Opening & Keynote

 

Virtual on Zoom

10:30 am – 11:15 am AEDT (2 Nov)

5:00 am – 5:45 am IST (2 Nov)

7:30 pm – 8:15 pm EDT (1 Nov)

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• Acknowledgment of Country

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Welcome by the Chair of the Agile SIG - Dr. Tiendung (TJ) Le

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About TJ: TJ is a dedicated professional with a strong focus on developing individuals and fostering Agile and Lean methodologies. Serving on the board of the PMI Melbourne chapter since 2019, and leading as chairperson of PMI Agile Special Interest Group for Asia Pacific since 2021, TJ demonstrates his commitment to the project management community.

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An award-winning educator, TJ teaches project management at RMIT University in Melbourne using the Harvard case method. He also supervises doctoral students and conducts research in front-end planning, procurement, and agile project management. Additionally, TJ manages the Master of Project Management program at RMIT.

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Boasting a rich 20-year career that spans industry and academia in locations such as Australia, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam, TJ brings a global perspective to his work. He holds a Master's degree in project management from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

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TJ firmly believes in the transformative power of Agile and Lean methodologies, advocating for these approaches as tools that can enable professionals to make a meaningful impact. He is a certified DASSM and DAVSC.

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Keynote talk - Mark Lines: "Navigating the Future: Agility at Every Level" 

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About Mark: Mark Lines is co-creator of Disciplined Agile with Scott W. Ambler and co-author of several books on Disciplined Agile (DA) including Choose your WoW translated into 8 languages.   He has over 30 years of experience helping organizations around the world to be successful with solution delivery using Agile, Lean, Traditional, and Hybrid approaches.  Mark is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences worldwide.  He lives in Calgary, Alberta in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.

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Keynote: Mark has been helping organizations around the world to achieve measurable improvements in agility since its introduction almost 30 years ago.  In many cases he has been engaged after past attempts at transformation and adoption have failed.  He has seen patterns of failure appear repeatedly.  Indeed, the agile coaching community has been criticized for failing to deliver the promised benefits that truly last.  Despite a generally poor record for our industry, success can be a relatively straightforward endeavour if a disciplined approach is taken. 

In this talk Mark will share why adoptions fail and the keys to lasting, enterprise-wide improvements. 

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Session 1: Empowering the Self: Agile Mindsets and Individual Growth

 

Virtual on Zoom

11:15 am – 1:15 am AEDT (2 Nov)

5:45 am – 7:45 am IST (2 Nov)

8:15 pm – 10:15 pm EDT (1 Nov)

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The first session will explore how personal agility extends beyond mere methodology and enters the realm of mindset. Participants will gain insights into how to foster resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning in their professional and personal lives. Discover tools and strategies to align personal values with Agile principles, promoting self-growth and enhanced performance.

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Opening and introduction by chair - Galen Townson

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About Galen: Galen is a compassionate systems leader with 30 years in strategy execution and complex change programs. He leads project, planning and change practices for Department of Communities WA, and serves on the PMI Board of Directors. An agilist since 1998, he taught MBA project management, and trains DASSM and PMP. Galen’s work and studies include sustainable development, systems and design thinking, positive psychology, and coaching for business agility, lean agile ways of working, purpose, impact and wellbeing.

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Speaker - Sanjiv Augustine: "Create Happiness at Work and Change the World at the Same Time"

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Explore the concepts of fiero and flow as keys to achieving happiness in the workplace. Learn how overcoming challenges can lead to a sense of accomplishment (fiero), while immersing oneself in focused, challenging tasks creates a state of psychological flow. In the context of today’s challenging times, learn to rethink work structures and ways of working to find happiness amidst uncertainties.  Learn how to set up an Agile Value Management Office (VMO) to foster flow and fiero in your organization. Act as a cross-functional team-of-teams, align work to clear goals, prioritize value driven work, and ensure portfolio flow to enhance individual and collective happiness.

