Lean, Agile and Large-Scale Product Development (LeSS)

Summary:
When a LeSS adoption (or any transformation) stalls, the easy explanation is “lack of buy-in.” This talk makes the case that the easy explanation is often wrong. It looks at why capable middle managers resist the very changes they support, traces that resistance to structure rather than character, and suggests ways to design the manager’s transition instead of blaming it. Leading the session is Coach Dan.
Daniel Estby, known across his coaching work as Coach Dan, has spent more than thirty years helping organizations in financial services, telecom, and retail change how they actually work. He is a LeSS Practitioner, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, PMP, and Certified ScrumMaster, but the throughline of his career has less to do with frameworks than with the people inside them. His academic background in psychology, sociology, and counseling shapes a coaching style that is practitioner-grounded and deliberately non-dogmatic, more interested in what makes a change actually stick than in defending any one method.
He is the author of Effective. Efficient. Engaged.: Measuring What AI Can’t, which argues that as AI absorbs the work of being effective and efficient, the human side of an organization becomes the part leaders still have to design rather than assume. That idea runs straight into this talk and its look at why capable managers resist the very changes they support. He writes at coachdanblog.com and on LinkedIn, under a banner he keeps simple: we all win together.

Bio:
Servant Leader with over 20 years of experience driving meaningful transformations for teams, lines of business, and enterprises.
- Skilled in change management, culture building, and facilitating continuous improvement.
- 17+ years in project, program, and portfolio management, delivering business and technology outcomes.
- Proficient in strategic planning, transformation planning, portfolio management, and stakeholder engagement.
- Certified Lean Black Belt, Coach, Scrum Master, Agilist, LeSS Practitioner, Value Stream Mapper and PMP.

Presentation Description
Many organizations adopt LeSS expecting better agility yet continue to struggle because they focus on teams instead of the system that surrounds them. In this session, based on insights from From Resistance to Resilience: Practical Agile Lessons for Transformation, we'll explore why organizational structures, feedback loops, leadership behaviors and mental models have a far greater impact on transformation success than frameworks alone. Drawing on Systems Thinking, LeSS principles, Peter Senge's learning organizations, Donella Meadows' leverage points and real transformation experiences, we'll examine how to redesign organizations that continuously learn, adapt and deliver value rather than simply scaling Agile.

Presentation Outcomes
Participants will learn:
Why LeSS is fundamentally a descaling and organizational design approach, not simply another scaling framework
How Systems Thinking helps reveal the hidden organizational forces that create resistance to Agile transformations
How organizational structures, communication patterns and incentives influence product delivery far more than Agile practices.
How to identify high-impact leverage points that create lasting organizational change
Practical techniques for reducing resistance and building resilient organizations capable of continuous improvement

Presenter's Bio
Natalia Curusi is an Agile Coach, and Transformation Leader, author, and MBA candidate with more than 20 years of experience helping organizations navigate Agile, Digital, and AI transformations across finance, mining, telecommunications, government, and technology sectors. Since discovering Agile in 2010, she has been passionate about organizational design, Systems Thinking, Lean, LeSS, and building resilient organizations where people, leadership, and continuous improvement work together to deliver sustainable value.
Natalia is the author of From Resistance to Resilience: Practical Agile Lessons for Transformation, where she combines real-world transformation experiences with practical approaches to Systems Thinking, organizational change, and leadership. She is also an active international speaker, mentor, and advocate for women in technology, helping organizations move beyond Agile frameworks to create adaptive, learning organizations capable of thriving in an increasingly complex world.