Our program is taking form! We have a great line-up of inspiring speakers and facilitators. We are still talking to further potential speakers and workshop moderators and evaluating proposals. We will continue to share our progress with you to give you an idea of what awaits you at the unFIXcon 23.
At the unFIXcon, this is where we all come together for presentations, impulses, cases – inspiration.
Henriette Wienges loves system thinking and a structure-oriented approach toward organizations. Over and over again she is amazed, at how structures define a great part of the “what”, the “how” and sometimes even the “if” of our work, while helping us to understand our environment, and make it strategically manageable and efficient. And yes – of course, she is working agile and human-centered. Henriette is an experienced systemic Agile and Flight Level Coach. She is the founder of The Elephant in the Room.
As an author, speaker, and founder, Jurgen is helping creative organizations survive and thrive in the 21st century. He offers concrete games, tools, and practices, so you can introduce better management, with fewer managers. He also offers the unFIX model for designing versatile organizations focused on continuous innovation and better human experience.
Jurgen calls himself a creative networker. But sometimes, he’s a writer, speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, illustrator, manager, blogger, reader, dreamer, leader, freethinker, or… Dutch guy. He is the author of the book Management 3.0, which describes the role of the manager in agile organizations; How to Change the World, which describes a supermodel for change management; Managing for Happiness, which offers you practical ideas to engage workers, improve work, and delight clients; and Startup, Scaleup, Screwup, which dives into the major topics that business leaders and entrepreneurs are confronted with throughout the business lifecycle.
Jurgen can help you upgrade the design of your company with more engagement and faster results; He can show you how to become an agile business with better software; He shows you how to creatively manage your company; And he can inspire professionals with a purpose, advocating work-life integration for creative people. Jurgen is CEO of Happy Melly and the unFIX Company and he is co-founder of the Agile Lean Europe network.
In a world captivated by artificial intelligence (AI), where ChatGPT, deep learning, and Large Language Models dominate the headlines, a remarkable transformation is underway. While the debate rages on about job displacement versus job creation, the true impact of AI might lie elsewhere.
It’s time to look beyond the surface. The essence of a complex system lies not in its components but in the dynamic relationships between them. How will AI reshape our collaboration? Traditionally, humans instructed computers, but now we witness machines setting objectives for people. Prepare yourselves for a future revolution in our work methods.
What might change in how people work together? Join us as we delve into the fascinating realm of AI’s influence on our Ways of Working and learn how the unFIX model pattern library may help you survive and thrive by dynamically building your own methods.
Heike Röttgers has more than 25 years of professional experience in international IT and e-commerce companies and has been working in agile contexts and with agile methods for 15 years, e.g. at companies like Yahoo!, TripAdvisor and eBay.
Since 2017, Heike has been a consultant, agile (organizational) coach, and trainer.
As an agile organizational developer, she is currently supporting the digitalization of the railway system of Digital Rail Germany, a sector initiative of DB Netz AG.
As a coach, she primarily supports managers who face new challenges in the context of agile transformations.
Heike is currently spending a year on Crete but usually lives in Berlin Mitte with her partner and daughter and loves to whiz through Berlin on her red Brompton folding bike.
Digitalisation Bahnsystem (DBS) is a fast-growing research and development department of Digital Rail Germany (DB Netz AG).
Since its foundation in 2018, the department has been working with self-organised structures based on holacratic approaches and has thus grown from 20 to approx. 250 permanent employees.
In 2022, it launched a project to adapt the growing structures to a more value-stream-based approach. The unFIX patterns are helping the team to better grasp the complexity of this heterogeneous organisation.
Eckart Zitzler has been Vice-Dean and Head of Research of the Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology since 2019. Before joining the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, he held different research and management positions at ETH Zurich and the University of Teacher Education Berne. As a computer scientist by training, his particular interest today is on organization design and organizational development in the context of universities.
A university stands for a type of organization with a long-standing tradition. On the one hand,
universities are characterized by a high degree of autonomy – the freedom of research and
teaching – and exhibit a high degree of self-organization. On the other hand, they have to
operate within politically set framework conditions which, compared to the economy, may be much tighter and can have a strong impact on daily business. Can a university be unfixed and to what extent does it make sense at all to regard it as an agile, dynamic organization?
