Agile & Beyond 2020

We enjoy having conversations. Who doesn't? We are social animals after all. We like to know more about each other's stories. It is a feature built-in by default. As coaches, it is vital to use this basic instinct to our advantage. The easiest way to influence people is to have a conversation with them. You can use it coaching, mentoring, transformation, or just building a relationship with them. Can you imagine any of the above not to start with a conversation? I can't!

Conversations are two-way streets. The easiest way to have a two-way communication is to ask questions. Questions can be dumb, unrelated, out of ordinary, crazy, or even beautiful. Can they be efficacious too? They can! An excellent communicator knows how and when to use Powerful Questions to make any conversation a mighty one.

Powerful Questions generate curiosity in the listener and stimulate thoughtful conversation. They are usually thought-provoking and challenges the underlying assumptions. Powerful Questions, if asked in the right tone and body language, generates creativity and new possibilities.

Is it hard to ask Powerful questions? It might be. It is not that easy, and indeed not natural for everyone. The good news is that it is something that can be learned, and relatively very easily.

I invite you to join me for a workshop on Powerful Questions. In this workshop, I am going to help you build your muscle to ask more Powerful Questions. I will give you an easy tool to make your questions more powerful, and conversations more enriched. Asking powerful questions will help you build bridges with people, you would become more empathetic with them, and do not be surprised you are going to listen more. Some of the characteristics of a great coach, one might say! Don't you agree?

It All Starts with a Question, a Powerful One!

AgileTO 2020

Kanban is the New Scrum! Failure Transformation Patterns, Similarities, and Learnings

You are in charge of a whole organization or a number of teams. Your ultimate desire is for them to become more productive, which translates into effectiveness and/or efficiency. You would ask yourself which is a golden key here, Kanban or Scrum? Is it an either/or question? Shall you start by practicing Scrum for a while and switch when matured? Is there a golden ratio of Scrum practices v.s. Kanban that makes your transformation successful? Do you find yourself in Scrumfalls? Is Kanban the magic solution? You are telling yourself: It’s time to switch to Kanban. Others have done it, so it must be the magic solution. If that’s you, most probably you are spending now time and money on a new “method” while barely moving the needle. I can assure you It can become successful, it has been done!

 Kanban is the new Scrum these days. Let’s look at the failure modes of adopting Kanban deeper and together. What are the conditions needed for a Kanban method to flourish and find its roots in an organization? What can lead to a successful Kanban introduction compared to Scrum? Are there any fundamental differences between them? How can you make sure if you are moving from Scrum to Kanban, or having the thought of it, to become successful? What are the pitfalls that you want to avoid? Join me in this session to share with you my experience as both Scrum and Kanban coach helping organizations transform. I will be sharing lessons learned and coaching techniques to help organizations and leaders realize the true potential of Kanban.

Metro Toronto .NET User Group 2020

It All Starts with a Question, a Powerful One!

We enjoy having conversations. Who doesn't? We are social animals after all. We like to know more about each other's stories. It is a feature built-in by default. As successful professionals, it is vital to use this basic instinct to our advantage. The easiest way to influence people is to have a conversation with them. You can use it leading, coaching, mentoring, transforming, or just building a relationship with the person you are having a conversation with. Can you imagine any of the above not to start with a conversation? I can't!

Conversations are two-way streets. And the easiest way to have a two-way communication is to ask questions. Questions can be dumb, unrelated, out of ordinary, crazy, or even beautiful. Can they be efficacious too? They can! An excellent communicator knows how and when to use Powerful Questions to make any conversation a mighty one. Powerful Questions generate curiosity in the listener and stimulate thoughtful conversation. They are usually thought-provoking and challenges the underlying assumptions. Powerful Questions, if asked in the right tone and body language, generates creativity and new possibilities. Is it hard to ask Powerful questions? It might be. I can assure you that It is not that easy, and indeed not instinctive for everyone. The good news is that it is something that can be learned, and relatively very easily.

