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Summary:
Who gets to say what an agile transformation should look like?
Who should play a leading role in setting system-optimizing goals for a big organizational change?
Who should take a main seat at the table, where the real products defined?
Of course, the business people!
Business agility is paramount to success.
The ability of the business to ‘turn on a dime for a dime‘ is critical for organizational adaptiveness.
But of course, the adaptiveness of a business alone is not sufficient to achieve success. Many other organizational structures should be striving to become more adaptive in unison with the business: HR, budgeting, site strategies, R&D, vendor management, etc. Altogether, this is referred to as eco-systemic (a.k.a. organizational) agility – united and indivisible, and this is what Gene Gendel is going to talk about in this session.
Video File / Presentation File
Please take a minute and click here to check out Gene’s Executive Training & Coaching Workships & Webinars.
Takeaways:
- Organizational STRUCTURE – is the 1st Order Factor (Variable) that has an impact on everything else in an ECOSYSTEM: behaviors, norms, values, principles, policies
- Business Agility, is not a sandbox or get-away playground for “non-technical” people that also “wanna do agile”. It is NOT agile for NON-IT
- True business agility elements that matter and make your business more adaptive, must be identified at a very early stage
- Business Agility, must be treated, as a part of the overall Organizational Agility, not as an alternative or opposition
About the Speaker:
Gene Gendel is a widely recognized, world-class trainer/instructor/consultant, and independent adviser to senior leadership who is mainly focused on organizational design and product centricity. Gene operates through his company KSTS Consulting, and his clients represent a wide industry spectrum. Gene has dedicated 15 of 20+ years of his professional experience working with companies of various sizes and lines of business, helping them improve internal dynamics, the organizational structure and becoming a better place in which people can work. Gene engages at all organizational levels: senior- and mid-level management, teams, and individuals. In his work, he uses various methods, tools, and techniques to amplify the learning of other people and to ensure that his followers gain autonomy after Gene “coaches himself out of the job”. Over the last decade, Gene’s big focus has been on large financial institutions and consulting companies that struggle with moving away from traditional budgets and portfolio/program/project work decomposition towards more adaptive/flexible budgeting and better products (product-centric, customer-focused development).
Summary:
In this interactive meetup, discover the transformative power of Design Thinking, popularized by IDEO and Stanford’s d.School! This valuable approach drives breakthrough results in product development, project management, and leadership. While “design thinking” isn’t just focusing on design, it is in fact about much more. Like a “leap year” isn’t a year of leaping, Design Thinking goes beyond problem-solving to “thinking from the future.” This mindset uncovers solutions that typical, problem-centric methods often miss.
Design Thinking begins with an obsession with “the customer” and “thinking from the future” rather than getting stuck in present limitations. Instead of using the classic design thinking model Empathize–Define–Ideate–Prototype–Test model, try a simpler cycle: Why? – Who? – What? – How?
- Rather than instinctively jumping to HOW to solve a “problem”, start with WHY – Why is this project important? Dig deeply to find an inspiring purpose beyond profit.
- Next explore WHO – who cares, who’s impacted, who’s involved, and who’s judging the success of your project? The empathy map and persona are powerful tools to bring stakeholders to life.
- Then move on to WHAT – what outcomes would go beyond “solving a problem” to surprise and delight your stakeholders? Use lateral thinking to imagine the future, and then create it.
- Use the power of cross-pollination to explore and expand possibilities beyond the obvious solutions to the truly remarkable.
- Design and rapidly prototype HOW to achieve the desired outcomes and delight your stakeholders. Get feedback early and often from a wide variety of people, then iterate.
Using the WHY – WHO – WHAT – HOW cycle as a guide makes this powerful approach easy to remember and accessible to all project teams, even if you are not an expert in design thinking.
Video File / Presentation File / Article Handout 1 / Article Handout 2
Please take a minute and click here to check out Kimberly’s website for training, speaking and consulting offerings, books, articles, and other resources.
Takeaways:
- Avoid the “Rush to Solution” trap—it’s the quickest way to fail.
- Discover the Big WHY purpose for any project.
- Focus on key stakeholders who determine project “success”.
- Define “success”; and measure that success from the stakeholders’ perspective.
- Embrace necessary risk-taking, learning from mistakes, experimenting, prototyping & “failing forward”.
- Learn to apply this powerful approach to any project—even those that seem “impossible”!
About the Speaker:
Kimberly Wiefling is the founder of Wiefling Consulting, a Silicon Valley-based global consultancy. A physicist by education, she recognized long ago the crucial role of human skills – what her engineering friends sometimes call “the touchy, feely crap”. Kimberly enables managers to become leaders and groups of people to become a true team, who can achieve TOGETHER what would be impossible to achieve alone. She has worked with companies from startups in Silicon Valley to the Global 1000, including over 50 globalizing Japanese companies, some of which are household names.
Kimberly has worked with people from over 50 different countries. Her book, Scrappy Project Management, has gotten her invited to speak to audiences globally, and she has eight other books in her collection that she created with other authors who share their expertise in engaging and accessible ways. She works globally with valued colleagues at Silicon Valley Alliances**.
NEVER BORING! Her keynotes and workSHOCKs, as she calls them, move beyond “teaching”. If knowing how were enough we’d all be rich and thin! Kimberly’s events enable people to make meaningful positive changes to overcome the predictable & avoidable leadership, team & organizational culture issues that damage or destroy organizations.
