Events Calendar

Presentation Title: Creating an Enterprise View of Work Using Agile

Date: December 9, 2020

Speaker: Jim Bennett

Location: ONLINE; Microsoft Teams (Meeting information will be sent to registrants)

Cost: $0 

Agenda:

12:00pm – 12:00pm Welcome, Announcements and Introductions

12:00pm – 12:55 pm Presentation

1:00pm – 1:05pm Comments and Door Prizes

Presentation Overview:

One challenge many organizations face is how to get an enterprise-wide view of work in the backlog (waiting to start) and work in progress. Understanding the full amount of work in the queue helps drive better forecasting, as well as more accurate budgeting and staffing plans. Creating an enterprise view of work not only helps the executive tier, but also the teams. When teams understand all of the work being undertaken, they can better understand the goals of the organization to create better team-level strategies to successfully complete the work and open up stronger cross-team communication channels.

This session will start with a brief overview of two of the main Agile processes used to visualize and manage work: Scrum and Kanban with a comparison of their pros and cons, and how they can be “standalone” or included in a more traditional waterfall project management environment. It will then guide participants through backlog creation and management strategies. Finally, it will wrap up with a discussion of how adopting Agile can positively impact team-level work, demonstrating how self-organizing teams can create smoother, more consistent flow through work visualization.

Speaker Biography:

Jim Bennett, Manager of Technology Services for the Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, has over 30 years of experience managing cross-functional teams deploying enterprise-scale projects, both domestically and internationally. Jim is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, a Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Product Owner and a certified Kanban Management Professional and Kanban Coaching Professional. Since joining the GSCS nine years ago, Jim has been bringing his knowledge of IT best practices, along with Agile and Lean Six Sigma frameworks and methodologies to the Division to improve operations and efficiencies.

Through his time with the GSCS, Jim has been active provincially, working with various groups to improve the use and effectiveness of technology in K-12 education, as well as evangelizing the use of Agile and Lean Six Sigma to create efficiencies. He has sat as chair, co-chair or member of various provincial working advisory groups. Along with his role at the school division, Jim is currently the Director of the Information Technology Working Group in the Saskatchewan Association of School Board Officials (SASBO), serves on the board of the Lean Practioners Association of Saskatchewan (LPAS), an active member of the Saskatchewan Education Technology Association (SETA), and is the Lead for the K-12 Education Network within the American Society for Quality (ASQ). He also provides Agile and Lean Six Sigma mentorship to individuals and organizations.

In his free time, Jim loves spending his time playing with his 5 grandchildren and exploring his hobbies of woodworking, music and cooking.

Presentation Learning Objective:

• Gain an understanding of using two Agile approches (Kanban and Scrum);
• Discover strategies to using Agile approaches with traditional project managment strategies; and,
• Leverage Agile tools to aid project teams in better understanding the organization's entire scope of work, and how their team fits into that end-to-end flow.

Questions regarding the program should be addressed to:

Director of Programs  -  Email: programs@pminorthsask.com