Speaking
I've been presenting at agile and software conferences around the globe for more than 20 years. My talks draw on real delivery experience and real data, with plenty of room for the audience to work through their own problems.
Keynotes
45 to 60 minutes for a full conference audience, built around a story and a model people can take home.
Conference talks
45 to 75 minutes on a focused topic, usually with an exercise or two to keep the room engaged.
Workshops
90 minutes to a full day of hands-on work, including simulations like the Little's Law game.
Signature talks
Each can be tailored for a keynote, a talk, or a workshop. See all talks by topic.
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Managed Evolutionary Change
In today's dynamic business landscape, organizations face the constant need to adapt and evolve to stay ahead. Traditional change management approaches often fall short in addressing the complexities and uncertainties associated with continuous improvement.
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The Foundation of Business Agility: Feedback Loops
At the core to any agile approach is the ability to manage for uncertainty. This is only possible through a process of continuous learning which requires active feedback loops. Linear approaches are doomed to fail in a world of uncertainty. Feedback incorporates new knowledge which enables…
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Is your Strategy a Bucket or a Filter?
One of the biggest challenges for many organizations is that they have too many good ideas and are unable to fully staff all of them. A good strategy will act as a decision filter to help with portfolio prioritization. But too often strategies behave more like buckets than filters, and all new…
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From Product Discovery to Product Delivery - a Real Life Example
In this talk called "From Product Discovery to Product Delivery - A Real-Life Example", Todd will dive into the product journey of creating a new training class product called "Scrum Better with Kanban", developed by Kanban University and how they took it from the initial market assessment to the…
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Dealing with Resistance
How often do we hear the familiar cries of frustration? But resistance is always present. And wishful thinking has a terrible track record of making it disappear. Instead of hoping for change, we must develop effective strategies to address and navigate resistance.
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Performance Reviews that Don't Suck
Many in the agile community suggest abandoning performance reviews, but few offer suggestions for alternatives. A large percentage of software developers work in an enterprise environment where performance reviews are mandated. What if you could do performance reviews that will honor agile values…
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Think in Systems, Deliver at Scale
Regulated, high-capital environments often see local optimization due to excessive constraints while the broader system stalls. We present a real-world AI deployment for real-time optimization of oil wells to show how shifting from local to system-level and Agile/Lean thinking unlocked learning,…
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Managing Flow in the Age of AI (podcast)
In this podcast conversation, Todd Little looks at how AI is changing the flow of work across the value chain, from product management and project management to development and testing, and what that means for the people and practices involved.
Looking for something older? The full archive has every presentation since 1998, with abstracts, slides, and videos where they exist.
For event organizers
Feel free to use this bio and headshot in your program.
Todd Little is a Kanban University Distinguished Fellow and an Accredited Kanban Trainer. He has been developing or leading the development of software for over 40 years, with executive roles as Chairman at Kanban University, Vice President of Product Development for IHS, and Director of Software and Technology for Landmark Graphics, a division of Halliburton. He is a founding member and past President of the Agile Leadership Network, has served on the Board of Directors of both the Agile Alliance and the Agile Leadership Network, and was a co-founder and Conference chair for several of the Agile20XX conferences. Todd is a co-author of the book “Stand Back and Deliver: Accelerating Business Agility,” Addison Wesley.