ThoughtWorks is offering a series of webinars on Continuous Delivery

Most enterprise software development has evolved to a place where releases are infrequent and occur long after features were first conceived. The day of release is a nail-biting affair for which we assemble swat teams and stand ready to scramble and fix the inevitable problems.

This has enormous impact on the businesses that we work for, making us vulnerable to nimble competitors. We are forced to predict (guess) what customers want rather than relying on real user feedback, we can't react to market changes or explore new business ideas quickly, and we end up not building the right thing for our users or at least investing too much money in something where a lighter solution would have sufficed.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Webinar #3
Stop "Doing Agile" Start "Being Agile"

"Eight in ten CEOs expect their environment to grow significantly more complex, and fewer than half believe they know how to deal with it successfully," says a recent IBM study of complexity in business. MIT Sloan School of management reports that agile organizations generate 30% higher earnings per share. The complexity problem and the agility solution are enterprise issues that go beyond agile software development to enterprise agility.

Leading an agile enterprise requires understanding agility from a strategic business perspective and how practices like continuous design and delivery and a mindset of sustainable agility combine to create highly responsive and value-driven IT organizations.

Adaptive leadership is two dimensional: Being Agile and Doing Agile. This presentation will explore those activities that an agile leader or executive must "do," starting with four key levers for change: "Do Less," "Speed-to-Value," "Quality," and "Engage/Inspire." Next, the focus will be on how to "Be" agile by being adaptive, being riders of paradox, exploring, and adopting a facilitative leadership style. This session will explore how Adaptive leadership is critical to transforming IT organizations.

About the speaker

Jim Highsmith, Chief Agile Strategist. Recognized globally as a founder of the Agile methodology and a co-author of the Agile Manifesto, Jim Highsmith is one of the most sought after strategists that businesses turn to guidance during an Agile transformation. For more than 30 years Jim has consulted with IT and software companies globally including the U.S., Europe, China, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Japan, India, and New Zealand, helping them adapt to the accelerated pace of change in increasingly complex, uncertain environments.