Flight Levels Day

Ariel was engaged by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) in response to a critical operational crisis within the agency’s IT organization. A rapidly growing backlog of application enhancement and remediation requests driven by new business processes, regulatory requirements, and policy mandates had reached an unsustainable level across NYCHA’s major divisions, with even minor improvements taking more than nine months to deliver. To stabilize operations and restore delivery capacity, Ariel partnered with NYCHA to design and implement a Target Operating Model encompassing IT strategy, workforce, processes, and technology. The resulting improvements were specifically focused on enabling IT teams to rapidly address urgent system fixes and high-priority business needs across NYCHA’s enterprise application portfolio, while establishing a foundation for sustained operational resilience.

NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in North America, responsible for providing affordable housing to more than 550,000 residents across the five boroughs. NYCHA manages a vast and complex portfolio that includes over 2,500 buildings and 200,000 apartments, making it one of the city’s most critical providers of housing and community stability. NYCHA oversees an annual budget of roughly $6B, a significant sum, yet less than half of the estimated $40B required to bring all buildings up to code. The chronic funding shortfall necessitates a state of permanent triage, where tasks and requests are strictly prioritized, and improvements to convenience and comfort are often deferred to ensure safety and basic livability. Ariel conducted a comprehensive assessment of the IT organization and led targeted workshops and executive interviews with leaders from the four primary operating divisions responsible for approximately 80 percent of the agency’s IT demand. Through this effort, we identified key root causes and delivered actionable recommendations spanning staffing, organizational structure, governance, service delivery processes, and the strategic use of automation to eliminate bottlenecks created by labor-intensive manual workflows.

We began by designing a Flight Levels system architecture that modeled NYCHA’s end-to-end value streams, encompassing both development and operations teams to create transparency across the system of work. Recognizing NYCHA’s significant investment in ServiceNow and their desire to retain the platform, we focused on enabling better use of the existing tool rather than recommending replacement. We analyzed ServiceNow’s native capabilities and implemented agile boards aligned to all three Flight Levels, while simplifying configurations to “de-customize” the environment and return to out-of-the-box functionality wherever possible. By identifying the optimal approach for mapping value streams within ServiceNow, we enabled clearer portfolio flow and prioritization. We also supported the formation of cross-functional teams, established structured standups at each Flight Level, and helped redesign organizational structures to remove bureaucratic layers that had been hindering collaboration and decision-making.

The resulting improvement roadmap balanced immediate corrective actions with medium-term reforms and longer-term transformation initiatives. Within six months of implementation, the IT organization achieved a 58 percent increase in service delivery throughput, a 75 percent reduction in the demand backlog, and a measurable improvement in staff engagement and satisfaction.

Two years ago, the BASF Tamol cluster ran its multi-project portfolio on Excel. Nearly 150 people, 5 production plants, over 50 products - and every team in its own silo. No cross-team visibility, no real-time status, no way to see bottlenecks before they hit. Projects were thrown over the fence between departments without warning. "The amount of work was like a bow wave that got bigger every day," as the engineering team described it.

This talk is the practical story of how we implemented and scaled Flight Level 2 coordination at BASF Tamol - not as a theoretical model, but as a working system in a regulated chemical production environment.

We started with one painful process: plant modifications. We visualised it as-is in Businessmap, ran a hands-on multi-project simulation to build conviction across the teams, and went live after just four weeks. The board made the invisible visible: dependencies, blockers, and capacity conflicts that had been hidden in spreadsheets for years.

Then came the hard part: establishing flow. WIP limits, cadences, flow metrics. The numbers tell the story: work in progress of plant changes dropped from around 140 to under 50 projects. Average cycle time fell from 13 months to around 5. Maintenance costs dropped by 30%. Rework cycle times went from over a week to under three days.

From that single process, BASF Tamol scaled Flight Level 2 across the entire cluster. Two main coordination systems now connect to all teams. Every standup, every shift handover across four shifts, every weekly work plan - it all happens on Businessmap boards. Just over 130 users work in the system daily. Email for project updates has been replaced entirely. And product quality climbed to above 99%. In 2026, BASF Tamol is taking the next step: connecting strategy to execution through Flight Level 3.

The plant manager's summary after 18 months captures it well: it is a fundamentally different way of working, with measurable impact on cost, quality, and delivery.

