What the Comrades Marathon tells you about Agile Transformations

The Comrades Marathon is the largest and oldest ultra marathon in the world. Every year 20,000 runners line up to subject themselves to 90 kilometres of pain, anguish and mental torture – a lot like agile transformations. Whilst the Amazons and Googles seem to have agility built into their DNA, most of us are like the "average runner" battling through to finish Comrades in the final hour before cut-off.

Believe it or not anyone can run Comrades (I'll prove it!) – and any organisation can have a successful transformation. Agile transformations are a lot of hard work. This is a talk for those of us for whom agility does not come naturally – from a runner who has battled through 10 Comrades Marathons and spent 3 years battling away on the front line of a major agile transformation.

Stuart Mann, Lean Agile Coach @ Standard Bank

Stuart Mann is a reformed waterfall guy who is now a passionate Agile Coach. He is a father (two girls), husband (one wife) and a trainee feminist. In his spare time, Stuart is a compulsive marathon runner having run over 220 marathons and ultras.

He is a prodigious writer with a popular blog, monthly column in South Africa’s largest running publication (Modern Athlete) and a regular contributor of athletics articles to News24.com. Stuart’s lifetime ambition is to secure a beer sponsor.