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About Sanjiv: Sanjiv Augustine is the Founder and CEO of LitheSpeed, LLC and the Agile Leadership Academy. Sanjiv is an entrepreneur, industry-leading Agile and Lean expert, author, speaker, management consultant, and trainer. With over 30 years in the industry, Sanjiv has served as a trusted advisor to executives and management at leading firms, including Capital One, The Capital Group, CNBC, Comcast, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, General Dynamics, HCA Healthcare, Huntington Bank, The Motley Fool, National Geographic, Nationwide Insurance, Royal Bank of Canada, Samsung, and Walmart.

Sanjiv is the host of the Agile Caravanserai podcast and the author of the books From PMO to VMO: Managing for Value Delivery, Managing Agile Projects, Scaling Agile: A Lean JumpStart, as well as several publications including, Transitioning to Agile Project Management, The Lean-Agile PMO: Using Lean Thinking to Accelerate Agile Project Delivery and Transformational Leadership for Business Agility.

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Speaker - Lena Ross: "Done is better than perfect – the mindset shift that’s hardest to make!"

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In today's fast-paced business world, organizations are constantly seeking ways to stay ahead of the curve and drive innovation. One of the key ingredients to achieving this is cultivating an Agile Mindset, which emphasizes adaptability, collaboration, and a willingness to embrace imperfections. Our data from over 1000 individuals reveals that the mindset shift from perfection to done is one that most people struggle with. Lena will take you through what’s behind that and how you can make that shift easier!

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About Lena: Lena Ross is the co-founder of The Agile Change Leadership Institute and is sought after globally, having been invited to co-deliver the HR Leadership Summit for VMWare in Silicon Valley, USA. She recently presented a series of three sessions on Change is Changing to the Executive Digital Transformation Program audience at the Kellogg School of Management, USA. Lena’s work draws on the latest thinking in change management from areas such as design thinking, future of work, digital, hardwired human behaviour and agile mindset and approaches.

Her experience is complemented by her Master of Business Administration (MBA) qualification, and she applies sound academic and business discipline to the development of practical and innovative solutions.

Lena’s first book Hacking for Agile Change: With an agile mindset, behaviours and practices was released in July 2017, followed by Change Management The Essentials published in February 2020. With Dr Jen Frahm, she co-authored the Agile Change Playbook released in August 2020.

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Speaker - Scott Ambler: ‘Artificial Intelligence for Project Managers: Are You Ready?’

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is finally coming into its own. Technologies such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, driver-assistance, and autonomous robots are clear signs of an AI-driven market shift. AI technologies, in particular machine learning (ML), are being applied in all sectors of the economy.  Your organization is likely to soon be running projects to apply and even develop AI if it isn’t already doing so. Are you ready?

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About Scott: Scott Ambler is the Consulting Methodologist with Ambysoft Inc., leading the evolution of the Agile Data and Agile Modeling methods. Scott is an international keynote speaker and the (co-)author of 28 books. Scott was the (co)-creator of PMI’s Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit and helps organizations around the world to improve their way of working (WoW) and ways of thinking (WoT).

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Speaker - Joshua Barnes: Does your mindset improve the flow of value delivered to customers?

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Delivering value continues to increase in complexity and is more digital than ever. Your mindset and the mental model shared across your team, your value stream, and your organization are imperative for success in delivering value to customers. This session looks at examples of observed mindsets and how they need to change.

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About Joshua: Joshua Barnes is the founder and owner of Process Mentors, a PMI ATP and Consulting Partner. Over the past two decades, Joshua and his consultancy have had a breadth of engagements, including culture change, improved productivity and quality, and focusing on the fewest things that significantly impact people, performance, and outcomes. His superpower is helping to identify options for solving complex problems.

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Panel discussion 

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Closing by chair 

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Session 2 - Synergy in Action: Building Agile and Collaborative Teams

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Virtual on Zoom

2:30 pm – 4:30 pm AEDT (2 Nov)

9:00 am – 11:00 am IST (2 Nov)

11:30 pm (1 Nov) – 1:30 am EDT (2 Nov)

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In this session, we will dive into the world of team agility in this engaging session, where we will explore how to cultivate a dynamic, responsive, and cohesive team environment. Learn how to implement Agile methodologies to enhance collaboration, promote shared decision-making, and adapt to ever-changing demands. Gain actionable insights from industry leaders on how to build high-performing, Agile teams that thrive on synergy and innovation. 

