Program

As organisations evolve beyond rigid hierarchies, complexity is no longer a problem to be solved, but a landscape to be navigated. In this new paradigm, the most effective leaders are not those who impose order through codification, but those who cultivate curiosity—leveraging AI to illuminate nuance, surface contradictions, and reveal new possibilities.

The Shift from Authority to Inquiry

In less hierarchical structures, authority is distributed and decision-making is contextual. Here, the leader’s role shifts from providing answers to framing the right questions. The challenge is not to simplify complexity prematurely, but to engage with it—recognizing that ambiguity, diversity of thought, and emergent patterns are sources of value.

AI, in this context, is not a shortcut to certainty. Rather, it is a tool for sense-making: surfacing patterns, highlighting anomalies, and expanding the scope of inquiry. But AI’s utility depends on the quality of the questions we bring to it. The real differentiator is a leader’s ability to interrogate data without bias, resist the urge to codify too soon, and remain open to what complexity has to teach.

A New Leadership Imperative

This approach demands intellectual humility and a commitment to ongoing exploration. Leaders must:

• Embrace ambiguity as a source of insight, not a threat to be eliminated.
• Foster distributed inquiry, empowering teams to challenge assumptions and probe AI-driven insights from multiple perspectives.
• Resist premature closure, allowing solutions to emerge from a more thorough engagement with the problem space.

In a world where complexity is the norm and hierarchy is optional, the leaders who thrive will be those who are most curious—those who can work with AI not as an oracle, but as a partner in exploration. Their legacy will not be the answers they codified, but the questions they dared to ask.

Discover how Scrum@Scale, rooted in AI and complex adaptive systems, empowers
Scrum professionals to lead hyperproductive teams. Learn to harness AI for 30-100x faster
delivery by 2030, optimizing commercial workflows.

This presentation equips professional Scrum leaders and coaches with strategies to
leverage Scrum@Scale and artificial intelligence (AI) for transformative performance in
commercial settings. Scrum@Scale, developed by JeP Sutherland, is grounded in AI
principles from artificial life simulations and Christopher Langton’s proof that operating at
the edge of chaos accelerates system evolution. By integrating AI, Scrum@Scale enables
teams to achieve 30-100x faster delivery by 2030, leveraging real-world cases like Rocket

Mortgage (400% faster feature delivery), Amazon Q Developer (saving 4,500 developer-
years), and X.com’s lean transformation under Elon Musk. The Agile Technology Stack—

spanning physics, biology, neuroscience, complex adaptive systems, and AI layers—
provides a framework for Scrum professionals to optimize team dynamics, reduce
inePiciencies and drive value creation.
Scrum leaders will learn practical applications, such as the One Second Expense Reports
project, where AI teams achieved 3000% velocity gains through pipeline architectures and
cross-functional AI-human collaboration. The presentation covers how AI automates
legacy code modernization (e.g., Toyota’s COBOL overhaul), reduces design time from
weeks to hours, and minimizes risks via iterative development. Examples like JVS
Management’s AI-driven sprints and Yahoo’s shift to daily cloud releases illustrate how
Scrum@Scale synchronizes teams, aligns priorities, and scales agile practices across
organizations. Attendees will gain insights into coaching teams to integrate AI tools (e.g.,
Gemini 2.5 Pro, chatGPTo4) for bug-free coding, rapid decision-making, and adaptive
workflows, ensuring commercial success in high-stakes environments. The session
emphasizes actionable techniques for fostering self-organizing teams, enhancing feedback
loops, and using AI to address complex interdependencies, positioning Scrum leaders in
the AI-accelerated future of agile.

In dynamic and fast-changing environments, even experienced leaders can struggle to maintain coherence across strategic goals, operational activity, and meaningful outcomes. Misalignment, unclear priorities, and assumptions that go untested often lead to inefficiency, conflict, or decisions that fail to address what’s truly relevant.

This interactive 90-minute session introduces the Purposeful Action Model, a lightweight and robust conceptual framework for navigating complexity with clarity.

Drawing on key concepts from Sociocracy 3.0’s it supports better sense-making, meaning-making, and decision-making, clearer communication, and more focused collaboration, from the level of organizational purpose down to everyday tasks.

At the heart of the model is a practical insight: organizational work is people making interventions to fulfill a purpose. But in practice, this often breaks down. Interventions are implemented without a clear purpose. Purpose is assumed rather than described, or disconnected from actual situations of relevance. Requirements go undefined. Assumptions remain untested. And without effective feedback loops, it becomes difficult to evaluate impact or adapt.

The model provides a shared language and structure for identifying what’s going on (the organizational driver), clarifying what’s needed (requirement), and determining what to do (intervention). It helps to identify, reduce, and avoid waste, discover interdependencies, and learn and adapt quickly, without adding complexity.

