Simon Hayward is an honorary professor at Alliance Manchester Business School in the UK and author of The Agile Leader and Connected Leadership. He is also Global Lead for Leadership and Culture at Accenture’s Talent & Organization/Human Potential practice. In this episode, Hayward outlines challenges before leaders who seek to engage people in radical change – often the case in large-scale agile transformation. COVID has undoubtedly had a hand in worker expectations, and it offers leaders the opportunity to move their business from being just connected to becoming “omni-connected.”

“When organizations combine the digital and technological with the human and cultural, then that combination becomes particularly powerful. And leaders have a disproportionate impact on the way the culture operates and the behaviors in the organization.”

Accenture’s William Rowden hosts.

Learn more: - Accenture Research "From Always Connected to Omni-Connected" https://www.accenture.com/cr-en/insights/strategy/organizational-culture

Julian Mancia is interested in helping humans get out of their own way, specifically when it comes to business innovation. As a Director of "What If! Innovation," part of Accenture, Mancia is excited by nebulous projects that might terrify others. For example, helping companies break into the competitive snack market or doubling growth in five years. How does he do it? With adaptive strategies.

Accenture’s Allia DeAngelis hosts.

Lisette Zounon is passionate about building quality into everything she does. A quality engineering leader with over 15 years of experience, Zounon is agile at work and at home, whether she’s planning her wedding or helping teams deliver excellent products. Her stories inspire the person in each of us that wants to make the world a better place in big ways (e.g., bringing breast cancer care to rural West Africa) and small (e.g., mentoring a young female professional on the verge of quitting the industry).

Accenture’s Ryan Keawekane hosts.

Learn more: - https://www.zsquare4thecure.org/ - #UpYourConfidence podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upyourconfidence/id1518304276

The world of work has irreversibly changed. As the CEO for Institute Agility, Neville Poole is actively making space for people-centric work experiences. Physical workplaces now serve to bring people together to do what they cannot do remotely: connect, align on values and be creative. What’s more, people want their work to be meaningful, especially the next generation of workers. Neville shares her experiences both as an executive in Tech as well as a mother of two teenage girls with big dreams.

“This generation places a lot of value on impact… and impact doesn’t mean increase revenue by 20% or work 40 hours a week.”

Accenture’s Ryan Keawekane hosts.

Learn More: • “Getting to Equal: Gender Parity in the Workplace” with Neville Poole https://open.spotify.com/episode/2mptreWZWjhtiBlYMQdMid?autoplay=true • https://instituteagility.com/

Agile began in software but has evolved to impact every part of the business. Now business agility is seen as a way for organizations not just to create better products but also to run more effectively overall — regardless of what comes their way. Our guests discuss the evolution to business agility as we see it today.

Jason Novack is the global lead of the Accenture Business Agility practice (formerly Accenture | SolutionsIQ), and Evan Leybourn is the founder and CEO of the Business Agility Institute. They share what they are seeing in the world both from a business perspective (a greater interest in bringing agility into governance and portfolio management) and a human perspective. As Leybourn puts it, “We spend more time working than any other part of our life … If work isn’t one of the best parts of our life, that’s a waste of human potential.”

Accenture’s William Rowden hosts.

Who do you turn to to celebrate or to commiserate? When Apriel Biggs started her career 15 years ago, she didn’t have a community of agilists who shared her experiences, other Black and Brown people to share her highs and lows with. So Biggs started Blagile, an organization dedicated to elevating Black and Brown voices in agile. In this episode, she shares her journey and the help she got along the way in hopes of inspiring young agilists today.

Accenture’s Alalia Lundy hosts.

Learn more: - Blagile.com - Reach out to Apriel Biggs if you would like to guest on the Blagile podcast at [email protected].

Abiodun “Abby” Osoba has tirelessly been creating a community of agilists based primarily out of Lagos, Nigeria, through her commercial and non-profit efforts. Osoba is the founder of the Agile Advisor Africa, co-founder of the Remote Agile Workspace (RAW) as well as one of the creators of the Agile Contracts Manifesto. She shares her journey, her experiences and her vision for business agility in Nigeria and beyond to Africa and the world.

There isn’t a single playbook or recipe for success, but one thing is certain: while scaled agile done well can turn into business agility, they aren’t the same thing. In his new book "The 6 Enablers of Business Agility," Karim Harbott shares his experience helping getting people and clients to think beyond just (software/team-level) agile to business agility. Harbott’s six enablers highlight the multifaceted, holistic approach required for business agility.

Accenture | SolutionsIQ’s Allia DeAngelis hosts.

Learn more: https://www.6enablers.com/ - [email protected]

Self-identified “agile unicorn” Jackie Chambers de Freitas rarely sees others like her in her work as a VP of technology transformation and executive coach. In this episode, she shares how her uniqueness as a Black woman working in agile can be both a boon and a burden. Mixed in with her own challenges are the general challenges involved with bringing business agility to organizations. De Freitas mentions the “dirty little secret in agile”: agilists are champions of change – but change is tough. It can take a toll on your mental health, both those who are changing and those who are helping to change.

Accenture | SolutionsIQ’s Allia DeAngelis hosts.

Facilitation involves “removing obstacles to contribution, connection and equity.” This is at the center of our guest Adam Kahane’s book “Facilitating Breakthrough.” Kahane argues that facilitating isn’t just trying to get people to do things. He discusses what he calls “transformative facilitation” – facilitating in ways that brings in both individual and collective perspectives to move forward together without leading to fragmentation or rigidity.

Accenture | SolutionsIQ’s Allia DeAngelis hosts.

Learn More: - Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together (https://reospartners.com/facilitating-breakthrough/)

Accenture | SolutionsIQ alumna and former Agile Amped host Leslie Morse is our guest in this episode. Serving as Product Owner for the Professional Scrum Community with Scrum.org has put Morse on a journey to help agilists “drink their own prosecco.” She is finding new ways to improve integrity, empiricism, and what she calls “change fluency” in the agile community. The goal is sense of personal agility that makes us all better able to serve others.

“If we can become fluent in change the same way we are fluent in language, what new might be possible in the world in terms of personal and organizational agility?”

Accenture | SolutionsIQ’s William Rowden hosts.

Learn more - Seven Transformations of Leadership by David Rooke and William R. Torbert: https://hbr.org/2005/04/seven-transformations-of-leadership - Women in Agile podcast series: https://womeninagile.org/podcast/