Author: Adi Muslic, PMP - VP Sponsors & Partners
I first met Pierre NEIS in April 2022, in Lausanne, where he presented 12 steps of transition to an Agile Organization. I was impressed how he made it look easy to transform an organization.
Our collaboration continued and Pierre presented the 59 minutes Agile (simulation game) at the PM Conference in September, in Zurich.
It was a simulation game or serious game that was developed twenty years ago to explain how Scrum works. During the 90 minutes long workshop, participants divided into several groups, played a project and developed a product. The product was nothing less than a Travel to Mars tourist offering. I witnessed idea generation, several iterations of product development, and at the end the results were breathtaking.
Many participants specifically mentioned this game as one of the conference highlights.
Pierre uses this game in all his projects as a kick-off to first experiment with the new way of working before engaging. You can too.
Initially I wanted Pierre to present this game in our event in March. But he convinced me that we will have much more fun with “Playing Strategy Planning”.
As Pierre explained, the project planning part is always complicated and painful: it takes time. In order to make everyone happy, you have many one-on-one meetings to be sure that nothing has been left.
In short, it is a long run.
Now, imagine you can do this in less than two hours, and have fun. Imagine that everyone has time to raise their voice, be heard, and be aligned on what to do.
That's how we do in agile: sooner, smarter, faster.
About Pierre:
Fifteen years ago, coming from Lean Thinking and Portfolio Management, he jumped into the agile world with his entire body.
He went through more than 200 agile projects and contributed to several communities. Ten years ago, as a member of the PMI, he contributed to creating the PMI ACP Certification, which left considerable space for improvement. Five years ago, he was asked by Mike Beedle to join his project on Enterprise Scrum. Unfortunately, Mike passed away, and Pierre used his org development and behavioral analysis research to write his first book in 2020, "The New Normal: AO concepts and patterns of 21-st century agile organizations," and "Swarming X4" in 2021. Pierre is a certified agile master coach with several agile certifications levels, still interacting with many initiatives on the evolution of work.
Pierre does not distinguish between development and an executive committee of a global organization. In 2014, he created Play14 with two colleagues, a global initiative on facilitation and serious games. Even though he is a full-time consultant, he is still involved in Disciplined Agile with the PMI, with Open Eyes on the evolution of leadership, and with the ICF on agile coaching. He is an alumni of Boston Consulting Group and MIT.
My personal observation is that Pierre is very easy to talk to and happy to share his knowledge while having fun.
If you are ready to get onboard of another exciting agile game, do not wait, register now:
https://pmi-switzerland.ch/index.php/events/playing-strategy-planning
The number of places is limited!
Looking forward to seeing you and playing the game with you.
Adi