PDD 2026 SPEAKER
Neal Rowland
"Fail Fast: Learn Faster - What Sets High Performing Teams Apart"
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About the Speaker
Neal Rowland is an Agile coach with nearly 20 years of experience supporting organizations ranging from Fortune 100 enterprises to small businesses. He has led Agile transformations and coached teams in applying both Agile practices and mindset. Neal is also an author, instructor, designer, and application developer and currently serves as a Global Product Manager at Stellantis and an Agile coach for the University of South Florida. A longtime contributor to the Agile and project management community, he was among the early recipients of the PMI-ACP® credential and contributed to the PMBOK® Guide.
Session: "Fail Fast: Learn Faster - What Sets High Performing Teams Apart"
Why do some teams turn setbacks into learning while others struggle to recover? In this hands-on workshop, attendees will work with new teammates and use a board game as a low-stakes learning lab for failure. The exercise is designed to surface behaviors, communication patterns, and mindsets that also appear on real project teams under pressure. Structured reflection and debriefs will help participants examine what happened, why it happened, and how those observations can translate into practical strategies for building more Agile, productive, and high-performing teams.
Learning Objectives
Attendees will be able to:
- Identify behaviors associated with high-performing teams.
- Recognize how teams respond to failure and learning.
- Cultivate Agile mindsets that support adaptation and improvement.
- Strengthen team culture and communication.
- Apply lessons from the workshop to improve team performance.
High-performing teams are not defined by avoiding failure. They are distinguished by how quickly they recognize problems, learn, adapt, and move forward. Neal's PDD 2026 workshop gives project professionals an opportunity to examine those behaviors through experience rather than presentation alone.
