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.