Rebecca believes in taking the road less traveled by, being open to successes and failures, and learning from both. As an Agile Coach with a love for Brazil and Ultimate Frisbee, she brings a unique and systemic perspective to her work. Rebecca’s journey started with a degree in Latin American Studies. She enjoyed a successful teaching and training career in Norway and Berlin before discovering her passion for Agile Coaching. She now helps organizations navigate the complexities of Agile methodologies and foster a culture of continuous improvement. Rebecca’s approach is rooted in her love for learning, collaboration, and human connection, and she has earned a reputation as a trusted and respected mentor. Whether on the field or in the boardroom, Rebecca is always eager to challenge herself and those around her to reach new heights.
Join us on the adventure of our amazing tech team stationed in the heart of Berlin, driving innovation for one of Germany’s leading health insurance providers, BKK VBU. Since June 2022, we’ve been implementing the groundbreaking unFIX model. From our unwavering commitment to our ultimate goals, to the challenges we’ve faced and the lessons we’ve learned along the way, we’ve got it all covered. We’re excited to share the progress we’ve made so far on this transformative journey with you.
Our main goal was to improve the financial processes with process-mining software. We started with our buying processes (Order 2 Cash) and the selling ones (Purchase 2 Pay). We rapidly realized that due to the size and heterogeneity of the stakeholders, scrum wasn’t a suitable method anymore. Then I discovered UnFix, which helped me to a great extent to visualize the current organization, our struggles, and how the future could look in different scenarios. In the beginning, we focused on the Base, Value Teams, Forums, and renaming things, like captain instead of Value lead, which found little acceptance. Meanwhile, we are evolving, using more and more new patterns and tools as they are released.
Maarten is a consultant, speaker and trainer. He helps teams to beat the feature factory all over the world. Millions of practitioners have read his best-practice articles on Agile, Scrum and Product Management. He specializes in helping companies to build empowered teams that can discover better ways of delivering value.
Maarten is a frequent speaker at Fortune 500 companies, government organizations and international industry conferences. He has worked with many award-winning start-ups and scale-ups. Maarten is an ambassador and editor at Serious Scrum, the largest Scrum publication on Medium.
When faced with uncertainty, risk, and complexity, our natural response is to focus on what we know and to spend more time talking, analyzing, planning, and predicting. As a result, our plans become filled with speculation and rooted in our imagination. Our plans as an anchor stifle the ability to respond to changes. We become locked into plans that prevent collaboration, learning, and discovery.
Why are approaches like SAFe’s big room planning bound to fail? And what should we be doing instead? In this talk, I will show why instead of starting with overconfident plans, we should start with humble plans that we can polish and adapt as we do the work.
How can we encourage our teams to begin with humble plans? How can we leverage goals and intent to help empower teams and boost teamwork?
The talk will cover concepts like friction, the three gaps model of Bungay, intent, intent-based leadership, humble planning, goals powered by intent, the fog of beforehand, and the fog of speculation.
At the unFIXcon, we will ask you to go on missions sometimes. How often you switch between teams is left to you.
“I need to know what to do!” “I need a plan!” “This is not part of my role!” As a leader, you sigh and might not understand why your team cannot work in a self-organized manner. Possibly, you might not see that your communication might be part of the problem. By changing how you communicate and give feedback, your team can focus on the value stream and the customer. In this workshop, you will learn to use the “Level of Alignments” of the Tight Loose Tight leadership model in your daily work as an ultimate foundation for guiding your team to real self-organization.
Miquel Rodríguez is an experienced trainer, consultant and speaker who has dedicated his career to helping organizations get the most out of their IT projects and teams. As Consulting Director at Netmind, he works with large enterprises to lead organizational improvements and agile transformations.
The way we learn goes beyond assimilating content in a classroom. An annual training plan based on a catalog of courses fails to respond to the development needs of people within an organization. Models based on 70:20:10, cooperative learning methods, neuroeducation principles, etc…. all must be taken into account when designing a training experience with a real impact on an organization. In this workshop, you will design a training initiative using tools such as the Learning Initiative Canvas and models included in the unFIX framework, applying techniques that measure the real impact of training on people and the business.
