Speaker

Joe Ziadeh

Joe Ziadeh

Chief Learning Officer @ Balanced Agility

Joe Ziadeh is not your typical expert; he's a mischief maker and a status quo challenger with a heart as huge as his intellect. A masterful facilitator, Joe seamlessly guides both intimate gatherings and large audiences through transformative experiences. His secret? A rare combination of playfulness and profound insight that turns learning into an unforgettable adventure.With two decades of experience in Agile and IT, Joe is on a mission to challenge conventional thinking, spark curiosity, and bring joy to the learning process.

Most recently he spoke at Agile 2022, 2019-2016, Lean Agile KC 2019-2016, KC PDD 2017, Agile Midwest 2022 - 2017 (also Co-Chair for the conference), St. Louis Agile LINC, is a Certified Training from the BACK of the Room instructor, is a Program Lead for the ICAgile Expert in Agile Coaching Certification (ICE-AC) and was an Instructor of Agile Courses at Washington University in St. Louis. Joe is also the Chief Learning Officer for Balanced Agility.

Rehearsing for the Revolution - Using Play to Solve Wicked Problems

Our world is filled with wicked problems. Business problems with sustainability challenges and/or social, economic, and political factors. These exist within all of our organizations, our communities, or even the entire world. Unfortunately wicked problems require wicked answers. To uncover ways to do this I looked into how people solved wicked problems in the past. This lead me to a practice used to solve some wicked problems such as:

- Learning ways of fighting against oppression in their daily lives
- Developing the skills and faculties to liberate themselves and others
- Inspiring real acts of resistance

The practices that lead to these solutions are collectively called "Theatre of the Oppressed". Theatre of the Oppressed could be considered a combination of brainstorming, improv, interactive theatre, and empathy building.

In this session we will explore the foundations of Theatre of the Oppressed and how we can use them in our organizations and communities. Specifically in this session we'll:

- Discuss the origins and foundation of Theatre of the Oppressed
- We'll discuss the philosophy and key practices in Theatre of the Oppressed
- We'll play several of the games designed to connect the participants with the problem from multiple perspectives (not just their own)
- We'll plan and deliver a short "Forum Play" around a topic we select and explore in the session

Please join us as we use these practices to uncover new and better ways to work together, build empathy, and support one another. All while having a blast doing it.

Thriving from Chaos: Become a Learning Organization for Competitive Advantage

The world is in political, economic, and/or environmental turmoil. How do we help our organizations grow and thrive in such a chaotic world? What if we could turn other companies' weakness (i.e. the chaos) into a strength? What if your entire organization could learn from the market the same way we learn from our Agile Transformations? Scrum (and the various other frameworks and practices under the Agile umbrella) uses feedback loops to help learning. By sharing these feedback loops across an organization and showing them how to adopt them you quickly become a Learning Organization! This kind of organization thrives on new information and responding to it. Ultimately leading to true Business Agility. So please join us as we discuss how your organizations can thrive from chaos.

The Learner's Brain - A User Manual to the Most Complex Thing in the Universe

How do people learn in an Agile way? In this workshop we'll give you the user manual to the most complex object in the known universe - the human brain! Our brain drives how we learn, and this workshop will show you how to tailor instruction and activities to create safe and effective learning environments.

In this workshop we will briefly cover some core neuroscience and psychology topics anyone who teaches needs to know. Come play a series of games designed with specific techniques you can immediately use to improve your teaching. We'll briefly cover:

Neurophysiology - How the structure of our brain impacts how we learn and process information
Neuroplasticity - How the brain physically changes as we learn new things
Cognitive bias - How a learner's perception of an idea (and our environment) can fundamentally change how the way learners hear and understand what you're teaching.
We'll cover these concepts using games and activities specifically designed to help you learn and retain the information efficiently. We'll also discuss how to build the appropriate environment to make learning safe, and lightly touch on how to build courses with all of these things in mind using Training from the BACK of the Room.

Agile Leadership - Spark Your Greatness

Come hone your Agile Leadership skills. You're already a good leader, come to this session and become amazing!

In this interactive session we'll learn and practice the core tools of great Agile Leadership: Your Inner Leader, Systems Thinking, Emotional Intelligence, and more. This session is completely experiential with NO PowerPoint slides, and made up entirely of fun activities. After each game we'll debrief and review the lessons learned. Come play with us and become the great leader you were met to be.

Once Upon a Time: A Tale of Conflict and the Path to Harmony

Once upon a time there lived a brave developer, a wise facilitator, and a terrifying overlord (aka manager). How can we help our heroes overcome their dastardly foe? Come attend this session to find out!

In this interactive session we will explore various conflict resolution topics including: how our perspective creates conflict, the drama triangle (hero, victim, and villain), how we escalate conflict, and how we can ultimately resolve conflicts positively. The attendees will live happily ever after with a set of tools they can apply immediately in their own stories...

Meetings that Rock! - Facilitate like a Rock Star

Do people ENJOY going to your meetings? Would you like people to make room on their calendar just because they can't wait to attend? In this session we will share some of the tips and techniques musicians and comedians use to keep people engaged and have audiences begging for more.

Specifically, in this experiential workshop we will explore: stage presence, pacing & agendas, audience interaction/reading a crowd, how to resurrect a dying meeting and more!

Joe Ziadeh

Chief Learning Officer @ Balanced Agility