The talk closes with a short glimpse what lies ahead: what could change when you connect AI to a mature Flight Level 2 setup? Businessmap already has a strong internal AI engine and built-in automation capabilities. But the real shift comes when you connect external AI tools on top of that foundation - when clean data and stable flow become the launchpad for something more powerful. We are currently experimenting with autonomous AI agents that work directly inside Businessmap and across the entire tool stack, coordinating across boards, surfacing patterns, and handling routine coordination tasks. This is early-stage work, not a finished product - but it points to where Flight Level 2 systems are heading. Not AI as a chatbot on the side, but AI as a coordination partner embedded in the flow.

Whether you are at the start of your Flight Levels journey or looking to extend an established setup, this session offers concrete takeaways from a real, two-year implementation - including what went wrong, what surprised us, what we would do differently and what lies ahead.

It's May 2027. The fog has lifted — a little.

Looking back at 2026, three types of people experienced it very differently. The Pioneers had already gone through both awakenings: from AI-as-search-engine to vibe coding, and then into truly agentic AI co-creation. They were waiting for someone to care. The Town Planners had rolled out AI licenses, felt responsible, and were operating at about 2% of what the technology could actually do — without knowing it. The Settlers stood between them, crossing the first threshold, starting to understand what was changing.

In all three groups, one question surfaced: Where is this taking us?

This session is a practitioner's field report from that year — told as a story. No case study. No framework slides. Three characters — each experiencing the same year differently — and the question of what Flight Levels actually means when a growing share of the work is done by agents, not people.

The invitation: get to the experience. Not secondhand — find out what's possible yourself. Then ask: what does this mean for the way we plan, coordinate, and organize work?

At Bettercomp, a ~100-person remote HR tech startup, we faced the classic scaling challenge: great tools (Salesforce, Asana, Gong, Zendesk) that didn't talk to each other, and managers struggling to see the full picture of work flowing across teams.

This talk shares our practical journey applying Flight Levels thinking to stitch these systems together - using Businessmap as our visualization layer and n8n as the automation glue. You'll hear how we connected Salesforce opportunity closures to automatic Asana project creation, built lean management dashboards for team visibility, and are working toward a Flight Level 2 system that lets cross-functional teams collaborate without endless status meetings.

It's not a perfect rollout - we're mid-journey, learning as we go. I'll share what's working, what's keeping me awake at night, and the real messiness of being a small IT team trying to enable flow across an entire org. If you're in a similar spot - lots of tools, limited headcount, executives asking "why can't I see everything in one place?" - this one's for you.

We connected all three Flight Levels - from on-site civil engineering delivery through cross-organisational coordination to boardroom strategy in a complex water utility capital programme.

Project timelines dropped from five years to eighteen months. WIP fell, cost reduced, focus increased - measurable across contractors, design partners, and internal teams using Businessmap.

Along the way, we found teams struggling with collaboration challenges, coordination layers drowning in WIP, strategic priorities that weren’t - and more.

This talk shares how we built from the ground up, confronted overwhelm in the middle, and delivered FL3 dashboards that started to give directors an honest view of the whole system . Not just the progress of multi-year infrastructure projects, but the friction, constraint, and systemic pain too.

In many organizations operating in emerging markets, the real bottleneck is not strategy definition, but its consistent translation into execution. Fragmentation across organizational layers, lack of flow visibility, and conflicting priorities create systems where everyone is busy, yet progress remains misaligned.

This challenge is currently amplified in several African markets facing intense growth pressure driven by large-scale international projects — such as the Lobito Corridor — which are accelerating investment, infrastructure expansion, and cross-border collaboration. These dynamics are forcing organizations to operate at a higher level of alignment between strategy, people, and measurable results.

In this 30-minute talk, I share a practical experience applying Flight Levels thinking in organizations with varying levels of agile maturity, deliberately connecting strategic definition (FL3), cross-team coordination (FL2), and operational delivery (FL1). The approach went beyond visual boards or meeting cadences; it focused on designing a systemic alignment structure that integrated OKRs as a mechanism for strategic focus and measurable impact.

I will explore real cases from Angola and other African markets, where combining Flight Levels with OKRs created clarity across organizational layers, reduced priority conflicts, and established more effective decision rhythms. This alignment also proved critical in identifying competency gaps, making structural bottlenecks visible, strengthening middle-management accountability, and elevating overall performance.

The session will address key challenges encountered throughout the journey — from cultural resistance to resource constraints — and share practical lessons on adapting Flight Levels to environments with diverse organizational maturity. It demonstrates how a well-designed strategic alignment system not only improves workflow, but also strengthens leadership, develops critical capabilities, and turns People Strategy into a true execution engine in high-growth, high-pressure environments.

