Flight Levels Day
Take-off without permission: Towards organisational agility with Flight Levels.
Flight Levels Day Talk by: Peter Faulks
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.
about the speaker
Peter is a Chartered Civil Engineer and Agility Lead for Scottish Water.
He has been a champion for new ideas at Scottish Water for 25 years. This started by exploring Lean for Construction in 2000, and this eventually led to agile in 2015.
He led the original application of agile in Scottish Water within business change and has actively supported and encouraged the spread of agile and kanban practice far beyond its natural habitat. Peter is a passionate advocate for sharing knowledge and has built a strong agile community in the organisation while he leads the adoption of Business Agility.
Join the Flight Levels Day - Edition 06
Save the date - 07 May 2026
Flight Levels Practitioners and Professionals come together to share their experiences about Flight Levels with a wide audience and offers insights into the practical applications of Flight Levels. It demonstrates how companies use Flight Levels as a lightweight and cost-effective approach to foster company-wide collaboration and implement their strategies. Thanks to our interactive platform, all participants have the opportunity to directly engage with the speakers, get their questions answered, or receive ideas and inspirations beyond the scope of the conference program.
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