Stephen de Villiers Graaff

Cape Town Area, South Africa

Bio

I am a professional trainer and coach specialising in Agile practices. Over the last 20+ years I have worked in many different industries from the collar and tie of large corporates to the hard-hats and steel-caps of manufacturing. In these industries, I have been responsible for building and leading teams in the delivery and support of customer value primarily using Agile frameworks.

I have discovered through this journey that true agility has nothing to with frameworks and processes. True agility is about people, and more importantly, about how people interact with each other. How do we create a culture that self-assesses and corrects over time? How do we ensure that the learned behaviours we pass on are those that we truly value?

I love helping people to discover new ways of thinking, learning and relearning. How can we improve the end to end delivery of value together? How do we embark on our own unique journey while embracing the vital elements of respect, focus and simplicity? I ask these questions constantly as we strive to build cohesive and collaborative teams: Magic is formed when people are encouraged to be creative, expressive and collectively responsible.

“Make no little plans: they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” - Daniel Burnham