The Purposeful Action Model works across all levels of scale and integrates easily with existing tools. You’ll leave with actionable concepts and a simple structure you can use immediately to support alignment, strategic coherence, and meaningful impact in your organization or with your clients.

In this interactive session, participants will explore the crucial skills needed to lead in an AI-enhanced world. Through engaging online activities including storytelling, structured reflection, and AI analysis, we will tap into the collective wisdom of the group to develop a practical understanding of leading in complexity. This session will link research with practical application, helping coaches, consultants, and managers sense-make how to navigate complex AI-driven environments effectively.

Learn how to navigate the journey from basic AI chatbots to fully integrated human-AI teams. Discover a practical framework for transforming your organization by augmenting human capabilities rather than just automating work, based on experience with over 60 companies.

In this master class, I’ll share the practical framework I’ve developed helping over 60 organizations adopt Gen AI effectively. We’ll explore how the Gen AI revolution is fundamentally different from previous technology transformations – it’s about people building new capabilities rather than implementing complex technical systems.

I’ll walk you through the four maturity levels organizations typically progress through: from individuals using AI chatbots to teams reimagining their workflows, then to custom AI agents, and ultimately to fully integrated human-AI teams. You’ll learn why focusing on augmenting your people’s capabilities creates more sustainable value than pure automation.

The session covers the six key drivers for orchestrating a successful Gen AI transformation: creating real urgency, building the right coalition, enabling appropriate access to tools, driving effective learning, crafting a forward-looking strategy, and scaling adoption across your organization. Throughout, I’ll share concrete examples of what works and what doesn’t, based on real-world experience.

You’ll leave with practical approaches you can apply immediately, regardless of where your organization currently stands in its Gen AI journey. Whether you’re just starting or looking to accelerate progress, this session provides both the strategic understanding and tactical tools needed to lead this complex transformation successfully.

Does creating change seem like a constant uphill struggle? Are you blocked by relentless resistance? Do you feel lost and alone in your efforts to create positive change?

Change need not be full of pain and suffering. Moreover, the pain can be managed and the suffering is optional. According to child development experts, play is the most effective and efficient way of enabling children to learn, lead, collaborate and be at their best. This also holds true for adults, especially in organisational change, based on Portia’s 20+ years of working and playing with adults in large and small organizations.

In this highly interactive session, you will experience the catalysing power of play and gain an understanding of how play can convert seemingly relentless resistance to change into joyful anticipation of growth instead. You will learn and experience the benefits of play firsthand and, by being re-acquainted with the knowledge of play, explore what it means to be a playful leader.

You will skip, leap or hop away with a pawful of tried and tested tools and techniques from play science, neuroscience, psychology and coaching – what we call Play Alchemy – to develop a greater

In this session we will look at the way generative artificial intelligence works, discuss some of the possibilities that AI can offer in reality, and explore the basics of prompt engineering. Participants will leave equipped to turn ChatGPT into an ultra-keen, curated colleague who never leaves their side! We will experiment with AI prompts and see autonomous agents at work, to get an understanding of what’s possible with AI and leave equipped to make a tangible difference in the workplace.

In English we have a saying “two heads are better than one.” In some cases this is true. It also extends to more than just two heads. In other cases, involving others in decisions can be disastrous. History is full of examples. Social psychology and cognitive neuroscience have informed us that we as individuals suffer from cognitive biases and that when we are a part of a group, we don’t always display wisdom. In Linda’s research and in her work with teams, she brings both science and experience to this presentation to provide useful tips and processes to help you make better decisions.

There’s growing evidence that individual decision making can be flawed, but there’s also evidence that suggests ways to address those flaws. This presentation will examine that research and outline the flaws in individuals and groups. The worst of our cognitive biases is the confirmation bias. One we believe in something we filter any new information to make sure it aligns with our current beliefs. This tendency has been shown repeatedly for individuals and group. The worst part of the news is that the smarter the individuals, the better we are at displaying this bias. However, there are techniques for addressing it, ways of reaching better decisions. The best but most difficult solution is diversity. Diverse teams do a better job of considering evidence and reaching optimal solutions.

At this difficult time, we need to be the best decision makers we can be, both as individuals and in groups. This is a hopeful, science-based, realistic presentation that will provide enough information and tactics so you are sure to find one or two useful tips to try on Monday morning.

Networked Agentic Organizations (NAOs) are decentralized systems where autonomous agents—human or AI—collaborate through flexible roles, shared goals, and dynamic protocols. These networks adapt fluidly, self-organize tasks, and scale by trust and interoperability, not hierarchy or central control.