Share with you in my twenty minutes.So welcome everybody to this presentation about the power of the Triangular leadership, something that I'm very passionate about it, and it's one of those things that you want to share with with people, just in case it's quite useful for you. But first, let me start by let me just change my presenter here. Okay. There you go. But first, let me tell you a little bit about who am I. Please let me know. Can you see the presentation? Right? Can you thumbs up? Yes. Perfect. Perfect. So let me tell you a little bit about myself. I am the mom of Ethan and Grace. I'm currently the head of project delivery for a company called Seven One Media digital platforms, and I'm also super fan of empowering immigrant women around the world with my podcast I am Antwana and with my career confidence coach that is very much focused in immigrant women.

I live in different countries, I have been working in different industries. And today, as I said before, I'm here to share with you a little bit of my experience while running very big, very small and in the middle projects. And a common thing that I found between all of them, and the way that me and my team turn things around, and now we are in a different in a different place. But who is this for? If you are a leader or aspiring leader in tech who is tireless of endless five five team and you really want meaningful results and and and real ones, this, is for you. Or you might be leading or part of a cross functional team and you're constantly feeling friction between product tech and delivery.

Anyone with that situation because I have I still have it, and we I think we have all the time, this might be for you. Or you know, and a lot of you probably know, that successful projects are above and beyond tools and processes. That it's more about people, about trust, and about collaboration. So if that is your case, also you are in the right place. But let me take you back to my very, very first big, big project as a leader. We have amazing people, talented developers, we have product geniuses and very supportive management team. And yet, things weren't working. We were stuck in constant firefighting, everyone was busy, but somehow we weren't delivering any results. It was like chaos at some point. We didn't have a framework to use, a proper ownership from the product side and the engineers were constantly panicking and what I call analysis paralysis with the thought of the amount of work required to launch an app in a brand new country with everything and in under six months.

At the time, I thought maybe we just need more tools. We need to put more tools to organise ourselves better or maybe better processes. But that wasn't the problem. And the real problem was that we weren't working together in the right way. That moment sent me on a journey to discover something better and something more human that sometimes we forget about it. And that is what I want to share with you today. By the way, this picture was taken after we launched on time, on budget, and with the scope that we needed by that time. So a little bit more about what we did and what we changed during that time, in a few minutes. But why this matter? Why we have this collaboration gap?

And sometimes it's not because we don't have amazing tech, it's not because we aren't smart enough, or because we are not aligning but basically, it's because we are not aligning and trusting and collaborating at the human level. Did you know that let me just click here did you know that in a study according to McKinsey, 70% of the agile transformations don't meet expectations And a whopping eighty eighty six percent according to Salesforce, in the workplace, failures are due to poor collaboration and communication.

And probably this is something that you don't know. You know already. Sorry. Not that you don't know. But processes and tool matter. Don't get me wrong, but people working together in the right way, a theme is what truly transforms projects and careers as well. So at the beginning of this project, I noticed that we weren't having a cohesive understanding of the project. The classic thing that people product people want something, the technical people think that that doesn't make sense and they want to do it in a different way, and delivery just wanted to do it on time, on budget. Just just just let's do it. We were losing the focus of what really matters, and we wanted to do it in under six months or six months because of contractual agreements.

Classic when we are in this kind of big project. We have some processes in place. Epics were created. Tickets were coming into the each theme. But I thought, what if we stop trying to manage everything through processes and start building real partnership? And that is when this thing that I call the triangular leadership comes in. And probably it's not nothing new that you haven't heard before, but for me, the idea of creating this triangle was something that I wanted to test. So I went and the way that I started was creating what I call a group called the project management team, And that is made of, the pro the business sponsor, which is, as you know, they're responsible for the business case, resolve the high level business issues, and make financial decisions.

So he's the one that talk with the board, with the directors, board of directors, or any anyone else. And then there was this triangle that was constantly making things and moving in a very simple, simple way. So the first part of the triangle is the product lead of the project and this person is the one that owns the vision, the strategy and the direction. They are the one that person is the one that truly understands what we want to achieve in a high level as a project, completely as a project, and is the one that take the business decisions at project level, sometimes with some collaboration with the business sponsor, but he truly understand or she truly understand that part.