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Opening and introduction by chair - Dr Jen Frahm

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About Jen: Bio: Dr Jen Frahm is the co-founder of The Agile Change Leadership Institute and builds change capability in organizations. She is a global expert on organisational change, communication and transformation, a tamer of ambiguity, speaker of truths and solver of problems. A sought-after speaker she is known for being at the frontier of business agility and change. She is the author of Change. Leader – The changes you need to make first (2021) and Conversations of Change: A guide to workplace change (2017), and co-author of The Agile Change Playbook (2020). She has designed and delivered change across multiple industries and professions, from wine sales to wedding dresses, veterinary products to energy retailers, nuns and engineers, big banks, small IT companies, publicly listed, privately owned and non-profit organizations, and across twenty-eight countries. She now lives and works on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung (Naarm / Melbourne), Australia.

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Speaker - SoHyun Kang: "Project Managers: Key Drivers of Digital Transformation"

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SoHyun Kang will deliver a talk with focus on the critical role that Project Managers play in driving transformation and creating value. Through her presentation, SoHyun will share insights into the latest trends and best practices in project management in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape.

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About SoHyun: SoHyun Kang is the Regional Managing Director of PMI’s Asia Pacific region. SoHyun is responsible for growing markets and delivering positive values to individuals, organizations, and societies in the Asia Pacific region.

In 2014, she joined PMI to establish the PMI Asia Pacific office in Singapore. Since then, she has led teams for chapter engagement, volunteer development, corporate engagement, channel sales, marketing & communications, and events.

With close to 20 years of experience in professional association management, SoHyun previously led the development of regional growth strategies and implementations for growing communities of MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table) and ISPE (International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering) in the Asia Pacific region.

SoHyun holds a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from Korea University and graduated executive program at the National University of Singapore. She is a certified PMP (Project Management Professional) and DASM (Disciplined Agile Scrum Master). SoHyun lives in Singapore with her husband and daughter.

 

Speaker - Horia Slușanschi: Balancing Conflict and Consensus: Navigating Struggles in High-performance Team

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When everyone in the team is always in consensus (or apathetic), we’re at risk of missing key opportunities and risks hiding in blind spots. When the team is always clashing ideas, we’re at risk of functional and personnel churn. How might we steer a balanced course towards ever increasing performance at delighting customers and claiming joy in work? Join this session for some ideas on healthy conflict navigation.

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About Horia: "My purpose is to inspire people to delight customers while claiming joy in work. I believe coaching and mentoring are about building awareness and effectiveness. In my experience, the art of creating lean and agile enterprise ecosystems requires developing a contagion of curiosity and experimentation. In this spirit, I relentlessly pursue excellence and harmony through deliberate practice in all aspects of life."

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Speaker - Naveen Nanjundappa: Harmonizing Agile Collaboration: Cultivating Team Unity and Forging a Shared Vision

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In the ever-evolving landscape of project management, the Agile methodology has emerged as a powerful force for fostering collaboration, adaptability, and innovation. However, the true potential of Agile can only be realized when teams are united in purpose and vision. This conference talk will delve into the critical elements of Agile collaboration, exploring how to nurture team unity and co-create a shared vision for project success. Join us to uncover practical strategies and insights that can empower your teams to thrive in the Agile environment.

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About Naveen: Well known for his unique teaching style, Mr. Naveen Nanjundappa has over 20 years of service in IT industry, with experience in most of the standard roles of software development life cycle such as developer, tester, leader, manager of projects and products. He was introduced to XP & Scrum in 2005. Following his passion for coaching, he has spent last 8 years coaching agile transformation, Scrum teams, trained over 4000+ people from various organizations. Expertise in Scrum, Leadership Agility, Organizational Agility, Process Agility, Team Agility, Product Management & Project Management.

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Speaker - Dipesh Pala: Secret ingredients for achieving Organisational Agility

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Most of the world’s largest organisations are attempting an enterprise Agility transformation but not all are succeeding. Dipesh will be drawing upon more than a decade of Agile transformation experiences across multiple organisations around the world and share real-life case studies and insights to provide clear implications for where to focus your efforts to unleash the full potential of your Agile teams.