As Flight Levels helps organizations evolve towards greater agility, I've discovered that their early experiences with Agile interactions can determine long term success. This session explores how simulation-based preparation can accelerate teams’ readiness for their first Agile Interactions and lay the groundwork for sustained improvement. We’ll examine why selecting the right pilot and forming a small, cross‑functional “flight crew” is essential for building momentum and confidence.

Participants will learn how intentional pre‑ and post‑interaction communications amplify impact, reinforce alignment, and drive continuous learning. I’ll also highlight how flow metrics can illuminate system constraints, improve predictability, and directly link cross-functional member behaviors to meaningful business outcomes. Most importantly, we will explore how these practices cultivate an environment where teams feel connected, collaborative, and empowered to proactively solve capacity challenges.

Join me to discover practical techniques, real‑world examples, and actionable insights that will help your organization move from its first Agile Interaction to a mature, repeatable, and scalable value‑driven way of working.

AI is no longer a side experiment—it is becoming an integral part of how teams organize, deliver value, and scale impact.

In this talk, I share my journey as Flight Levels Professional and AI Product Owner of 17 healthy AI agents running in production, designed and orchestrated on Flight Level 2 using n8n-based strategies and technologies. These agents operate as a cross-functional, outcome-oriented team of teams, supporting real business work across Executive Office, Project Management, HR, Business Development, Marketing, and Sales. Rather than treating AI as tooling, this setup treats AI agents as team members orchestrated on Flight Level 2 with clear responsibilities, quality metrics, and collaboration patterns—from Research Manager and Executive Assistant, to Fact-Checker, Flowmaster, Content Marketer, Podcast Creator, LinkedIn Expert, Personas, and Sales Support.

The session explores:

• How servant leadership principles translate into AI Project Management & AI Product Ownership
• What Flight Level 2 health “team health” means for AI agent Flight Level systems in production
• How n8n enables scalable, observable, and adaptable AI workflows
• Why cross-functionality and agility matter just as much for AI teams as for human ones

The talk concludes with an invitation to rethink leadership itself: If AI agents can be onboarded, coached, measured for health, and led as cross-functional teams and via a Flight Level 2 System, then the real question is no longer whether AI belongs in our organizations and project teams—but who is ready to orchestrate it via Flight Level 2 Systems responsibly.

"Flight Levels® is great, but isn’t it just for big corporations?”

This common assumption has stopped many small business leaders from unlocking its transformative potential. Let’s bust that myth and show how Flight Levels works just as seamlessly for a 10-person team as it does for a 10,000-employee enterprise, and everything in-between.

We’ll explore real-world examples of small companies leveraging Flight Levels. Whether you’re a business owner, consultant, leader, or coach, this session will reframe how you see Flight Levels in a small or medium sized organisation.

You already know how to design a Flight Levels 2 system. You can build boards, visualize dependencies, and establish coordination cadences. But what happens when the board is in place and nothing really changes?

This talk explores a crucial insight: Flight Levels 2 is not just a coordination mechanism. It is a cultural test. Based on real-world leadership cases, we examine why FL2 systems fail to gain traction when underlying mindsets remain unchanged. Very often this happens when a restrictive error culture silently undermines transparency. We will identify dominant organizational mindsets, assess their impact on Flight Levels systems, and show how “invisible” blockers can be transformed into concrete design work.

Participants will get some practical insights to:

• Diagnose mindset patterns that affect FL2 effectiveness
• Evolve existing FL2 systems from a leadership and culture perspective
• Structure agile interactions in leadership forums intentionally
• Practice self-leadership in change processes

Flight Levels unfold their full potential only when leadership evolves alongside structure. This session bridges mechanics and mindset. Helping to turn coordination boards into developmental spaces for real business agility.

Do you have the perfect conditions to succeed with Flight Levels?

We certainly didn’t. Developed without senior leader sponsorship, we set out to transform a public organisation that governs through milestones, outputs and project budgets. In the water industry, my peers traditionally thought in terms of flow through pipes - not value streams. Yet today we are applying lean agile practices in civil engineering design, operations, and are now beginning to influence strategic decision making at Flight Level 3.

In this talk, I’ll share the organisational and personal challenges of leading a change that no one asked for. I’ll explore how demonstrating value at each step enabled an emergent, pull based expansion of flow systems—including a multi-partner collaboration with 3× faster delivery. While this journey spans ten years so far, the most significant acceleration has come in the last three years through deliberate adoption of flow based delivery methods.

I’ll also reflect on recent learning from Geoff Watts’ ‘Calm Rebel Leadership’, which is helping me shift from battling the organisational system to leading change with integrity.

My aim is to inspire practitioners working to develop Flight Levels in less than ideal conditions, whatever your industry, role, or level of authority.