The Strobo Experiment: Elevating Katas on the Road to Business Agility

Talk by Michael Voorhaen
LeSS Conference Amsterdam 2026

What happens when a product organization wants to move toward business agility, but does not have the budget or conditions for a big transformation?

In this talk, Michael Voorhaen shares the story of Strobo, a workforce management product that grew quickly, was acquired, and then had to find its way out of technical debt, fragmented teams, and slow delivery. Instead of a large-scale flip, the team took a gradual path: introducing one improvement at a time, using small but meaningful changes to evolve how product development worked.

Michael calls these elevating katas — practical steps that helped the organization move closer to stronger product focus, better team collaboration, and more visible delivery.

Topics covered in this talk

• The challenges Strobo faced after rapid growth and acquisition
• Why the team chose a gradual improvement approach instead of a big redesign
• How sprint reviews, planning, and refinement evolved over time
• Moving from feature-heavy roadmaps to more goal-oriented roadmaps
• Using sprint goals, bets, and smaller increments to improve focus and learning
• Connecting developers more closely to stakeholders and customers
• Creating shared understanding through roadmap workshops, dev days, and open space sessions
• How language, visibility, and conversation changed as the system improved

The talk shows how practices commonly associated with LeSS can be introduced step by step, without a formal flip, while still leading teams toward stronger whole-product thinking and better business agility.

At the heart of the story is a shift from managing work as disconnected technical tasks to treating product development as a shared learning journey across teams, stakeholders, and customers.

This session is especially relevant for Product Owners, Product Managers, coaches, and leaders working in organizations that want to improve incrementally while still aiming for deeper organizational change.

LeSS Conference Amsterdam 2026
https://less.works