You’re Invited to… The Coordination Crisis Summit!

A FREE, Invite-Only One-Day Summit for Tech Leaders, Innovators, and Disruptors
April 17, 2025 | University of Maryland | Hybrid Event (In-Person & Virtual)

The Coordination Crisis: Why This Summit Matters

“Workers spend 59% of their time on ‘work about work’—status updates, searching for information, and duplicating efforts. This inefficiency stifles innovation, drains productivity, and keeps teams from delivering meaningful impact.” – Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index, 2022

That’s six weeks per year wasted on duplicative efforts, outdated processes, and inefficient communication, which costs $1.85 trillion annually in the USA alone, and results in lower-quality outcomes, disengaged teams, and stalled innovation.

A more recent study by Asana updates this idea with the Productivity Taxes – a metric that doesn’t include duplicated efforts – but does include all ‘busywork’ such as:

Connectivity Tax – disconnected from each other across functions, and from organizational goals
Velocity Tax – technology and process bottlenecks constraining the flow of work
Resilience Tax – toxic colleagues and bosses, as well as change management efforts that hurt morale
Capacity Tax – overloads of meetings, collaboration across teams, and too many tools to manage

These “outdated ways of working mean that more than half (53%) of workers’ time is swallowed up by busywork” – The State of Work Innovation, 2024 edition

The Coordination Crisis Summit will convene top executives, product leaders, agile practitioners, and AI experts to tackle this crisis head-on. Hosted by the University of Maryland’s Project Management Center for Excellence, co-created by Steady.space and Professor John Johnson, and supported by AlphaRoc, this summit will bring together a very exclusive group to build and refine a new set of principles and craft a way forward together.

This isn’t just another conference—it’s a working summit where attendees will actively contribute to shaping the future of how modern teams coordinate and execute at scale.

Where?

@ UMD’s Student Union

Inside the Beautiful Atrium

Attend Online or In-Person

What to Expect

Session Design

Live breakouts with peers across industries
Real-time synthesis of data and insights
Shared authorship of the Coordination Crisis Charter
Actionable commitments and experiments you can take home
Scroll down to see the Working Summit Agenda

Confirmed Speakers

Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais – Co-Creators, Team Topologies
Kathleen Walch – Director of AI Engagement and Learning, PMI
Henry Poydar – CEO, Steady | Continuous Coordination (CoCo)
Dan Makoski – Founder, Design Executive Council
Joe Mariani – Research Senior Manager, Deloitte
Mark Lines – Co-Creator, Disciplined Agile, PMI
Damien Peters – Managing Partner, WNCP AI

Where to Stay?

There are two hotels available to participants. Both hotels have a complimentary shuttle.

College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference Center located at 3501 University Blvd E., College Park, MD 20783.

The Hotel which is located at the corner of Baltimore Avenue and Campus Drive at 7777 Baltimore Avenue, College Park, MD 20740.

Parking?

Included thanks to your great Sponsors!
Located in Union Lane Garage
(right next to Stamp Student Union)

Food?

Also included… register and let us know if you plan to attend in-person!

The food might look like this…or better!

Registration

Coordination Crisis Summit Registration

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Working Summit Agenda

🕙 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM | Welcome & Purpose

Welcome & Sponsor Acknowledgments (5 min)
Purpose of the Day & Introduction to Strategic Doing (10 min)
Orientation to the Experience (5 min)

🕥 10:30 AM – 11:15 AM | Defining the Crisis based on the 1,000 Tech Voices Survey

Powered by AlphaRoc’s Occam platform, this cutting-edge survey draws insights from thousands of tech leaders and knowledge workers, uncovering the true costs of coordination inefficiencies.

Data Insights Overview (5 min)
Self-Reflection on Survey Themes (10 min)
Small Group Breakouts (20 min)
- What scares you?
- What surprised you?
- Add takeaways to the Live Wall
Synthesis (10 min)
🛠️ Charter Element: Defining the Coordination Crisis

🕚 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM | Frameworks to Fight Back – Lightning Talks

Lightning Talks (20 min)
- Continuous Coordination – Henry Poydar
- Team Topologies – Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton
- Disciplined Agile – Mark Lines
- Portable Story Lab – Dan Makoski
Group Breakouts (20 min)
Synthesis (10 min)
🛠️ Charter Element: Tools & Practices That Matter

🕛 12:15 PM – 12:30 PM | Charter Checkpoint

Live Readout of Charter Draft v1.0
Live Wall Feedback

🕧 12:30 PM – 1:15 PM | Lunch & Light Networking

🕐 1:15 PM – 2:00 PM | The Next Layer: Agentic AI

Framing: AI & Coordination Insights from Survey
AI Panel (20 min)
- Damien Peters, WMCP.Ai
- Joe Mariani, Deloitte
- Kathleen Walsh, PMI
Group Breakouts (20 min)
Synthesis (10 min)
🛠️ Charter Element: Experiments with Agentic AI

🕑 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM | Priorities & Personal Commitments

Breakouts (20 min)
- What’s your top priority?
- What’s your ‘Rifle Shot’?
- Add takeaways to the Live Wall
Facilitator Synthesis (10 min)
Silent Gallery Walk (5 min)
🛠️ Charter Element: Shared Priorities & Commitments

🕝 2:45 PM – 3:00 PM | Final Charter & Closing Circle

Our Sponsors & Partners

This summit is made possible by:

University of Maryland’s Project Management Center for Excellence
Steady.space
AlphaRoc

Count Me In!

This invite-only event is completely free, with no registration required. To attend, simply register above or email:
John Johnson, Faculty Specialist, UMD
✉️ johnj85@umd.edu

Additional Resources

For more on Continuous Coordination, visit: continuouscoordination.org

Read HRM’s article on the psychology behind why we attend so many unnecessary meetings.

The Executive Project Management Program at the University of Maryland (ePM@UMD) was specifically developed to deliver long term solutions to your toughest project management challenges. To do this effectively, you need on-demand education. Where and when you need it. It’s that simple!