When people first start thinking about managing their work and products as value streams, their primary goal is typically the reduction and removal of waste across a string of processes. They want to minimise idle time, kill pointless processes and smooth handoffs. The goal is frictionless flow from idea to customer. As they become more practiced, it becomes apparent that teams are value streams, or value streams align teams, then that the organisation itself is a value stream network. Like all networks, the value streams connect to each other. Sometimes we see this as bad: they are dependencies and we should therefore break them. But interconnectivity is a fact of life, reality. Recognizing these interconnections transforms value streams from simple efficiency tools into a backbone for service delivery and resilience, as a connected network can better absorb shocks and adapt to change. Ultimately, shifting the focus from isolated processes to this holistic network is what underpins organizational performance, turning systemic complexity into a competitive advantage. In this session, Helen will show how organisations move beyond the hunt for local efficiencies and learn how to navigate interdependencies to drive effectiveness, creating a more resilient and high-performing system.

For decades, we've been told that great leadership is about managing people, motivating them, coaching them, and removing obstacles for them. But what if we've been focused on the wrong thing all along?
As AI transforms how work gets done, a fundamental truth is becoming impossible to ignore- the work itself is where leaders need to focus their attention. When AI agents can write code, analyze data, and generate content in seconds, the old management playbook falls apart. You can't motivate an algorithm. You can't coach a language model. But you absolutely must understand and manage the flow of work moving through your organization.
Join Colleen as she explores why the principle of "manage the work, not the people" has shifted from a nice-to-have practice to a survival skill for modern leaders. Drawing on real-world transformations across Fortune 500 enterprises and fast-scaling tech companies, we'll examine three critical pillars that determine whether organizations thrive or struggle in an AI-augmented world.

Your organization invests millions in transformation initiatives - agile transformation, AI implementations, enterprise systems, cultural change. Yet the large majority of transformations fail to deliver lasting results. Why? The painful truth is that organizations still treat transformation as a series of projects instead of building the capability to evolve continuously. In this session, discover why traditional change management approaches create temporary compliance instead of lasting capability and learn the architectural principles that embed change resilience into your organization's DNA. Drawing from enterprise transformations spanning tens of thousands of employees across two dozen countries and every type of transformation you can imagine, you will leave with a framework for assessing your organization's adaptive capability and concrete strategies for creating resilience that outlasts any single initiative.

2026 is the year GenAI shifts from experimentation to bottom-line impact. The unfortunate, but undeniable truth is that organizations that identify and rapidly close key readiness gaps will succeed in scaling GenAI, and those that don't—won't. Join us to explore proven approaches to accelerate your GenAI Readiness - what we're seeing work, what doesn't, and actionable steps to accelerate and de-risk your GenAI journey.

Developing our leaders is essential in today's world, but do we know how to develop our emotional resiliency? Emotional resiliency is the ability to adapt to stressful relationships and situations as we encounter them in our day to day. There has definitely not been a shortage of stress in the world in the last few years. Stress affects each of us and the clients we serve differently, and the right amount of the right kind of stress is actually a good thing. In this highly interactive session, we will discuss our stress triggers, biofeedback & behaviors, and how they affect our ability to lead. We will also discuss concepts around Locus of Control and learn whether our brains focus on things that are within our control.


Learning Outcomes:
Define emotional resiliency
Distinguish between too little, optimal and too much stress
Identify where they are on the Stress Curve, and also identify behaviors associated with stress