EUROPEAN CHANGE FORUM - 2015

How to be agile - Transforming into a high performance organization. Flexible. Human. Successful.

The 4th European Change Forum was about how to achieve better business outcome through the application of agile delivery methods. Attracted through success stories that mainly originate from the IT business, there is an agile movement to transfer best practise to other fields as well. Thanks to the competent speakers and experts, many different aspects of this topic were discussed during the one-day conference.

Bastian Billerbeck, Moderator of the ECF 2015, Consultant at Dr. Kraus & Partner

The generative dance between agility and leadership. Martina Eberl complemented the two best practise examples of the previous speakers by her academic view. She explained the relationship between leadership and agility in organisations by comparison with various forms of dancing.

Martina Eberl, MBA Academic director at HWR Berlin

Open Space – 12 Sessions. The second half of the conference day has been dedicated to different topics chosen by the participants e.g. „Breaking formalities in organisations“, „Survive complexity“, „Transition into a WE-Team“,„Applied consensus democracy“ etc.

Open Space is a tool that enables groups of any size to address complex, important issues and to achieve meaningful results quickly. In Open Space meetings participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions (mini-workshops).
At the European Change Forum every session was scheduled to last for one hour. Everybody who had a specific question, a topic or a good idea that he or she liked to share with others could facilitate an Open Space session.

Uwe Lübbermann, founder and „key moderator“ of Premium Cola

Leading a virtual organisation. Uwe Lübbermann, founder and „key moderator“ of the collective „Premium Cola“ started off with the series of keynote speeches. He is living proof that leading a virtual organisation with consensual democracy and without any written contracts works well and more efficiently than the average business. You may think it can NOT work. It is surprising, but it does!

Albrecht Günther, Ex managing director at Mayflower

Pitfalls in agile transition. In his speech Albrecht Günther shared his personal experience and pulled out a best-of list of typical pitfalls that occured while transferring the software development company „Mayflower“ into an agile organisation. This transition is still in progress. His speech served as a practical guide for future agile companies.

The mission of the annual European Change Forum is to provide an active and international platform for knowledge sharing and networking between managers and aceademics on current management topics. See you next year!

If you want to get more detailed information on one of the topics named above, please check out the info boxes below on Speakers & Workshops and the Download section. If you want to get in touch, please send an email to contact@kraus-partner.eu.

Uwe Lübbermann - Keynote Speaker
Founder and 'key moderator'- not managing director -
of the collective of the beverage 'Premium Cola' for the last 14 years

"My understanding of a modern way of organisations and how they work successfully is different in many ways. You may wish to know what I have studied and which qualifications I have? This is irrelevant to my current job! Let’s talk about the important factors.

Leading a virtual organisation

Leading a virtual organisation consisting of 1 680 commercial partners with consensual democracy, without any written contracts and thus producing, delivering and invoicing – all of this more efficiently than the average business but without spending a dime on advertising? You may think it can NOT work! But it does!
Premium is an internet-based softdrink brand which is ruled by a consensus-oriented collective of potentially all its stakeholders, including the consumers, excluding written contracts. This idealistic approach has not only proven to sustain the company itself, it also helped to develop a unique set of management tools which address and design ecological, social and economic issues very different than any other company in the industry. For instance, Premium offers anti-volume-discounts, publishes mistakes actively and pays the same salary to everybody in order to stabilize the value creation chain. By doing so, we have established a special USP which is offered for free (e. g. in an open franchise style) in order to spread the ideas, support companies in other industries to work in a similar way, and also to help forcing conventional companies to change themselves. Long story short: we are hacking business." :-)

Albrecht Günther - Keynote Speaker
Managing director at Mayflower GmbH

He started as a developer and grew up in the 'old economy‘.
For him, an agile mindset means a constant challenge for his paradigms.
At Mayflower, he tries to step aside from the team’s direction towards responsibility, autonomy and intrinsic motivation.

Pitfalls in agile transition
"Ten years ago we introduced Scrum as a simple project management framework for our teams and since then we tried to create any and all problems that might interfere with every possible step in the process of agile transition in our company. During this brief talk, we will present you with the most awkward flaws we managed to perform and invite you to gather some insights from our discoveries."

Martina Eberl – Keynote Speaker
HWR, MBA Academic Director

Martina Eberl holds a professorship for management and organization at Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR Berlin). She is Academic Director of the Executive MBA in General Management/Change Management at the Institute of Management Berlin. Her current
research and publication activities are devoted to „future forms of leading“, „dynamic capabilities“, and the "organization of effective monitoring processes“.

The Generative dance between Agility and Leadership
„Taking a first glance on this year’s leading subject oft he ECF my first association was a picture showing a beautiful elephant dancing on a tiny ball, my second one on a youtube-video presenting a high responsive team of aunts facing different challenges, and my third one referred to Greenpeace… Rooting back those images on „agility“ opens up some striking questions on the role of structure and leadership in bringing about agility. This is why, in my short speech, I want to think out loud on the suspense-packed relationship between leadership and agility in organizations by spotlighting insigts from research as well as sharing some of my experience with „agility in practice“.“

Katja von Bergen - Facilitator of an Open Space session
Consultant at Dr. Kraus & Partner
How to analyse how much and which agile interventions make sense for your organisation?

Georg Kraus - Facilitator of an Open Space session
CEO of Dr. Kraus & Partner
To lead teams in this digital world results in both challenges and opportunities to drive business. Lets talk about your experience.

Carolina Serrano Archimi – Facilitator of an Open Space Session
IAE Aix, MBA Director
To trust or not to trust. Does distrust prevent agility? Is agility correlated with a culture of trust? If there is limited trust in the organisation, can agility develop? How does trust influence the likelihood for coworkers to be agile? What does it mean to be agile for you?

Evelyn Otte & René Junkes – Facilitator of an Open Space Session
Evolwe
A transition into a WE-Team, into a WE-Organization, into a company where individuals excel themselves and continuously improve their team play. Imagine your team would use a routine for every meeting.This routine boosts three aspects: strengthening the connectiveness, individuals with unique competences who find solutions collectively and an enthused determination to act complementarily for the solution. Imagine the kind of power of implementation and the kind of sustainability the team would act with! How strongly would the team identify with their actions and how strongly with their company? Insight into a Meeting-Routine!

Bastian Billerbeck - Moderator of the European Change Forum 2015
Consultant at Dr. Kraus & Partner
He will accompany you through the day of the Europen Change Forum 2015. From his experience as a workshop moderator, a trainer and a singer in an a-cappella-band he strikes the right note for the moderation on stage.