I invite you to join me for a workshop on Powerful Questions. In this workshop, I am going to help you build your muscles to ask more Powerful Questions. I will give you an easy tool to make your questions more powerful, and conversations more enriched. Asking powerful questions will help you build bridges with people, you would become more empathetic with them, and do not be surprised you are going to listen more. Some of the characteristics of a great coach, one might say! Don't you agree?

Workshop on Powerful Questions 

Agile Tour Paris 2019

Kanban is the new Scrum! The Reasons Not to Adopt Kanban

You are in charge of a whole organization or a number of teams. Your ultimate desire is for them to become more productive, which translates into effectiveness and/or efficiency. You would ask yourself which is a golden key here, Kanban or Scrum? Is it an either/or question? Shall you start by practicing Scrum for a while and switch when matured? Is there a golden ratio of Scrum practices v.s. Kanban that make your transformation successful? Do you find yourself in Scrumfalls? Is Kanban the magic solution? You are telling yourself: It’s time to switch to Kanban. Others have done it, so it must be the magic solution. If that’s you, most probably you are spending now time and money on a new “method” while barely moving the needle. I can assure you It can become successful, it has been done!

Kanban is the new Scrum these days. Let’s look at the failure modes of adopting Kanban deeper and together. What are the conditions needed for a Kanban method to flourish and find its roots in an organization? What can lead to a successful Kanban introduction compared to Scrum? Are there any fundamental differences between them? How can you make sure if you are moving from Scrum to Kanban, or having the thought of it, to become successful? What are the pitfalls that you want to avoid?

Join me in this session to share with you my experience as both Scrum and Kanban coach helping organizations transform. I will be sharing lessons learned and coaching techniques to help organizations and leaders realize the true potential of Kanban.

Gatineau Ottawa Agile Tour 2019

The Golden Hammer of Transformation: Culture!

Culture eats change for its breakfast! How many time have you discovered it? Have you noticed any indicators of it? How many times have you blamed the culture?

Isn't culture presented on what people do, say, and act? Studies tell us that people are of good nature. Most people (99% to be exact) do what they believe is right. They don't intend to resist change. They even are willing to help, and maybe they don't know how. They genuinely want to see the transformation becomes successful. They are resourceful as well. One might ask, how come there are many catastrophic stories when it comes to organizational transformation?

Have you heard the famous quote, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? Could it be that we are not looking at transformations with the right perspective? Could it be that we only have, and use a hammer? Maybe we have different types of it, and we don't even notice?


If the above interests you, please join us. Let us share our experiences, and how we moved away from using the "hammer" within organizations. We looked at culture from three different perspectives; Culture as an outcome, Culture as an objective and Culture as a goal. Each can take you to a completely different end states. We are going to share with you what we learned from our experience in transforming one of the biggest departments of one of the top 5 banks in Canada.

Toronto Agile Conference 2019

We enjoy having conversations. Who doesn't? We are social animals after all. We like to know more about each other's stories. It is a feature built-in by default. As coaches, it is vital to use this basic instinct to our advantage. The easiest way to influence people is to have a conversation with them. You can use it coaching, mentoring, transformation, or just building a relationship with them. Can you imagine any of the above not to start with a conversation? I can't!

Conversations are two-way streets. The easiest way to have a two-way communication is to ask questions. Questions can be dumb, unrelated, out of ordinary, crazy, or even beautiful. Can they be efficacious too? They can! An excellent communicator knows how and when to use Powerful Questions to make any conversation a mighty one.

Powerful Questions generate curiosity in the listener and stimulate thoughtful conversation. They are usually thought-provoking and challenges the underlying assumptions. Powerful Questions, if asked in the right tone and body language, generates creativity and new possibilities.

Is it hard to ask Powerful questions? It might be. It is not that easy, and indeed not natural for everyone. The good news is that it is something that can be learned, and relatively very easily.