With a special focus on Executive teams, Dipesh will illustrate the key things that Agile Leaders and Executives need to do differently. You will be inspired by knowing what serves to catalyse and nourish progress, and what does the opposite, in the journey towards Organisational Agility.

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About Dipesh: Dipesh Pala is a thought leader in the Agile space with nearly 30 years of lived experience across a variety of industries. Over the last decade, Dipesh has led IBM’s transformation journey to grow the Agile capability from ground up across the Asia Pacific region and pursues his passion for enabling organisations of all sizes to optimise solution delivery through the pragmatic use of Agile, Lean and traditional methods.

 

Dipesh has coached over 3000 Agile practitioners and has been instrumental in rolling out Agile at scale in many organisations across multiple countries including Australia, NZ, UK, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia & China.

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Dipesh is also the co-founder of two unique and exciting EdTech enterprises, where he has weaved in Agile ways of working and thinking into the DNA of these ventures. The first being Dreamcity, which offers a high-tech environment for children to try out their dream jobs in a life-like world, empowering them to be better global citizens of tomorrow. More recently, Dipesh co-founded MindFlight7 providing first of a kind virtual reality-based programs that have already helped over 30,000 high school students to make more informed decisions around their subject selection and subsequent future career direction.

A keen advocate of simplicity, Dipesh offers simple, practical yet powerful ways to address the challenges team members and managers in Agile environments face today. He continuously pushes leaders and their teams beyond the practices and principles to take a step further into their Agile journey.

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Panel discussion 

 

Closing by chair 

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Session 3 - Leading the Change: Organizational Agility for a Dynamic World
 

Virtual on Zoom

5:30 pm – 7:15 pm AEDT (2 Nov)

12:00 pm – 1:45 pm IST (2 Nov)

2:30 am – 4:15 am EDT (2 Nov)

Session 3 will be virtual on Zoom and live at The Oxford Scholar Hotel in Melbourne. In person networking will follow the live event at the same venue. Attendees will need to register separately for the live in person event.

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Live at The Oxford Scholar Hotel (Melbourne) (see Networking for further info)

5:30 pm – 7:15 pm AEDT​

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The final session will provide a comprehensive view of agility at the organizational level. Explore how businesses can become more responsive, resilient, and customer-focused by embracing Agile principles. Participants will learn from organizational leaders who have successfully implemented Agile strategies, gaining knowledge on aligning strategic goals with agility, fostering an Agile culture, and driving continuous innovation. Navigate the complexities of today's business landscape with the insights and tools needed to transform your organization into an Agile powerhouse. 

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Opening and introduction by chair - Peter Lam

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About Peter: Peter has designed, led and embedded some of the largest and most complex Ways of Working and Agile transformations in Australasia. The kind of roles he has worked in recently include: Head of Projects, Head of Delivery, Centre of Expertise (COE) Lead (Ways of Working, Program Delivery), Program Manager and Enterprise Agile Coach.

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Speaker - Wolfram Mueller:“How to get the top and all middle managers on board – navigating the maze of yes”

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Agile transformations often stagnate at the team level due to a lack of genuine support from top and middle management. This talk, pertinent for everyone engaged in bringing the organization forward, will delve into strategies for securing essential buy-in across all managerial tiers to ensure a truly agile organization. Focusing on speaking the language of business for top management and self-facilitated motivation for middle managers, we explore a pathway through the maze of building-in all managers so that they drive the agile transformation, turning potentials into definitive bottom-line results.

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About Wolfram: Wolfram Müller is internationally known as a speaker, author, and expert on agile self-organized changes based on the "Theory of Constraints." As early as 1987, while studying and later as head of the PMO at 1&1 Internet AG, he discovered the fun of fast projects. Since 2006, he has made this fun, and his many years of expertise are available to others as a consultant: More than 50 companies, from start-ups to medium-sized businesses to corporations with 6,500 employees from all industries, have benefited from his knowledge and methods to date. Whether in the automotive sector, special mechanical engineering, IT, or medical technology. Companies such as Festo, Endress+Hauser, Megger, Otto Fuchs, and Bosch swear by his expertise. The results are always similar: at least +50% more projects with the same resources as well as a reduction in project lead time of 25-50% within a few weeks.

