Updated Version. Keynote Talk at Agile Business Day 2020. Agility as a movement started with software developers uncovering better ways of doing what they do. Today that movement is driving even business leaders to rethink how they lead their organizations. What does it mean to "be" agile? How can agility be applied to leading organizations? Where do successful agile leaders start? Three stories, three secrets and three tips to apply agility for more impact in your life and work.

1. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart
Peter Stevens
September 12, 2020

2. Who is in the room? Would you consider yourself a…
• Developer – you design, create, test or deploy a product or service
• Agilist – you subscribe to the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto
• Anti-Agile – you’re one of those people who hate “Agile”
• Agile Leadership role – you serve as Agile Coach, Scrum Master or Product Owner
• Project Manager
• Line Manager – Team or Group Manager
• C-Level Manager – You have overall responsibility for your company or business unit
• Anyone else?

3. Meet Peter Stevens
“Mr. What Really Matters”

4. Ask me a question!
https://tinyurl.com/ybp3g9yv

5. What do executives ask about agility?
• What are the buzzwords about?
• How can we innovate faster?
• How can we get business and technology to talk to each other?
• How can we develop better products?
• How can we educate our clients?
• How can agile make us better at delighting the customer?
• How can I make it a success?
• What does it mean for me?

6. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart

7. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart
What does it
mean to be
agile?

8. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart
What does it
mean to be
agile?
Three Secrets

9. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart
What does it
mean to be
agile?
Three Secrets How to work
smarter

10. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart
What does it
mean to be
agile?

11. © 2020 Peter Stevens
CONTENT WARNING
MAY CONTAIN ADULT LANGUAGE OR
INCONVENIENT TRUTHS.
MANAGERIAL DISCRETION ADVISED

12. Denning’s 3 Laws
What does it mean to be agile?
“Agile Manifesto” “Fake” Agility

13. What is agility?
User Stories
SAFe
Sprint
Scrum
Planning
Poker
Story Points
Product
Backlog
Scrum Master
CI/CD
Pair
Programming
Kanban
LeSS
Product
Owner

15. IMHO the first sentences represents the Agile mindset
Learning
Collaboration
Purpose

16. Agility is
Purpose
Learning Collaboration

17. Purpose
Learning Collaboration
Fake Agility - 1
This has nothing to do with me

18. Fake Agility - 2
User
Stories
SAFe
Sprint
Scrum
Planning
Poker
Story
Points
Product
Backlog
Scrum
Master
CI/CD
Pair
Programming
Kanban
Product
Owner
LeSSDo Scrum!

19. What does it mean to be agile?
Steve Denning’s Three “Laws” of Agile Organizations
• Law of the Customer
• Focus on customer needs, both existing customers, and even more importantly, new
customers and new markets
• Law of the Network
• Information flows without friction through the organization to seize opportunities or fix
problems
• Law of Small Teams
• Get business and technology working together efficiently to create customer-centric
products

20. Agility is
Customer
Network Small Teams

21. Agility is
Customer
Network
Small Teams
Purpose
Learning
Collaboration

22. Most wishes
from executives on their organizations
map to
one of the three laws of agility.

23. Agility has become a topic for leadership
https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-you-agile-enough-for-agile-management-11565607600https://hbr.org/2016/05/embracing-agile

24. Your questions?
https://tinyurl.com/ybp3g9yv
Photo © leonardo viti - Fotolia

25. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart
What does it
mean to be
agile?
Three Secrets

26. I’d like to share three examples of successful leaders and
reveal their secrets of agile leadership
Secret 3Secret 2Secret 1

27. Change is easy if you want to do it
First Secret:

28. How I lost
10kg

29. “Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but
most of these were largely concerned with the movements
of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on
the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that
were unhappy.”
-- Douglas Adams

30. I don’t like how sugar makes me feel.
So I want to avoid sugar and carbohydrates.

31. Imagine you’re the captain of a
sailing ship…

32. What happens if you are
caught in storm?

33. Christmas represented a severe thunderstorm!
“They are good,
they are really good”
SugarPressure.com: Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
https://www.sugarpressure.com/2010/12/trader-joes-milk-chocolate-peanut-butter-cups.html

34. Do I want to get back on course?

35. If you want to go there,
you’ll get back on course

36. Tip:
You are the captain of your ship!
Change is easy if you want to do it

37. Your questions?
https://tinyurl.com/ybp3g9yv
Photo © leonardo viti - Fotolia

38. Three secrets of agile leadership
Secret 2
Change is easy
if you want to
do it

39. Be Clear on
What Really Matters
Second Secret:

40. How to create alignment among 400,000 people
Every member of the Apollo
mission knew:
1. We are going to the moon
2. It’s not going to fail because of
me
3. If something goes wrong…
Apollo 11 Ready for Launch

41. How to create alignment among 400,000 people
Every member of the Apollo
mission knew:
1. We are going to the moon
2. It’s not going to fail because of
me
3. If something goes wrong,
remember item 1
Chandrayaan 2 Ready for Launch

42. Joerg Ewald
General Manager
Volirium AG
To save my
company, I first
needed to take
care of myself

43. Joerg’s top priority was to save his company

44. One day, Joerg
changed his mind

45. Tip:
Get Clarity on What Really Matters and
Communicate it right away
People will notice the difference right away
Clarity Can Be Transformational