I invite you to join me for a workshop on Powerful Questions. In this workshop, I am going to help you build your muscle to ask more Powerful Questions. I will give you an easy tool to make your questions more powerful, and conversations more enriched. Asking powerful questions will help you build bridges with people, you would become more empathetic with them, and do not be surprised you are going to listen more. Some of the characteristics of a great coach, one might say! Don't you agree?

It All Starts with a Question, a Powerful One!

Keep Austin Agile 2019

Innovation Through Customer Co-creation

Learn how to co-create with your customers using modern collaboration techniques

To be successful at innovating for your customer, teams need a solid understanding of how to engage and collaborate with their customers and users. It is only then that teams can deliver high impact projects/products that are important to their user base. Embark on a journey and with the latest set of techniques that help teams discover insights sooner and delight their customers faster. Take part in our latest workshop and learn everything you need to know at succeeding in collaborating with your customers. After all, innovation is best served when co-discovered with customers.

Our interactive and fast-paced workshop is based on design thinking, lean startup, and lean UX principles. It is designed to help you uncover better ways of working with your customers and boosting collaboration and creativity on your team. After many iterations and essential feedback, we’ve developed a fun and thought-provoking workshop where you will learn by doing and engaging with real people, working on challenges that will enrich your learning experience.

Innovation Through Customer Co-creation - October 4, 2019

Project Managers United Toastmasters

The Art of Asking a Better Question with Shahin Sheidaei

Conversations are two-way streets. The easiest way to have a two-way communication is to ask questions. Questions can be dumb, unrelated, out of ordinary, crazy, or even beautiful. Can they be efficacious too? They can! An excellent communicator knows how and when to use Questions to make any conversation a mighty one. We call those questions "Powerful Questions". Powerful Questions generate curiosity in the listener and stimulate thoughtful conversation. They are usually thought-provoking and challenges the underlying assumptions. Powerful Questions, if asked in the right tone and body language, generates creativity and new possibilities.

Is it hard to ask powerful questions? It might be. It is not that easy, and indeed not natural for everyone. The good news is that it is something that can be learned, and relatively very easily.

Shahin invites you to a workshop of Powerful Questions". In this workshop, he is going to help you build your muscle to ask more Powerful Questions. He will give you an easy tool to make your questions more powerful, and conversations more enriched. Asking powerful questions will help you build bridges with people, you would become more empathetic with them, and do not be surprised you are going to listen more. Some of the characteristics of a great coach, one might say! Don't you agree?

YOU WILL LEARN:
• A tool to connect better, and build trustful relationships with the person you are talking to
• How to avoid aksing non-effective questions
• What defines a powerful question
• The three dimension of a powerful question (Construction, Scope, and Assumptions)
• How to become self-aware of yourself not asking a powerful question
• A practical technique to practice powerful questions (pause and rewind)

BIOGRAPHY:

Shahin is the founder and principal coach at Elevate Change Inc. Shahin leads the Personal Elevation Program (PEP) (http://to.sheidaei.com/PEP). PEP focuses on individuals and the elevation of them to their full potentials. Shahin enjoys dealing with fresh challenges, learning new techniques, solving real problems, learning from outcomes, and constantly improving. He is eager to help organizations become a high performing one and achieve their utmost potential. Offering over 13 years of experience Shahin has strong expertise in applying agile and lean values and principles to organizational transformations and personal elevations. He has research and development experience, mid-size level engagement, as well as engagement with top names such as TD Bank, Scotiabank, TELUS, CBC, and SAP. He heavily believes in the value of communities. He is leading the Agile Lunch (www.agilelunch.org) community in his hometown of Toronto and helps with others building them and connecting them. He is also hosting a series of webinars for the Canadians called LeanAgileCan (www.leanagilecan.com)!

The Art of Asking a Better Question with Shahin Sheidaei

Agile & Beyond 2019

The Golden Hammer of Transformation: Culture!

