Let me introduce “my dad” to you. He is my father, my mom, my teacher, my ex-manager, my habits, my “eating at the same time every day,” my geography, my country, my society, my DNA, and everything that fixes my mindset. Putting the past aside, do I need to still live with and like my fixed mindset? Why do we like it and stick to it? Don’t we need to have an agile mindset to survive? Yes, we do; this is what we were taught. So, how can we develop and let it emerge, even in places that are full of people with a fixed mindset (No matter if our organization is practicing agile or not, we are probably surrounded by people with a fixed mindset)?

In this talk, after interviewing with more than 20 managers, agile coaches, and team members, I will provide insights into why we have a fixed mindset, why we like it, why we are afraid of shifting to an agile one, and how we, starting with ourselves, can develop and foster an agile mindset in our teams and organizations.

About the speaker:

Necmettin Özkan is a seasoned expert who dives deep into the waters of agility, agile mindset, continuous improvement and more. Among the frameworks, he closely works with ITIL, COBIT, Scrum, and Kanban. Mixed with academic and 15-plus-years practical experiences, he gained balanced, systematic, and critical thinking perspectives.

Recently, he has been working toward his Ph.D. degree at Gebze Technical University, on Agile Mindset. He is also passionate about contributing to the body of knowledge by sharing through public speaking at over 40+ events, organizing events, lecturing at universities, mentoring for start-ups, and reviewing for international journals and conferences, and producing publications.