Then that is the one that holding the vision. Then the product the project technical lead and make it the technical aspects, including the architecture, that goes with the business objective. So this person have clarity about what the business objective is and builds and facilitate that collaboration amongst engineers and acting as the main technical contact for the project, making the overall decisions of the technical things. How many times we have a lot of teams building something and there is not a way to get agreement of how we're going to do it. So this technical lead act as that person that put the guys together and say, hey, guys. Let's do it in this way, or what do you think if we, propose this way to do it?

And then the final part of that, that triangle is the delivery lead. Then make it happen by the project. And if you see it in this way, it's the glue between the vision and the, technical, technical side, and he's the one that hold the execution, making sure that these two visions from the product business and from the technical side make it happen at the lower level, which which is where the teams are working.

So each role is crucial. Each brings different strengths, but they move together and that is different, like a triangle. Like, basically, a triangle that is balanced, that is strong, and focus on creating the value that we want. And it's when these three entities or three, people work together as partners and not silos is when the magic happens. So we start working together in a cohesive way. We were all informed of what was going on in the project with one through and that was another good thing. It's just managing one single through that the three of us or the three of on that triangle were managing. We start being one from, with one story, and one purpose, and that is when things start moving along much, much better.

But when when we established the project management team, we started working together with, with the connection of the solution development teams, which basically make things a lot more easier. In each team, we were having a product manager that was holding the vision of the product lead, and also, and he was the one or they the group of PMs were the one holding the vision and working with the developers directly and putting that vision down into the teams, while the tech leads of each team were holding the technical bits where the relevant project the relevant areas that they were going to collaborate and contributing to the overall solution.

So this person also have a clarity of what we needed to do directly from the team. And then we have the development teams, obviously, UI, UX, outside sometimes, the QA, Q and A team as well, Q and A QA team, the scrum masters. And then outside that development solution development team, we have sometimes technical advisers and business coordinator with other business like marketing, like CRM, like legal, that they were part of the project but not working directly every single day. And sometimes we have some ideal coaches or facilitators helping us to put in things together. So we have talked about the power of, triangular leadership here and how align aligning the product lead, the technical lead, and the delivery lead can drive that clarity that sometimes we need in our project because out of these, we're coming out one front that we were showing to the teams and the teams were able to focus in and going towards that vision that we have.

But here's the truth. Just putting three people in the roles isn't enough. And trust me, I tried early on thinking, if I just have the right people, you know, with the right mindset, everything will fall into place. But it didn't because successful collaboration isn't just about putting people in the right place or, you know, in the right seats. It's about building the right foundations for them to also drive. So they needed some foundations to really work well. And that is one. I'm talking about three pillars of this triangle. The first pillar for me was the governance. The second pillar for me is people, which is at the center of it. And then the third pillar for me is the communication side of it.

So if we go to the governance, this is the blueprint that keeps everyone aligned and moving towards the same vision. But no governance that slow you down, governance that keep you aligned. And that is a typical thing, especially in agile projects when a lot of the developers refuse to have, documentation because we're agile and we don't need to. But I learned early on that we don't need to have heavy process documents. What we need is clarity. Well, we can. I mean, sometimes they are super big projects that you need to have certain level. But in the majority of the case, one of the things or the tools that I minimum recommend to have is one vision board with such clarity of where are we going that people can have a look every single day if needed, one simple project roadmap that people can see it, and one risk board where risks are on and talk about it, but not hidden away in lots of spreadsheet that no one understand.

And you might be wondering why I have this kind of, like, reflector light is because I'm very visual, and I really want to create easy to understand, on the spot, simple things to see where we are at all the time. You can have all the documentation that you have, but what works really well for me is provide that simple, quick access so people can see where we are. So quick story. One of the projects, they're having a one clear page initiative role might save me a lot of time, like, three months, of spinning around, and that is where I realized the power of the lightweight governance. Then we move to people. It's the structure that connects and empowers the right people to collaborate and effectively, and it's the heart of this, leadership. And here's the thing. Most issues I have seen in projects didn't come from bad tech or unclear strategy. They came from misaligned expectations between product tech and delivery. Now what is the solution?

For me, works really well a management triangle that meets every single week or for fifty minutes even, but having a fast, honest conversation about, are we still aligned on the goal? Are there any risks that are blocking or emerging right now? Are we keeping the team focused? And one project that I lead, just these fifty minutes that we were having weekly allow us to really move fast and and very clear. And we used to have one chat that was just for this triangle leadership where we were washing what I call our dirty laundry. When we went together, we have our act together, and then we were going out with one information and one way to move forward, saving us a lot of time and effort and a lot of stress. Because for me, tiny habits make a massive, massive impact. And the last bit is communication.

