Speaker Bio
Brad Hughes is an Enterprise Kanban and Business Agility Coach, now serving organizations as a Fractional COO, and founder of True North Agile LLC d.b.a. True Business Agility. With more than 30 years of experience spanning software development, Information Technology, business operations, and enterprise transformation, Brad brings both breadth and depth to his work. For over a decade, he served as an enterprise Kanban coach to Fortune 20 organizations, guiding large-scale transformations, helping leaders make work visible, manage flow, and build resilience through systems thinking. A Kanban University–accredited trainer, he blends technical expertise with a humane approach to change and leadership development. Today, Brad's mission is to extend that same flow-based agility to mid- and small-sized businesses, equipping leaders at every level to unlock clarity, adaptability, and purpose-driven success with fit-for-purpose systems that make work visible, manageable, and meaningful. When you make delays visible, your people stop working around them and start removing them.
Brad Hughes is an Enterprise Kanban and Business Agility Coach, now serving organizations as a Fractional COO, and founder of True North Agile LLC d.b.a. True Business Agility. With more than 30 years of experience spanning software development, Information Technology, business operations, and enterprise transformation, Brad brings both breadth and depth to his work.
For over a decade, he served as an enterprise Kanban coach to Fortune 20 organizations, guiding large-scale transformations, helping leaders make work visible, manage flow, and build resilience through systems thinking. A Kanban University–accredited trainer, he blends technical expertise with a humane approach to change and leadership development.
Today, Brad's mission is to extend that same flow-based agility to mid- and small-sized businesses, equipping leaders at every level to unlock clarity, adaptability, and purpose-driven success with fit-for-purpose systems that make work visible, manageable, and meaningful. When you make delays visible, your people stop working around them and start removing them.
Session Description:
In today’s fast-changing work environment, leadership can no longer remain the domain of executives alone. The Kanban Method provides a practical, visual way to unlock leadership at every level of an organization.
By making work visible and offering practices for balancing demand, managing flow, and guiding evolutionary improvement, Kanban enables people to manage and improve work collectively and effectively. The method creates mechanisms for clearer communication, stronger collaboration, shared ownership, and better decision-making.
This session explores how managers, team members, and executives alike can lead by using Kanban to build trust, align decisions, and shape a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Attendees will leave with:
A clear understanding of the Kanban Method as a modern management approach Practical tools for enabling leadership behaviors such as shared ownership, effective collaboration, and informed decision-making Concrete practices for cultivating a culture where leadership emerges naturally wherever and whenever it is needed
This program aligns with the following capabilities of the ATD Capability Model: Career & Leadership Development, Organizational Capability, Professional Capability, & Personal Capability
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