online conference with thousands of registrants one of the biggest online gatherings of agilists in the world. This year’s theme was ‘Making It Work for You’, referring to the idea that every organization is different, and that agile is ultimately about empowering people and teams to work in a way that best equips them to deliver value to the customer.
It was an event full of learning and networking, with strong takeaways from the sessions and great conversations between agilists. Let’s have a look back at some of the highlights of the day.
Purposeful Business the Agile Way
The day opened with a stellar presentation by Darrell Rigby on “Purposeful Business the Agile Way”. As one viewer commented afterwards: “Without a doubt, Darrell is inspiring. I think he could win over nearly any organization still stuck in old practices.” Humans, Darrell argues, are built for purposefulness. People who are striving for meaningful lives are more resilient, more motivated, and healthier, both physically and mentally. During his talk, Darrell provided four in-depth recommendations on how organizations can install a viable yet purpose-driven system. We were off to a great start.
For the second keynote, Maria Matarelli and Tariq EQ Amawi took us on a thought-provoking journey to “Values-Based Communication” and discover how language creates the landscape of shared understanding. It all starts with a shift in mindset. How could we go from a Work Place, where humans are treated as resources, depleted, used, and exhausted – to a Growth Place, where humans are treated as assets, appreciated, valued, and able to develop themselves? By offering enhanced communication strategies backed by insightful stories, Maria and Tariq paved the way for teams to intrinsically optimize their performance.
This presentation sparked in-dept discussions amongst the participants and many of them will have marked this talk as their favorite of the day, with one learner stating: “Excellent Keynote – Language definitely does set the tone for the team. The examples were spot on.”
A glimpse of the session by Maria Matarelli and Tariq EQ Amawi from Formula Ink. An in-depth guide is available at www.formulaink.com/teams
Agile at Large Organizations
At the midway point, Brent Reed delivered a thorough presentation on the “Disciplined Agile for the Enterprise” solution. Each keynote talk was followed by a live ‘Questions and Answers’ segment and in Brent’s case, this was particularly valued by the audience members. Even before the talk ended, one participant shared: “Just received a fantastic response to my question from Brent Reed! Eye opening for me. Thanks for the insight!”
For the first time at the Agile & Scrum conference, participants could enjoy a panel conversation between seasoned agilists. The topic of the panel, led by Tom Friend, was “Agile at Large Organizations”, where the panelists consisting of Deborah Brey, Agile Center of Excellence Leader at Boeing, Larkland Brown, Director and Agile Coach at The Hartford, and Nathalie Brochstein, Executive Consultant, shared from their experiences when implementing agile in larger organizations.
Each expert shared valuable insights throughout the conversation, but Debbie’s perspective stood out to many of the audience members due to her refreshing honesty. Having been responsible for implementing Agile at Boeing since 2008, she openly shared the struggles she faced and how, to this day, it remains difficult, and continuously requires effort and alignment.
Organizations can only be as agile as their least Agile part
keynote, we were joined from Melbourne Australia by Evan Leybourn, co-founder and CEO of the Agile Business Institute. Supported by hand drawn slides, props, and great humor, Evan explained how the unique and complex nature of an organization makes that no agile framework or technique can guarantee business agility. However, there are common patterns of behaviors that characterize an agile organization, with the three top indicators for business agility being Adaptive Finance, Value Streams, and a culture of relentless improvement. The crux of the talk was that an organization can only be as agile as its least agile part.
My daughter made me a car to demonstrate Theory of (Agile) Constraints when I’m presenting. I need to ask her to help prepare my presentations more often. pic.twitter.com/FB0EWSbUqL
— Evan Leybourn (@eleybourn) June 9, 2022
On June 9th viewers enjoyed a delightful performance by the Omnipresent Music Festival String quartet, which featured a range of styles, from classical music to rock and dance. Prior to the performance, Agile & Scrum speaker David Daly joined for a live chat about his session titled, ‘Stop Firefighting: How to Take Control of Your Product Development.’ Through the analogy of the 1666 fire of London, it was an energizing conversation with very strong questions from the audience about how to deal with unexpected requests.
Edward W. Hardy, Founder & Artistic Director, Omnipresent Music Festival
And the learning doesn’t stop here. This entire conference is now available on-demand until September 4th, 2022. Earn up to 26 PDUs and 26 SEUs by viewing presentations by presenters from IBM, Vodafone, AstraZeneca, Ericsson and other leading organizations on a great variety of topics. Registration includes access to two, self-paced courses on “Integrating Design Thinking, Lean, and Agile,” and “Conflict Resolution Skills.”
We’d like to thank all speakers, guests, and learners for joining us. And of course, a special thank you to our sponsors Citi, Boston Scientific, PDUs2Go, Sita, Sabre, Menlo Innovations, Leading Clearly, and the Business Agility Institute.
IIL’s next online conference, International Project Management Day, airs on November 3rd, 2022. To register or stay updated on the speaker lineup, please visit the webpage.
About the Author>
Sander Boeije is the Product & Program Manager for Online Learning Conferences at IIL.