Organizational Redesign within a Large Server Hardware Product Company

The Future of Work Scotland team are delighted to welcome James Carpenter as our guest of the opening session of 2026.

Within larger organizations, organizational design and related incentive systems tend to drive culture far more than the reverse.
Join James as he walks us through his extensive LeSS case study regarding changes he helped put in place within a large networking and hardware server product company. He will provide an unvarnished overview of the political challenges faced, what strategies were used to mitigate the political risks, illuminate how the effort successfully de-risked $1 Billion in annual sales, and discuss relevant failures as well as the successes.
After James provides a high-level overview, we will transition to an extended discussion and Q&A regarding the case study.

The case study can be found here:
https://less.works/case-studies/large-server-hardware-company
Please consider at least skimming the case study prior to the event.

It is recommended to make notes in preparation for the Q&A portion of the presentation.
James is also scheduled to deliver an in-person Certified LeSS Practitioner course in Edinburgh on February 24-26. You can learn more here: https://agilecarpentry.com/clp/edinburgh_early_2026/

Learning Objectives - what you'll take away from this session:
● The impact of organizational design on culture
● Insight on navigating political impediments to change
● How to dramatically improve technical craftsmanship within weeks, rather than years
● The importance of making multiple structural changes at the same time
● The risks of failure to address management problems early-on.

Here's a little more about our guest speaker:

James Carpenter is a Certified LeSS Trainer based of the United States. He spent the first portion of his career as a hands-on software engineer and manager of the same. He has spent the last decade helping to create more effective product development organizations.