Culture eats change for its breakfast! How many time have you discovered it? Have you noticed any indicators of it? How many times have you blamed the culture?

Isn't culture presented on what people do, say, and act? Studies tell us that people are of good nature. Most people (99% to be exact) do what they believe is right. They don't intend to resist change. They even are willing to help, and maybe they don't know how. They genuinely want to see the transformation becomes successful. They are resourceful as well. One might ask, how come there are many catastrophic stories when it comes to organizational transformation? 

Have you heard the famous quote, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? Could it be that we are not looking at transformations with the right perspective? Could it be that we only have, and use a hammer? Maybe we have different types of it, and we don't even notice?

If the above interests you, please join us. Let us share our experiences, and how we moved away from using the "hammer" within organizations. We looked at culture from three different perspectives; Culture as an outcome, Culture as an objective and Culture as a goal. Each can take you to a completely different end states. We are going to share with you what we learned from our experience in transforming one of the biggest departments of one of North America's top bank.

Big Apple Scrum Day 2019

It All Starts with a Question, a Powerful One

We enjoy having conversations. Who doesn't? We are social animals after all. We like to know more about each other's stories. It is a feature built-in by default. As coaches, it is vital to use this basic instinct to our advantage. The easiest way to influence people is to have a conversation with them. You can use it coaching, mentoring, transformation, or just building a relationship with them. Can you imagine any of the above not to start with a conversation? I can't!

Conversations are two-way streets. The easiest way to have a two-way communication is to ask questions. Questions can be dumb, unrelated, out of ordinary, crazy, or even beautiful. Can they be efficacious too? They can! An excellent communicator knows how and when to use Powerful Questions to make any conversation a mighty one.

Powerful Questions generate curiosity in the listener and stimulate thoughtful conversation. They are usually thought-provoking and challenges the underlying assumptions. Powerful Questions, if asked in the right tone and body language, generates creativity and new possibilities.

Is it hard to ask Powerful questions? It might be. It is not that easy, and indeed not natural for everyone. The good news is that it is something that can be learned, and relatively very easily.

I invite you to join me for a workshop on Powerful Questions. In this workshop, I am going to help you build your muscle to ask more Powerful Questions. I will give you an easy tool to make your questions more powerful, and conversations more enriched. Asking powerful questions will help you build bridges with people, you would become more empathetic with them, and do not be surprised you are going to listen more. Some of the characteristics of a great coach, one might say! Don't you agree?


It All Starts with a Question, a Powerful One - Big Apple Scrum Day 2019

Agile Games 2019

Harness Power of Conflict to Improve Your Organization, Your Team, and Yourself!

What's your take on conflict? Is it harmful and needs to be prevented? Does it have a positive aspect
to it; and to be encouraged? Can you imagine relying on conflict to improve a team's performance? Join me to get you to know the Conflict, make friend with it and even co-lead your dreams! Are you personally aware of situations where you or your team members get into conflict? What shall you do about it? Shall all conflicts be treated the same? Are all conflicts resolvable? Are all of them needed to be? What benefits a team can have of being in conflict? What about the organization, conflict at the organization level, can it be helpful at all?

If you are interested about these or is in conflict about the answers to the above questions, please join me for a session on conflict and how to harvest it for the benefit of your team and your organization. In this interactive session, we will go over different types of conflict with you. You will experience a real conflict, and how you respond to it. Would you be compromising, accommodating, competing, collaborating or avoiding? You will then identify your default conflict handling mode. This self-awareness will help you in future conflicts to actively choose to use a conflict handling mode more suited for the situation on hand.