Feral is a result-oriented Agilist with over eight years of experience in technology, having worked with large eCommerce companies in Japan and Canada. Currently, Feral is standardizing product delivery in the Conversational AI Section at Rakuten. Having lived in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Japan, Feral brings a unique perspective in coaching diverse teams. Outside work, Feral enjoys traveling the world, practicing Japanese pottery, and hitting the boxercise gym.
In this session, you’ll learn active listening and reflection tools to quickly understand your team and environment as a new or seasoned Scrum Master. You’ll connect with new people, distinguish observations from interpretations, and communicate insights with impact. Ideal for those looking to excel in new environments and drive successful outcomes, this workshop will enhance your skills in Agility. Don’t miss the chance to make a lasting impact!
The Product Owner is an established role in agile development. But when it comes to scaling, frameworks like SAFe or LeSS differ in how a Product Owner is viewed. We’ll discuss the ways in which product ownership and requirements engineering can be integrated into an agile organization. Beyond agile frameworks, possible memberships of a product owner in value stream, facilitation, and experience crews will be highlighted. We’ll work out the pros and cons of each of these approaches, their appropriate combinations, and the situations and circumstances in which one approach fits better than others.
As owner and CEO of Ministry Group, Andreas believes that companies need different forms of work organization to survive in the digital age. That’s why he works together with his partners and his team to make Ministry Group a little better every day.
Andreas likes to share his experiences with New Work – as a moderator, speaker, coach and consultant. He regularly leads discussion groups on the topic of digital transformation and, due to his multi-layered experience in this area, is also a sought-after discussion partner for various media such as brandeins, Werben & Verkaufen, NDR, HORIZONT and Capital.
For over 10 years, David Cummins has accompanied the personal and organizational development, agile working, and self-organized teams in the Ministry Group as owner, managing director, mentor and coach.
Now he also accompanies other entrepreneurs, leaders, HR and change teams in leadership development and organizational transformation. With Ministry’s consulting crew, David seeks new opportunities to inspire and help organizations on the path to what he calls a Creating Organization, utilizing the approaches of Impeccable Leadership, Agility, and the unFIX model.
David is an official unFIX Diamond Partner.
unFIX is a pattern library. What does that mean, and what can you do with it?
After a very short introduction, we will explore the patterns for Crew types, Forums, and Bases and experiment with them. Then, you will start modeling your own organization with these building blocks. You will see how this visualization changes how you think about how your organization works and how unFIX gives you a new language to communicate about organization design with your colleagues and partners.
You can continue to work on your model throughout the conference.
At the unFIXcon, these are spaces for exchange and learning that participants can attend according to their interests and needs.
Carolin Adler is an independent consultant for transformation and change management, leadership communication, and business & executive coaching. As an executive in global companies for many years, she shaped topics around (agile) transformation, change, and communication.
Today, Carolin passionately accompanies and manages sustainable change processes in diverse organizations, enabling real transformation. In doing so, she works on all levels (systemic, team, and individuals), with many questions, listening, and a great mix of methods. She shares her experiences and enjoys connecting inspiring people with each other.
Marco Heimeshoff is a trainer, speaker, and software developer from Germany. He is the organizer of KanDDDinsky, a conference about Domain-driven Design and the art of business software, and co-founded the German DDD community in 2013 and VirtualDDD.com in 2019.
Between consulting companies around the globe and building healthcare software, you’ll find him speaking at conferences about DDD, socio-technical systems, and first principles.
Would you like to contribute a case presentation, workshop or other interactive format?
Check out our call for proposals page!
This slot is still being defined and we are still receiving proposals. So far we know the following offerings:
Workshops:
Introduction to the unFIX Patterns for beginners
Case Corners:
those that presented cases in the morning will each have a space where smaller groups can meet with them, ask questions and discuss topics.
In this talk, we will look at key ingredients of successful agile teams and why most agile teams fail. Leadership and hierarchy play a key role in that regard. But how can crews help? Let’s find out together!