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Speaker - Aldo Rall: Success in Lean and Agile Governance: Introducing Adaptive Oversight

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Our usual oversight and governance functions have been finding themselves at odds, puzzled and challenged by the often messy solution delivery tradeoffs when using modern work practices with agility at scale, in a more highly volatile world.  This talk will explore some alternative ways of creating synergy between the governance and delivery communities. We propose a few specific ways of focusing attention in the oversight function, so that it may become more effectively adaptive in situations of high volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

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About Aldo: Aldo finds joy in helping teams and organizations solving problems as a Leadership Catalyst, Change Navigator and Practicing Enterprise Agile Coach. He is keen to pragmatically developing solutions to wicked problems with others and doing this by blending his deep skillset and experience through collaborative design, implementation, evolution, and troubleshooting unique strategies.

Aldo has practiced, mentored, coached, and consulted across various domains including value stream management, enterprise agility, leadership development, organizational and people change management, lean-agile delivery, complex adaptive systems, service design, and lean-agile governance and oversight.

 

Aldo has been a member of the PMI Disciplined Advisors council since its inception as well as previously a member of the DA Advisory Council before DA's acquisition by the PMI. Aldo has been an active contributor to the development of the DAVSC certification and is one of the DAVSC instructors accredited by PMI.

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Speaker - Alicia Aitken: Building the Organisational Agility Muscle - a Journey at ANZ

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Alicia will share with us her journey at ANZ as both she and the organisation have worked to build the muscle of organisational agility. She will share with us how the ways of working, organisational behaviours and processes have worked together to drive value delivery from projects and the role she’s played as a change leader.

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About Alicia: An executive with international experience and a proven track record of establishing and growing businesses and executing on strategy having founded, grown and sold a number businesses before taking on a range of roles in publicly listed companies and the private sector.

Non-executive director and advisory board member for Joyous, Cloudfloat, Pioneera, OPV, Astrolabe Group and ICCPM

A globally-recognised thought leader in project management practices specialising in investment, delivery and risk management of projects in complex environments including Infrastructure, Aerospace & Defence, Telecommunications, Banking and Technology.

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Speaker - Evan Leybourne

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About Evan: Evan has over 15 years in business leadership and a proven track record of innovation. He is the Founder and CEO of the Business Agility Institute; an international membership body to both champion and support the next-generation of organisations. Companies that are agile, innovative and dynamic - perfectly designed to thrive in today’s unpredictable markets. His experience while holding senior leadership and board positions in both private industry and government has driven his work in business agility and he regularly speaks on these topics at local and international industry conferences. As well as leading the Business Agility Institute, Evan is also the author of Directing the Agile Organisation (2012) and #noprojects; a culture of continuous value (2018).

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Panellist - Niall McShane

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About Niall: "To sum up what I offer as a professional I have this sentence. Performance with purpose through Agility. Essentially, I am a performance coach who works with agile systems to enable them to deliver value to organisations and the wider society. To enable organisational agility, I advise on how to adopt a modern way of working together with the appropriate organisational design BUT the only way to get high performance operational delivery is through the people doing the work; this is where I shine! In my work I bring together all these components (people, process, practices and purpose) to optimise the performance of an agile system; getting it humming, delivering and releasing value often. What fuels my work is reconnecting the people in the system to their professional purpose and the outcomes the organisation seeks; this more than anything drives positive change into an organisation's processes and culture."

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Panel discussion 

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Closing by chair 

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Closing

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Virtual via Zoom

7:15 pm – 7:30 pm AEDT (2 Nov)

1:45 pm – 2:00 pm IST (2 Nov)

4:15 am – 4:30 am EDT (2 Nov)

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Live at The Oxford Scholar Hotel (Melbourne)

7:15 pm – 7:30 pm AEDT

• Closing remarks by Chair of the Agile SIG - Tiendung Le

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Networking

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Live at The Oxford Scholar Hotel (Melbourne)

7:30 pm – 9:00 pm AEDT