Scrum Breakfast June: A new management paradigm?

“In the 21st century, there will be two kinds of company. — Only two? — Only two: Those who delight their customers and those who do not. The former will flourish and prosper. The rest will stagnate and eventually die.”

With these thoughts, Steve Denning launched a discussion about the purpose of the modern enterprise at the Washington Gathering, ‘Revolutionizing the World of Work.’ His arguments: Large enterprises are dysfunctional. Government is dysfunctional. Health care is dysfunctional. The causes can be found in traditional command and control based management. Scrum, Agile and Lean Values and Principles (together with a few others) have formed that basis of thriving new enterprises.

I attended the Gathering as a practice partner. In that role, I contributed an exercise which demonstrated dramatically how Agile principles improved organizational performance and value creation. More importantly, I learned a lot about how some organizations successfully adapted, why many fail in the attempt, and what you can do to change your company for the better.

What would your company be like if Agile values permeated the organization all the way to the top? How would your work relationships change if delighting the customer became your company’s primary goal? Would you like your company to be one of those that thrive in the 21st century?

This Scrum Breakfast is for everyone who wants to make their workplace a better place! I’ll present some of my key learnings from the Washington Gathering and hope to start a discussion on transforming a daunting task into an achievable vision.

When: Wednesday June 1, 2011, 8.00 to 11.00
Where: SwissICT, Vulkanstrasse 120, 8048 Zürich
This discuss will be held in German.
More Info and Registration: SwissICT

Other Upcoming Talks:

• The Zurich Chapter of the PMI is hosting an evening on Scrum and Agile. I’ll be speaking on Scrum and Agile: A Different Approach to Project Management. Monday, June 27
  Info and Registration
• I’ll be co-hosting an Open Space on Agile Contracting with Heitor Roriz Filho, a visiting CST from Brazil. Friday, June 24.
  Info and Registration