When people gather at a Regional Scrum Gathering® (RSG®), the room is usually buzzing with scrum masters, product owners, and professionals from across diverse roles. They are the grassroots champions driving agility from the team level, and that community is the heartbeat of Scrum Alliance, representing a global network built by and for members.
Earlier this year, Roger Chou, Ph.D., CST®, took on the role of product owner for RSG Taipei 2026. Taking ownership of the backlog and event direction, Roger and his organizing team set out to answer a novel question: What happens when you bring that collaborative RSG energy directly to the decision-makers who set organizational strategy?
And so, in August, over 200 people gathered in Taipei for a first-of-its-kind gathering specifically designed to connect executives with hands-on agile principles. Rather than aiming for sheer headcount, the organizers intentionally narrowed the audience to focus on leaders who hold the keys to organizational change.
Stats at a glance:
- Attendance: 221
- Attendance rate: 95%
- Completed surveys: 174
- Overall satisfaction: 9.27/10
- Overall NPS: 71
The goal was simple yet ambitious: shift the conversation among leaders from top-down directives to shared, facilitated problem-solving.
Redefining the executive conference
The worst leadership conferences default to passive listening. RSG Taipei flipped that format entirely, replacing standard lectures with highly interactive, small-group facilitation.
Facilitation and co-creation.
Based on registration data, 70% of the 221 attendees were management-level professionals. To create an environment that engaged leaders and gave them a reason to spend a whole day away from the office, the schedule ran across three distinct, facilitated tracks:
- Surfacing real challenges: Attendees laid out the exact operational and structural bottlenecks stalling their organizations.
- Cross-industry co-creation: Decision-makers from completely different industries sat side-by-side to dissect each other's challenges and share candid perspectives.
- Reflection: Participants distilled the day's learnings into clear, single-line takeaways to carry straight back to their boardrooms.
The approach resonated deeply. Among the 174 post-event survey respondents, 51.7% identified themselves as management-level or above. Management-level participants provided a satisfaction score of 9.36/10 and a 72.2 NPS, indicating that executives were eager to step out of their comfort zones when given a meaningful platform for collaboration.
Powered by volunteer self-organization
While the participant list featured senior executives, the local community built the event's foundation. Like every RSG around the globe, the Taipei gathering was organized, managed, and executed through the power of volunteerism and self-organization.
The volunteer team embodied scrum principles in real time. When the call for volunteer skills went live, all 20 seats across two dedicated scrum teams were filled in under 23 hours. From managing logistics and designing interactive social walls to organizing daily sprints during prep work, the volunteers treated the conference as a living laboratory for agile practices.
Volunteer Associate Director Elly Chen reflected on this proactive team spirit, noting, "Real agility isn't just reacting fast. It's someone choosing to go one step further before the problem even happens."
That grassroots creativity showed up in unique ways:
- A community voiceover: Volunteer Liling Lee proposed creating promotional videos featuring multiple volunteer voices across different sections. Rather than relying on a single voice, five volunteers self-organized to record both Chinese and English versions, demonstrating how a distributed team collaborates toward a single Definition of Done.
- Symbols of belonging: Volunteer Chang Ya-chun pitched, designed, and coordinated the production of 118 individually engraved badges for volunteers and guests, creating a lasting token of shared accomplishment.
- Proactive problem-solving: Volunteers took ownership of behind-the-scenes logistics—from inventorying supplies late into the night to organizing digital infrastructure—ensuring the event ran seamlessly.
The volunteer team.
This spirit of shared ownership reminds us that RSGs are labor-of-love events where members step up to serve their local professional networks.
Leadership awards
Additionally, the gathering hosted the 4th Global Agile CEO Awards, recognizing 14 leaders across construction, education, software, and finance who have actively championed agile mindsets within their organizations. Award recipient Chen-Yuan Lo captured the impact of this recognition on an organization's journey, remarking, "I used to win awards to prove I could do it. Today I'm winning this one to prove agile can."
The 14 winners of the 4th Global Agile CEO Awards.
The award ceremony for the first-ever Corporate Agile Talent Development Awards.
Coupled with the new Corporate Agile Talent Development Award—which recognized ten companies actively building internal capacity through Scrum Alliance certifications—the gathering reinforced that true enterprise agility requires investment from the top down and the ground up.
The power of the RSG movement
At its core, Scrum Alliance is a member-driven association. RSGs are essential to our mission because they overcome geographic and linguistic barriers, giving regional communities the autonomy to design events that address their unique cultural and professional landscapes.
Whether it's an intimate gathering focused on executive leadership in Taipei or a conference delivered entirely in Spanish in Central America, the underlying current remains the same: belonging, connection, and continuous learning.
RSG Taipei proved that when you create space for decision-makers to learn alongside dedicated agile practitioners—supported by a passionate community of volunteers—the impact extends far beyond a single weekend. It transforms how an entire region approaches modern work.
Get involved with Regional Scrum Gatherings
Ready to experience the transformative power of an RSG firsthand?
- Attend an event: Explore our upcoming Regional Scrum Gatherings to find a community-led conference near you.
- Bring an RSG to your region: Passionate about growing your local agile community? Learn how you can host your own Regional Scrum Gathering and bring a world-class, community-designed event to your city.
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