46. Your questions?
https://tinyurl.com/ybp3g9yv
Photo © leonardo viti - Fotolia

47. Three secrets of agile leadership
Secret 3
Create
Clarity of
Purpose
Change is easy
if you want to
do it

48. Software developers
have figured out how to work smart!
Third Secret:

49. Walter Stulzer
Executive Director
FutureWorks.ch
We wanted to
change,
but we literally
could not.

50. Situation
Futureworksemergesoutofthe
fissionofalargerpartnership
Walterwantstostepbackfrom
dailybusiness,passthetorchtoa
functionalleadership
Theydedicated10%oftheir
leadershipcapacityto
improvementand
startmanyinitiatives
Noneofthegoalshavebeen
achieved
Two years go by…
Image ©2019 Peter Stevens
Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

51. That’s not quite true…

52. That’s not quite true… they created a new logo

53. Second try, they worked in Sprints (focused)
Waltercommittedtobeingpartof
thesolution,trainedwithhis
leadershipteamon
ScrumandPersonalAgility
Theydedicated10%oftheir
leadershipcapacityto
improvementandstartworkingon
afewinitiativesatatime
Allofthegoalshadbeenachieved
Six months go by…
Image ©2019 Peter Stevens
Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

54. Six months later…
• “We accomplished everything needed
to achieve our initial goals.
• “Half of our initial ideas proved unnecessary, so we didn't do them.
• “We were able to achieve all our goals with ½ the work & ¼ of the time
• “And the the results are already visible in our finances!”
-- Walter Stultzer, Executive Director, Futureworks AG

55. How Walter and his team did it
• “I committed to making this a
success
• “I communicated WHY, then WHAT
• “We applied Scrum to improving
the company
• “Every three weeks or so, my
management and I got together…
• “Personal Agility was the most
important part of all

56. Tip: Start with Yourself
Apply Techniques from your Dev Teams
Apply Agility to Leadership

57. How to apply these three secrets of agile leadership
Apply Agility to
Leadership
Create clarity
on
what really
matters
Change is easy
if you want to
do it

58. Three Secrets of Agile Leadership:
From working hard to working smart
What does it
mean to be
agile?
Three Secrets How to work
smarter

59. Source: © fotolia.com
Do you
have
too
much
to do
but
not
enough
time
to do it?

60. A typical response is to multitask
Capacity
Demand
“to do’s”

61. By stretching yourself to thinly, things slow to a crawl
Demand
“to do’s”
Cap
acit
y

62. 20 weeks
Speed comparison
This is you working hard
1
2
3
4
5

63. Speed comparison
This is you working smart
1 week
20 weeks
1
2
3
4
5

64. By stretching yourself to thinly, things slow to a crawl
Demand
“to do’s”
Cap
acit
y
Waste
Stuff That
Matters!

65. Impact means focusing on what matters
Stuff That
Matters!
Waste
Capacity
Demand
“to do’s”

66. … and ignoring or saying no to the rest
Stuff That
Matters!
Waste
Capacity
Demand
“to do’s”

67. What are the top agile practices used in Development?
Practice
• Daily standup
• Sprint/iteration planning
• Retrospectives
• Sprint/iteration review
• Short iterations
Source: VersionOne, 12th Annual State of Agile Report, 2018

68. What are the top agile practices used in Development?
Practice
• Daily standup
• Sprint/iteration planning
• Retrospectives
• Sprint/iteration review
• Short iterations
% of development teams that use
• 90%
• 88%
• 85%
• 80%
• 69%
Source: VersionOne, 12th Annual State of Agile Report, 2018

69. As part of their job to improve your organization,
does you manager…?
Practice
• Daily standup
• Sprint/iteration planning
• Retrospectives
• Sprint/iteration review
• Short iterations
% of development teams that use
• 90%
• 88%
• 85%
• 80%
• 69%
Source: VersionOne, 12th Annual State of Agile Report, 2018
How Many Did Walter’s Team Use?

70. As part of their job to improve your organization,
does you manager…?
Practice
• Daily standup
• Sprint/iteration planning
• Retrospectives
• Sprint/iteration review
• Short iterations
% of development teams that use
• 90%
• 88%
• 85%
• 80%
• 69%
Source: VersionOne, 12th Annual State of Agile Report, 2018
All of them!

71. There is a huge potential
to improve performance
by eliminating excessive multitasking.

72. Would you like to be the next Walter?
Walter Stulzer, Executive Director

73. Start with yourself
Individual
Apply Agility
to your life or project

74. How to get started?
Ask yourself a few
questions…
Photo courtesy Andre Mouton@unsplash

75. How to get started?
Ask yourself a few
questions…
• How have you spent
your time?
• How much was
valuable to you?
• How much was
“busy work”?
• How have you been spending
your time?
Photo courtesy anja_r @unsplash

76. If you are not happy
with the answers,
apply Agility to your life

77. https://saat-network.ch/ten-ehttps://saat-network.ch/pbk
Thank you!

78. Would you like to be like Walter?
• Peter Stevens
• Co-Founder
Personal Agility Institute
• peter@saat-network.ch
• PersonalAgilityInstitute.org
• @peterstev
Walter Stulzer, Executive Director

79. Questions?
Photo © leonardo viti - Fotolia

80. Contact
• Information
• https://PersonalAgilityInstitute.org
• Courses, Workshops and Other Events
• https://PersonalAgilityInstitute.org/events/