[En] Are emergence and agility the solution?
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Vicy Wenzelmann
I have recently thought a lot about emergence again, and invite you all to a discussion - I will bring some input, and I hope you will have some too! In systems theory, emergence describes a property at the macro level of a system, which comes about through the interaction of system elements at the micro level. The emergent whole is, as physics Nobel Prize winner Philip Anderson wrote as early as 1972, “not only more, but something quite different from the sum of its parts”. A vivid example is memory: the properties of nerve cells in the brain have been well researched neurologically, but it is unclear how exactly the connection of cells leads to properties of the brain - for example memory. With regard to social change, systems thinker Margaret Wheatley states that this does not require a critical mass of individuals, but a critical mass of meaningful connections between individuals, in the form of networks and communities. The Agile Manifesto states that “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams”. Some argue that the aim of agile is the facilitation of this emergence - given a shared vision and clear underlying structures. What can this mean for our work within and beyond our teams and organizations? Maybe even: While the world is facing a multitude of systemic problems - can agile practices help solve them, and if so: which and how?

[En] Lead time matters: how we did scrum with kanban in an explore team
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Martin Stahl
A case study in pragmatic agilism: As a external product development team we should build a green field b2b product for car dealership. None of our team of software engineers, UX researcher and product had much knowledge about the business domain or the user. To explore this uncertainy and build a successful digital product we decided to optimize for one kanban metric: lead time. We wanted to be able not only to ship something every few days, but also have quick feedback cycles in user research. This talk is an example how to combine Kanban metrics, UX and Scrum and build a lightweigth process which is customized for a certain use case.