Live, from the studio in Loosdrecht: Agile@Scale Global. An event organized for people not just interested in working agile, but at scale – with hundreds of employees at the same time. Hosted by Eelco Rustenburg and Laurens Bonnema, over 50 participants from all over the world took in presentations, breakout room workshops and roundtable sessions, and enjoyed some comic relief during PowerPoint Karaoke.

If you’re a Dutch citizen and you have a mortgage, there’s a reasonable chance that your case file runs on a Florius platform. To reduce time-to-market and increase customer centricity, the company put together its first Agile Release Train about three years ago. Several prize-winning innovations later, there’s reason for SAFe Agilists Maartje van der Veen and Patrick Wijsman to look back and share the learnings at Agile@Scale.

Agile for hardware manufacturers? No way, we used to say. The interdependencies involved in physical product development are too rigid; development takes too much time to turn on a dime, we used to say. Until today: consultants Ali Hajou and Davar Azarmi explain why, how and when they will be offering our new course!

At this year’s upcoming Agile for Hardware conference hosted by Gladwell Academy, Herbert Schönebeck from Co-Improve is planning an interactive workshop where he will offer a deep-dive into the typical problems encountered during an Agile transformation.

Lighting brand Signify is big in hardware and software development – understandably so, considering recent software-heavy innovations in lighting solutions. Inevitably, sensible practices from one development type creep into the other at the company. Hence the recent embrace of SAFe by an ambitious group of hardware engineers, and an upcoming presentation that’s bound to raise a few eyebrows.

The experienced ASML Agilists Tanya Kudchadker and Wendy Versteeg are presenting together at the Agile for Hardware event. Here, they prelude on their contribution: applying Agile ways of working to the development of hugely complex lithography machines that cost billions to make.

“If established developers want to learn how start-ups design new products these days, come to us,“ says Daan Geldermans. He’s a founder at SKOON, a start-up that’s pioneering in large containerized batteries that can replace diesel generators. “We’re doing everything ourselves, and it gives us exactly the flexible approach that’s so much in demand.”

“I’m not about to ditch old-fashioned project management,“ assures Arjan Tuinhout, senior project manager at the Smart Antenna Solutions product line for NXP, global champion in semiconductors. “But after Scrumming pulled my team through some nasty timeframes, I’m convinced Agile can add to hardware development, too.”

Pioneering Agilist Robin Yeman has been exploring Agility at defense hardware manufacturer Lockheed Martin since 2002. She prefaces her upcoming contribution to the Agile for Hardware conference on 1 July with an offer: “I have several projects I could discuss. How about I give you three options, and readers can choose which one they like?”

Andres Jansen updates the agenda for November 12^th, the RTE Summit 2019. As chairman of the RTE Summit 2019, Andres Jansen is certain that this year’s edition on 12 November of 2019 will be even better than the last one. “We’re circling the speakers list, admiring the venue and building the social program. Not wanting to be pinned down by a theme, we’ve nonetheless listed several clear topics for the event. It’s exciting!” 

As one of the very few SAFe Program Consultant Trainers in the world, Eelco Rustenburg has become an authority on company-wide Agility. Here, he explores his intended keynote for Agile Munich on May 8^th: a concise review of the specific challenges for several important supporting functions. PM/PO, Finance, and HR: to each their own hurdles to jump.

Ralph Hofman is an experienced consultant in digital transformation. He’s worked with leading industrial manufacturers such as ASML, NXP, JDE and many others. And today, he’s excited. “The Agile way of working has been out of reach for much of the non-software industry for decades. Now, it’s slowly making up to change the history of industry. With this event, we’re bringing it to them.” 

Guido Wiggerink is transformation consultant at Dr. Kraus & Partner – a consultancy firm that has change management itself as its fascinating area of focus. He explains why it was evident for his company to adopt Agile Munich as Gold Partner – and what he hopes to witness at the event on May 8^th.

Keynote speaker Jutta Eckstein’s recent book ‘Company-wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Spaces & Sociocracy’ aims to bring Agile principles beyond the software development core – which aligns neatly with our focus on the supporting functions at Agile Munich 2019. She chose not to add yet another framework to the already brimming pool of Agile-ish intellectual property, but rather sifts through what’s out there, tests its merits, and builds a better beast from it.

Most people know that the principles underpinning Agile were born in software development. Niels Pfläging argues that those principles should have been broadened long ago, and that they need to be scaled up to reach beyond their initial domain. ‘Agilists have been somewhat selfish in that respect. The BetaCodex movement and OpenSpace Beta address the gap.”

Gladwell Academy supports South African education through the Kwasa Foundation.

Joining us for this article is Natalie Warnert, an experienced SPC and Agile trainer who also set up the movement ‘Women in Agile’, a US-based non-profit agency that aims to increase the impact women can make on spreading Agile ways of working. We are welcoming her as a keynote speaker for Agile Munich. She offered to shed some light on her contribution.

We’re thrilled to be welcoming Patricia Kong from Scrum.org who will both lead a workshop and make a keynote contribution to Agile Munich. While Patricia’s workshop will be about Nexus, one of the leading frameworks used to implement Agility at scale, Patricia Kong will also be introducing an entirely new framework by Scrum.org. Evidence-Based Management is a framework developed by Scrum.org to help organizations measure, manage, and increase the value they derive from their product delivery. This will be the focus of her keynote presentation during Agile Munich 2019.

Low-maturity functions – Agile at Scale – those parts of any large-scale organization that have not yet transformed – are the core theme for 2019’s Agile Munich, which will take place on May 8^th-10^th in Munich, Germany. We asked Chairman and conference curator Nils Oud, whose consultancy firm Incrementor will be hosting with Gladwell Academy, to outline the event.

It’s a wrap – the 2018 edition of the RTE Summit 3.0 of November 13^th was a resounding success. Here is an overview of the highlights as we saw them at Gladwell Academy; if you attended, you will doubtlessly have your own memorable moments to add.