At the beginning of almost every domain-driven design journey stands context mapping with its socio-technical relationships. Using various collaborative modeling methods to derive an initial design, companies often get hung up on the first draft and stick with its trade-offs for far too long. Let us ditch the idea of a framework, an architecture, or an agile method that brings us freedom and instead start building our own dynamic set of roles, relationships, and patterns to create and master an ever-changing system. Inspired by the unFIX model by Jurgen Appelo, we will adopt the mindset, extend it to our domain model, and build our own toolbelt, for now and forever.
Jakub has been Agile his entire professional life. He knows no other way and truly loves what he does. He thrives in an environment that enables self-organization. He likes to bend the rules and create working conditions that suit teams individually. He brings his whole self to work and encourages people around him to do the same.
He is a Scrum Master at Ørsted, Poland, enabling the world to run entirely on green energy.
Rhetorical Playground is a workshop/game that allows you to try different presentation approaches, test your creativity, and work with your body and voice. The workshop is run in the spirit of believing that experience and confidence come from the number of repetitions and practice, not from lectures and the number of books read. You will be presenting in front of people you don’t know. You will listen and exchange feedback in short feedback loops to enable more learning. Curious? I will make sure that this workshop is not boring.
Walimbe Parag is an Agile coach originally from India. He has close to a decade of experience in Agile coaching and about 20 years of total IT experience in the healthcare/MedTech, publishing, software, finance, banking, social networking, and dating industry. He has lived, studied, and worked in Germany for close to eight years in the past and has successfully done Agile transformation of multiple large organizations on three continents. He is a programmer at heart with a master’s degree from Hamburg. He has held various leadership roles, including Agile transformation lead, program, and portfolio management. He is especially proud of his role as chief architect for a clinical decision support system. Traveling as a hobby has taken him to about 91 cities in 17 countries.
Jaana is an agile coach, executive coach, systemic organizational consultant, and story developer. She works for companies and public organizations and is a lecturer for leadership and storytelling at different universities. Jaana loves to enable people to work more with more fun, creating connections between humans and developing learning journeys. She is a passionate networker and lives in Hamburg.
The world is in crisis. As agilists, we need to act united and have to overcome differences instead of nitpicking about frameworks. Jaana shares the IDG (inner development goals) approach of engaging from a position of abundance rather than scarcity, working with the enemy for the greater good, getting over yourself to become a bigger person, and organizing sustainable change. #InnerDevelopmentGoals
In his article Let’s Unfix Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), Jurgen Appelo talks about how LeSS and unFiX are “pretty complementary.” After a short introduction to the LeSS framework, you’ll get to explore LeSS organizational design guidelines and how they differ from unFIX. Afterward, we’ll look at several LeSS adoptions (at companies like SAP and BMW) and examine how LeSS was extended with patterns from unFIX and why. The talk will conclude with suggestions on “how to combine LeSS and unFix so that you end up with something strong in product development and organizational design.”
Organizations strive for projects, people strive for actions, consultants strive for tools. Very understandable, because these three are important for implementing change. However, we often deal with them too quickly and too linearly, overlooking important perspectives. In this talk, Lisa specifically challenges tool-focusedness. In her experience, projects, actions, and tools are part of a culture of actionism that keeps companies from becoming more sustainable and successful in the long run. This talk is for anyone who wants to understand what else exists besides tools and how we can use our tools in an even better way.
The most pressing challenges of our time need an urgent paradigm change, which must expand from our current legacy / linear management into what I call non-linear management. This will enable organizations to seamlessly and continuously transform. To do so, the first step is to establish a theory of everything, which should cover all decisions for all organizations, which I present during this talk.
Most agile teams struggle to get “ownership” from their team members. How can we establish an entrepreneur mindset and what benefit would it bring to the teams?
Sharmila Patwardhan will explain explain what entrepreneur mindset is, what steps that teams and management can take to establish entrepreneurship and ownership, and talk about some typical challenges you can face.
To wrap up the day, share our learnings and experiences, and delve into more questions, we will gather in the Base area in a circle around the Fishbowl.
Your contact:
Ministry Group, Team unFIXcon
info@unfixcon.events