Harness Power of Conflict to Improve Your Organization, Your Team, and Yourself! - Agile Games - April 8 2018

TriAgile 2019

Innovation Through Customer Co-creation

Learn how to co-create with your customers using modern collaboration techniques

To be successful at innovating for your customer, teams need a solid understanding of how to engage and collaborate with their customers and users. It is only then that teams can deliver high impact projects/products that are important to their user base. Embark on a journey and with the latest set of techniques that help teams discover insights sooner and delight their customers faster. Take part in our latest workshop and learn everything you need to know at succeeding in collaborating with your customers. After all, innovation is best served when co-discovered with customers.

Our interactive and fast-paced workshop is based on design thinking, lean startup, and lean UX principles. It is designed to help you uncover better ways of working with your customers and boosting collaboration and creativity on your team. After many iterations and essential feedback, we’ve developed a fun and thought-provoking workshop where you will learn by doing and engaging with real people, working on challenges that will enrich your learning experience.

Innovation Through Customer Co-creation - TriAgile - April 2, 2019

Agile Dialogue Mississauga 2019

Innovation Through Customer Co-Creation

Learn how to co-create with your customers using modern collaboration techniques

To be successful at innovating for your customer, teams need a solid understanding of how to engage and collaborate with their customers and users. It is only then that teams can deliver high impact projects/products that are important to their user base. Embark on a journey and with the latest set of techniques that help teams discover insights sooner and delight their customers faster. Take part in our latest workshop and learn everything you need to know at succeeding in collaborating with your customers. After all, innovation is best served when co-discovered with customers.

Our interactive and fast-paced workshop is based on design thinking, lean startup, and lean UX principles. It is designed to help you uncover better ways of working with your customers and boosting collaboration and creativity on your team. After many iterations and essential feedback, we’ve developed a fun and thought-provoking workshop where you will learn by doing and engaging with real people, working on challenges that will enrich your learning experience.

Innovation Through Customer Co-Creation - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - Agile Dialogue Mississauga

Agile 2018

Community-Driven Change

Many organizations flatten management structure when they transform to agile. It soon becomes obvious that important activities done by managers are still needed. A community can fill these gaps. They can provide morale, governance, learning, and mentorship, recruiting and hiring, mutual support, coordination, sharing, innovation and more! Unfortunately few companies manage to create a strong community. Even fewer empower that community to fill these gaps. This means they are missing the ultimate benefit of community: a strong, empowered community can transform the organization itself! Join Shahin and Shawn in this interactive session to explore communities in organizations. Examine the benefits of building great communities. Learn how to spark the community, and how to support it as it evolves. Hear stories of communities empowered to improve the organization. Learn how to make a community into a driver of positive change.

Agile and Beyond 2018

Community-Driven Change

Many organizations flatten management structure when they transform to agile. It soon becomes obvious that important activities done by managers are still needed. A community can fill these gaps. They can provide morale, governance, learning, and mentorship, recruiting and hiring, mutual support, coordination, sharing, innovation and more! Unfortunately few companies manage to create a strong community. Even fewer empower that community to fill these gaps. This means they are missing the ultimate benefit of community: a strong, empowered community can transform the organization itself! Join Shahin and Shawn in this interactive session to explore communities in organizations. Examine the benefits of building great communities. Learn how to spark the community, and how to support it as it evolves. Hear stories of communities empowered to improve the organization. Learn how to make a community into a driver of positive change.

Agile Games 2018

Modern XP Game

Take part in Modern XP game, a new twist and refined version of “XP Game”, to get a strong understanding of the principles and practices of “agile,” and a robust toolbox. We incorporated feedback after many iterations of facilitating it to make it fun, exciting and thought-provoking for everyone.
Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters are change agents in their organizations. To be successful, they need a strong understanding of the principles and practices of “agile,” and a robust toolbox to help teams onboard and move through their agile journey.
In this session, participants will experience a modern twist on the “XP Game” – a simulation for agile teams first outlined in Extreme Programming Explained (1999). Using the foundational principles of the original XP Game, Modern XP opens the simulation so participants, including non-technical leaders and team members, can gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be part of a high-performing team in a variety of frameworks and orientations, and what to expect (and measure) along the agile learning curve. Through hands-on learning, participants will learn how to build agile capabilities and some tangible tips on how to move through barriers and challenges along the agile learning curve.
After many iterations to many different groups, Shahin and Carlos have refined the exercise, ensuring its accessibility and use for experienced agilists and those new to the field alike. The activity not only provides a necessary educational frame, but participants are encouraged to draw from their experience, and implement the simulation (or elements of it) within their own training program, team lift-off or retrospective activity.

