Day1: Talk Details
Evan Leybourn
No Matter What the Future Brings
These 6 words are the heart of business agility - but they are also an invitation. Does your organization have the freedom, flexibility, and resilience to achieve its purpose - no matter what the future brings? And especially when the future is coming faster than ever before. Your customers are more informed and their expectations are higher than they’ve ever been. Your employees demand more clarity, empowerment, and meaning in their work. And technological innovation is opening new opportunities and ways of working while, at the same time, closing others. It is only high-performing, adaptable, and agile organizations who will thrive in this unpredictable market. Those that can instinctively seize emerging and unforeseen opportunities for their customers’ benefit. In this keynote, we will explore the patterns of behavior that make these organizations successful. Through inspirational stories and drawing on insights and research from nearly 2,000 companies, Evan will share the new business capabilities needed for your organization to make the journey from agile teams to business agility. And, in a world where only uncertainty is certain, these capabilities are vital for achieving your purpose, no matter what the future brings.
Neeraja Ganesh
Getting Ahead of Change: How Future-Ready Leaders Think and Act Differently
Key takeaways
1. From Adaptable to Anticipatory
2. From Methods to Mindsets
3. Retaining the superpower Human Skills in the age of AI
Ganesh Kumar S
“Emotional Intelligence: The Timeless Skill for Humanizing Teams in an AI-Driven World”
Abstract: As we cross AI frontiers and navigate complex, adaptive challenges, one skill remains timeless—Emotional Intelligence. In this engaging session, discover how EI empowers individuals and teams to build trust, foster psychological safety, and lead with empathy in an increasingly tech-driven world. Explore practical strategies to humanize your teams, bridge the gap between people and platforms, and address wicked problems with greater clarity and connection.
Lakshmi Athreya
Future of AI and Agility
AI and Agility—once topics of speculation—are now intrinsic to the architecture of the future. Any framework that echoes nature’s recursive logic and adaptive algorithms is engineered to scale and self-optimise.
Mahesh Damodhar
Humanizing Agentic AI - Designing to build trust in AI
Building trust in Agentic AI is crucial, especially as movies and fiction often shape our perception of autonomy in these systems. Effective UX design is key here, emphasizing basic principles of conversational transparency and giving users appropriate control. This approach helps bridge the gap between AI's potential and user confidence. Ultimately, designing for Agentic AI should foster a partnership and collaboration model. By focusing on ethical and transparent interactions, where the AI acts as a reliable assistant, we can build trust and ensure these intelligent systems truly augment human capabilities. In this talk, we'll delve into practical UX strategies for building trust, demonstrating how thoughtful design can empower users, mitigate bias, and ultimately, ensure that the future of AI is one where humans and agents collaborate seamlessly and ethically
Divay Makkad
Agile FacilitAItion - Bridging Minds with Human Insight & AI Foresight
The session "Agile FacilitAItion - Bridging Minds with Human Insight & AI Foresight " aims to address some of challenges of the traditional facilitation with some creative techniques by integrating human elements of empathy, EI, Active listening etc, power of AI, and gamification to enhance teams collaboration and engagement, Session will explore some innovative Facilitation Techniques. Few examples are 1. Facilitate Empathy Mapping with AI Insights games - To understand team members' feelings, concerns and encourage open discussions about different perspectives. AI tools can be used for sentiment analysis of the team, to detect biases and suggest corrective actions. Blend it by turning this exercise into a game by assigning points or badges for participation and quality of inputs 2. Facilitate AI-Powered Root Cause Analysis Games - how to integrate human problem solving skills to collaborate to address root causes of issues, with AI tools to analyze data and suggest potential root causes and corrective actions, and then gamify using point/badge systems to team members for effective root cause identification and resolution to create a powerful facilitation technique (reference to Game of PODS by Cognizant Softvision) Participants will engage in a “Fusion Facilitation” of Human capability of empathy, EI, active listening etc with AI tool insights topped with gamification
Ranjith Raja Gopal
Agile FacilitAItion - Bridging Minds with Human Insight & AI Foresight
The session "Agile FacilitAItion - Bridging Minds with Human Insight & AI Foresight " aims to address some of challenges of the traditional facilitation with some creative techniques by integrating human elements of empathy, EI, Active listening etc, power of AI, and gamification to enhance teams collaboration and engagement, Session will explore some innovative Facilitation Techniques. Few examples are 1. Facilitate Empathy Mapping with AI Insights games - To understand team members' feelings, concerns and encourage open discussions about different perspectives. AI tools can be used for sentiment analysis of the team, to detect biases and suggest corrective actions. Blend it by turning this exercise into a game by assigning points or badges for participation and quality of inputs 2. Facilitate AI-Powered Root Cause Analysis Games - how to integrate human problem solving skills to collaborate to address root causes of issues, with AI tools to analyze data and suggest potential root causes and corrective actions, and then gamify using point/badge systems to team members for effective root cause identification and resolution to create a powerful facilitation technique (reference to Game of PODS by Cognizant Softvision) Participants will engage in a “Fusion Facilitation” of Human capability of empathy, EI, active listening etc with AI tool insights topped with gamification
Arvind Jayasankar
AI WAY - Hitchhiking into Future
Douglas Adams starts his masterpiece "The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy", with the construction of a highway to the galaxy through earth. We are in a similar situation with AI being a game changer unlike any other technology which has disrupted the world in the past. If we are to travel this AI highway, we can't do it alone, it must be a collective effort, spanning products, processes, and technology. This highway may lack the comfort of guardrails, established processes to rely on, or even clients to define what needs to be done and how. It will be a wild ride, one that demands we steer toward our vision, accepting high risks along the way. It's crucial that we face this together. Can we hitchhike our way towards this future with Ingenuity & collaboration, the way humans have always done over the last 100,000 years or more?
