GOAT 2.0: Navigating Radical Uncertainty Together
Last Updated: October 2026
Agile Pain Relief has been sponsoring the Gatineau Ottawa Agile Tour (GOAT) for so long that I’m now called the “Founding Sponsor.” I didn’t anticipate this when I first sponsored the event in 2012. (Wow that was a while ago.)
To sign up for GOAT 2.0, visit goagiletour.ca.
Not your old GOAT
The old GOAT was a conference about agile itself: Scrum, Kanban, XP and the craft of agile teams, for newcomers and veterans alike. We won. Agile is no longer the scrappy underdog that needs championing. Whether you call it Scrum, Kanban, XP or something else, it’s the default way for software development teams to work. Along the way we stole ideas from every other source. My bookshelf has one shelf of agile books and five shelves on behavioral psychology, leadership, organizational design, lean and product management. Agile has also moved well beyond software. Teams use it in sales, marketing, HR, hardware, and even to design fighter planes and gas plants.
In 2026 and beyond, we’re all trying to stay upright while dealing with several messes at once:
- Trade war and tariffs
- Generative AI
- Climate issues
Any one of these would be enough to knock a business off track. Combined, they make big picture planning look like throwing darts. Canned talks about what we think you should do won’t help. Nobody, including me, has the answers yet. We’re all discovering as we go.
GOAT 2.0 is a day with people who face the same problems. Less theory and more talk about pain points we’re seeing right now: Radical Uncertainty.
The mystery panels
We have three panels in the morning:
- Geopolitics and Tech
- Future of Work
- Is AI Uncovering Better Ways?
Who’re the panelists? That’s a closely guarded secret. Come find out with me. Maybe I will even be one.
In the afternoon, you get facilitated peer breakouts based on the three panel topic areas.
The details
- When Thursday, November 26, 2026, 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM
- Where Ottawa Conference and Event Centre, 200 Coventry Road, Ottawa
- Cost $200 CAD plus HST
- Capacity 250 people
As “Founding Sponsor”, I will have a booth. However, you won’t find me there. There may just be a sign that says “Agile Pain Relief doesn’t help solve problems sitting in a booth.” Instead, come find me in the room and tell me which of those messes is keeping you up at night.
Mark Levison
Mark Levison has been helping Scrum teams and organizations with Agile, Scrum and Kanban style approaches since 2001. From certified scrum master training to custom Agile courses, he has helped well over 8,000 individuals, earning him respect and top rated reviews as one of the pioneers within the industry, as well as a raft of certifications from the ScrumAlliance. Mark has been a speaker at various Agile Conferences for more than 20 years, and is a published Scrum author with eBooks as well as articles on InfoQ.com, ScrumAlliance.org and AgileAlliance.org.