Agile Games 2018

User Stories by Collaboration

What’s most important about a user story? Collaboration! How many times have you heard about INVESTing in user stories, making them SMARTer, breaking them into SPIDRs, or biting the whole HAMBURGER? All great! Let me take you through an interactive game for the most important aspect: collaboration!
How would you go about teaching your team members about user stories? You have seen people talking about INVEST and/or 3Cs a lot. How many of those talks could be having longlasting effects? How can you make sure that the most important part of writing a user story, the conversation, to happen? How can you make that conversation in a truly collaborative environment for your teams to thrive? In this workshop you will learn how to write user stories by collaborating with others, we are going to divide into groups and work on user stories. No real experience is needed with writing user stories, understanding of them, or even have heard them before. Then we evolve the game into the next phase, user stories and teams. In this phase, we are going to work as a team on user stories, with again focusing on what’s most important. This is an interactive simulation that you can run with your teams. You can use this exercise to emphasize the value of collaboration in writing user stories. In the last phase, we touch on self-organization and leadership aspects of the team. Once you learned this game, you can shape it into what you really want. There are many aspects of an Agile organization or a team is heavily related to how close and collaborative they are, and this is a perfect foundation to build upon.

Envision Agile 2018

Coaching, Coach & You Talk;

A Shorter Version of Effective Yet Effortless Coaching

Gatineau Ottawa Agile Tour 2017 (GOAT 2017)

Facilitation ≅ Coaching @ Scale

Everyone is doing it! Not very good at it though. If you ask them, every single one of them tells you they are great at it. I am talking about Facilitation!

Everyone is thinking they are doing it. Many of them have an idea about it, maybe through word of mouth. The funny thing is that everyone is claiming to be great at it. This time, I am talking about Coaching!

Facilitation is what we do on a daily basis, no matter what our roles are. If we are talking to more than one person, we are probably using some facilitation techniques. People that are working with teams use that more often. Facilitation is a human-centric activity. It gets more complicated and more complex by the number of people involved, and that's not the only factor. There are many factors involved in that.

Coaching is not something we necessarily do on a daily basis unless you are a coach; and a coach by heart. It is very easy to call yourself one and not be one. It is hard to be a coach. Coaching is a deliberate stance we take. In coaching, depending on your client's situation, you use different tools and techniques.

In their core, Coaching and Facilitation are not very different. One is mostly focused at a person's personal level, and one at a group's personal level. When you look at the group as one entity, you can apply techniques and tools for both. Similar to the scaling challenges you might have encountered, you can not necessarily apply the exact same techniques and tools to the bigger picture. However, you can rely back on the pillars of Coaching, Facilitation and vice versa.

AgileDC 2017

Community-Driven Change

Many organizations flatten management structure when they transform to agile. It soon becomes obvious that important activities done by managers are still needed. A community can fill these gaps. They can provide morale, governance, learning, and mentorship, recruiting and hiring, mutual support, coordination, sharing, innovation and more!

Unfortunately few companies manage to create a strong community. Even fewer empower that community to fill these gaps. This means they are missing the ultimate benefit of community: a strong, empowered community can transform the organization itself!

Join Shahin and Shawn in this interactive session to explore communities in organizations. Examine the benefits of building great communities. Learn how to spark the community, and how to support it as it evolves. Hear stories of communities empowered to improve the organization. Learn how to make a community into a driver of positive change.