Ashish Kumar
AI-Augmented Agility: Elevating Customer Retention & Service Recovery with Intelligent Insight
In a world where customer expectations evolve in real-time, Agile teams must move beyond traditional iterative improvements to stay competitive. The next frontier of Agile success lies in AI-augmented decision-making—leveraging machine learning, behavioral insights, and predictive analytics to enhance customer retention and service recovery. Drawing from my ongoing PhD research in AI-driven customer retention and consumer psychology, this session bridges the gap between Agility and AI-driven customer success strategies. Rather than focusing solely on automation, we will explore how Scrum teams, Agile Coaches, and Business Leaders can integrate AI-driven intelligence into their Agile ecosystems to make more informed, customer-centric decisions.
Rituraj Patil
Don't Be a Salad and an Ice-Cream Dodger: Blending Human Intuition with Artificial Intelligence for Balanced Leadership
In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries and reshaping the way we work and lead. While AI offers immense potential for enhancing decision-making and driving efficiency, it's crucial to recognize the irreplaceable value of human intuition and emotional intelligence in leadership. This session will explore the importance of blending human intuition with AI to achieve balanced leadership that leverages the strengths of both.
Ketan Kulkarni
Sentience Agility : Harmonizing Human AI Collaboration
Imagine Agile as a ship navigating the vast and unpredictable business world. For years, the crew, the Agile team—has relied on their skills and intuition to adapt and stay resilient. Now, there's a new force: AI's Superintelligence, a powerful wind that not only fills the sails but transforms how the ship moves. This wind brings speed intelligence for fast progress, collective intelligence to align the crew, and quality intelligence to ensure precision in every task. But this wind can only do so much without a skilled crew. That’s where the human mind comes in, using its higher levels of awareness, super conscious, collective conscious, spontaneous, and ultimate states, to steer the ship. Together, AI and human consciousness form a powerful partnership, leading the ship into new territories of innovation, collaboration, and purpose. In this session, we’ll explore how AI and Agile don’t just improve how we work—they change who we are as Agile practitioners. We’ll look at how combining human awareness with AI intelligence can redefine Agile, not only helping us move faster but also guiding us with greater clarity and impact. Ready to embark on this journey? Join us as we set sail toward a future where the horizon is just the start.
Day2: Talk Details
Prof. Uli Weinberg
Human-centered innovation in a machine-driven world
Why We Still Need Design Thinking – Especially in the Age of AI
As artificial intelligence reshapes industries, education, and society at lightning speed, one question persists: Is Design Thinking still relevant? In this keynote, Prof. Uli Weinberg—former director of the HPI School of Design Thinking and president of the Global Design Thinking Alliance (GDTA)—makes a compelling case that Design Thinking isn’t just keeping pace with AI, but is becoming its most vital counterpart. Drawing on real-world transformation cases from Bosch, China’s Communication University, and the GDTA India Chapter, he shows how Design Thinking helps organizations frame the right problems, drive human-centered innovation, and becomes the engine of meaningful transformation in the AI era.