And that is a glue that binds all together, preventing the gaps and misunderstanding and also the chaos. I'm not saying that don't have emails or reports are not important, they are, but also real and transparent conversations are really good. There are many ways to create communication strategy and I'm not here to tell you what is the right one because I use different ones depending on the nature of the project, the complexity, the requirements, but all the time I'm going down to three things or three layers that I call the circle of trust.

So the core stakeholders is my leadership triangle, is the one that we are very close working together with the same vision. Then we have the affected stakeholders, which could be the development team, the business owner, even the sponsors who need to know what's going on, and then the interested stakeholders, which is everybody who should stay informed. Each layer needs different communication styles, but all communication needs to be open, needs to be transparent, and needs to be proactive. And communication on time is better than no communication. And that is one of the things I also learned. One project that I manage because we proactively build a circle of trust constantly. We avoid so much of the political drama when we have to pivot the project and move the project almost three months for changes in the in the requirements, but we have this hard deadline.

But the business trust us to make the right call because we earn that trust. I know we we we weren't demanding that. So what I'm saying here is without these three pillars, the leadership collapse, this leadership triangle that I'm talking about collapsed. You might have the right people, but they will be running in different directions. You might have the right vision, but it will get lost into translation, or you might have the right strategy, but it won't be delivered in the way that you can imagine. So now that you have the see the three foundational pillars, governance that keeps everyone aligned and accountable, people who form the backbone of their collaboration and the execution, and communication that build trust and eliminate the chaos of misalignments. But you might be wondering, does this really work? Can this model actually transform projects? And the answer is absolutely yes.

And I'm not just saying this for saying I haven't seen it firsthand. So now let me show you the real impact of this triangular leadership in action. Not not just a theory, but actual results that change the trajectory of the project and even the trajectory of my team. Because at the end of the day, we are not just leading projects. We are transforming the way teams collaborate, innovate, and deliver real value, and this is what we are looking at. And here's what happened when we put together the triangle of leadership consistently for around a year. So what happened was 10%, increase of 10% in the stakeholder satisfaction from one side.

We have increase of 10% in the team engagement and collaboration, people really feeling that they were working together. Then we increased 10% on the project efficiency and effectiveness of what we were doing and a whopping 20% in the net promoter score for the delivery team. So they recognized the value that we were bringing and they wanted to work with us, which was really, really good. So I know I'm very much at the end of my presentation. And here's what I learned after implementing this for a whole year, that successful collaboration tech isn't just about having the right process or tool. It's about the way we lead.

That the triangular leadership model brings together product tech and delivery if you do it in the right way, and it's a total game changer, because align vision, feasibility, and execution. And then that real collaboration needs a foundation of governance, people, and communication. That is super important. So my point for you is you just need to start small to transform big. So what I will suggest to you today is pick one project, the one that is in stock or feels a little bit messy at the moment. Identify your triangle, who is your product, who you take, and who is the ability that you can put together. Set a rhythm of regular alignments to create that clear shared goals and that open communication, and start building the new circle of trust, small with small and real communications to really understand what is the need of each of those layers in your circle of trust.

And start with one project, one leadership triangle, and one circle of trust because small changes practiced consistently will create that massive momentum that we sometimes need. I'm going to jump because I realize all the time. I have just one more minute, but this is my call to action for you. Take what you have here today and choose one action you can implement this week. It could be introducing a leadership sync, simplify your project governance because you realize that you can scrap some stuff and then go to straight to the point and make it super visual, or having a conversation about rebuilding the trust in your circle of trust. That is redundant but and when you do that please connect me, send me a message. Here is all the ways that you can connect with me and let's celebrate the progress together because this is what we lead the change, one small shift at a time and this is what I did, for a whole year and the change was massive.

Anyway, thank you for being here, thank you for being the kind of leader that is ready to challenge the old ways and do something slightly different And, yeah, I hope that I can connect with you very, very soon. So thank you so much. And I will be answering the questions, directly to you. I just see in the chat now, but I think that some of the questions there, I will I will answer very soon. Thank you so much, guys, and enjoy the rest of the, conference. Bye.