FFC NL 2025 TALKS

FFC UK 2025

Navigating From Tension to Flow: A Human-Centred Guide to Overcoming Misalignment

Behind every stalled project, missed milestone, or unclear decision is a story of tension between what people want, what’s needed, and what’s possible. But tension isn’t failure. It’s feedback. This talk explores how to recognize and respond to tension using Team Topologies principles, flow first thinking, and a healthy dose of human insight. We’ll show how organizational patterns, team boundaries, and interaction modes can either amplify or ease misalignment — and how trust, empathy, and bold conversation are just as important as structure, if not more so. Packed with real-world examples, this session blends organizational design with emotional intelligence to help you design for flow — and for people.

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Faye Benfield

People-centred leader, Principal Product Consultant at Armakuni

Faye Benfield is a Principal Product Consultant with over 15 years experience in product management, agile delivery and digital transformation. Specialising in helping organisations adopt product practices, Faye has a proven track record of embedding product teams, evolving ways of working, and aligning stakeholders to achieve strategic goals.

Faye has held leadership roles, including Head of Product and Delivery at Parkinson’s UK and Head of Product at Comic Relief, where she spearheaded digital transformation initiatives and cultivated effective, people-centred teams. Now at Armakuni, she combines hands-on coaching with practical tools and techniques to help clients navigate the complexities of product delivery, with a focus on balancing human dynamics and practical constraints.

Known for her approachable and values-driven leadership, Faye thrives on fostering environments where trust, collaboration and psychological safety enable teams to flourish. Drawing on her extensive experience and passion for empowering others, Faye is excited to share insights into navigating the 'Triangle of Tension', balancing stakeholder wants, actual needs and feasibility, to help teams and organisations achieve meaningful, sustainable outcomes.

Rich Allen

Fast Flow Facilitator @ Conjurer

Rich Allen is a socio-technical architect and independent consultant who helps organizations achieve sustainable fast flow by optimizing for flow-centric team design, reducing cognitive load, and aligning around user needs.

With over two decades of hands-on experience as a developer, tech lead, architect, and CTO, Rich brings a deep technical foundation to his work at the intersection of software delivery and organizational design.

As one of the longest-serving Team Topologies Valued Practitioners, Rich has supported a wide range of organizations in applying Team Topologies patterns and principles in real-world contexts.

He is the creator of several widely used tools and practices including Flow Decision Records and User Needs Mapping.