Changing the World of Work

Fearless change is about making a difference. In 2002 Todd happened upon an opportunity to make a difference. He met Alistair Cockburn at a conference and learned that Alistair had plans to start an Agile Development Conference. During the conversation, Todd and Alistair came to the realization that this wasn’t just another conference, this was about building a community and changing the world of work.

Todd had some experience running internal conferences at his company and he and Alistair teamed up to deliver the first conference run by the Agile Alliance. The challenges were significant including multiple stakeholders with different objectives. There was a lot of enthusiasm, but the stakeholders had not had not run a conference of this scale. There was also a lot of uncertainty, and that uncertainty created significant tension. Todd leveraged his experience running an internal conference to bring the stakeholders together towards a unified purpose.

That first conference was a huge success doing a bit better than break even financially, but creating a significant buzz and positive experience setting the path for the future. Todd ran the conference for the next 3 years growing the event from 275 attendees to over 1100. Now, 15 years later, the event sells out at 2500 and the agile movement is changing the world of work.

Learning Outcomes

• Create and seize opportunities
• Articulate and stay focused on purpose
• Bound the uncertainty
• Resolve conflict by alignment to purpose