Karthi Subbaraman
Thriving Through Design in the Age of AI: Redefining Design for Intelligent Systems
Let us explore how design as a discipline is fundamentally transforming from creating static experiences to orchestrating dynamic, intelligent systems. We’ll examine the shift from traditional user experience design to agent experience design, where designers must craft interactions for both humans and AI entities. The talk covers emerging paradigms including conversational design patterns, agentic design principles, and the evolution from designing fixed solutions to designing adaptive capabilities that learn and evolve. Through practical frameworks and real-world case studies, attendees will discover how to build AI-ready design cultures, establish new collaboration models between designers and AI systems, and create human-AI experiences that amplify rather than replace human creativity and decision-making.
Adrish Bera
Beyond Automation: Creating Synergy between Humans and AI for Transformational Agility
While automation driven by AI is now commonplace, truly transformational agility arises from deep collaboration between AI’s inferencing abilities at scale and human creativity. AI's greatest value lies in augmenting human ingenuity rather than replacing humans altogether. Mankind will be more agile and pursue an evolved life with higher order goals when they can fully utilize the power of AI. I will provide some example from media workflow automation and the way we are evangelizing Intutor.ai platform
Uday Kiran Kurramana
AI Ragnorak : A Practical Guide to Next-Gen Product Development Using AI
This session explores AI-driven product development, offering Agile leaders, product managers, and technology professionals a step-by-step playbook to reduce effort by 40% and improve efficiency. The session bridges AI innovation with Agile principles, showcasing real-time experiences, challenges, and successes in AI-powered prototyping, automated code generation, and debugging. With a structured, engaging format, it goes beyond ‘what’ and ‘how’ to explain ‘why’ AI-driven approaches succeed or fail. The session aligns with Agile, Scrum, and Business Agility, ensuring practical takeaways that can be shared beyond the event. Designed for impact, it delivers actionable insights, making AI integration more accessible and effective.
Anuj Jaganathan
Negotiation Strategies and Practices: Wish someone had told me about these!
In most negotiations, strong application of strategies and practices will bring better outcomes and success in the negotiation. However, in regular negotiation interactions, majority of these strategies and practices are missed out or overlooked. This leads to results that are sub-optimal and short-term oriented. This session will outline five essential aspects of negotiation that will bring powerful results and enhance long-term relationships.
Aashish Kumar
Innovate or Die: AI in Design Thinking
The AI-powered Design Thinking 2.0 is a cutting-edge session designed to harness the combined power of human creativity and artificial intelligence to solve complex problems and meet user needs. This session is ideal for individuals and teams looking to innovate and create impactful solutions by leveraging the principles of Design Thinking enhanced with AI capabilities.
Seema Rani
Innovate or Die: AI in Design Thinking
The AI-powered Design Thinking 2.0 is a cutting-edge session designed to harness the combined power of human creativity and artificial intelligence to solve complex problems and meet user needs. This session is ideal for individuals and teams looking to innovate and create impactful solutions by leveraging the principles of Design Thinking enhanced with AI capabilities.
Vivek Ganesan
AI Agents for Customer Obsession: Principles from the Trenches
Want to make customers the heart of your team’s work? Then, this talk is for you. In this session, you will learn why AI agents are a great force in the journey of customer centricity. You will also learn practical principles for using AI agents to fuel customer obsession, all inspired from real-world stories. You’ll discover how to blend real feedback into workflows and gently steer teams toward customer-focused choices, keeping humans in the driver’s seat. And not just that, you will also see an AI agent through a demonstration. Join this talk to uncover proven tricks to boost clarity and deliver value customers rave about.
Dinesh Sharma
Agile Intelligence- Transforming Project Management with AI
As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves, it offers transformative potential for Agile project management. This session explores how AI enhances agility, efficiency, and success rates by automating tasks, analyzing data, and improving decision-making. Despite Agile’s focus on flexibility and collaboration, many projects struggle, with success rates often below 30%. AI’s integration with Agile methodologies can significantly improve project execution, enabling data-driven insights and streamlined workflows. Through a real-world case study, attendees will gain practical strategies for leveraging AI across various levels of Agile implementation, from foundational practices to scaled frameworks and enterprise-wide project management
Bhavika Nayyar
Agile Intelligence- Transforming Project Management with AI
As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves, it offers transformative potential for Agile project management. This session explores how AI enhances agility, efficiency, and success rates by automating tasks, analyzing data, and improving decision-making. Despite Agile’s focus on flexibility and collaboration, many projects struggle, with success rates often below 30%. AI’s integration with Agile methodologies can significantly improve project execution, enabling data-driven insights and streamlined workflows. Through a real-world case study, attendees will gain practical strategies for leveraging AI across various levels of Agile implementation, from foundational practices to scaled frameworks and enterprise-wide project management