“Let’s Be Awesome”: Practices, Frameworks and Games to Improve Customer Collaboration
The agile manifesto challenges us to favor customer collaboration more than contract negotiation, but what does that really mean and how do you actually do that? Join us to experience a “fun” ideation framework that teams can use to engage in dialogue with their customers to determine what needs of the team / customer relationship are most important at the present time and then as a group decide on practices to support the highest priority needs. As the ideation framework is completed, teams and their customers will be challenged to work together and achieve consensus on a limited number of priorities since we all know what happens when we try to make EVERYTHING a priority. “Let’s Be Awesome” concludes with teams establishing and agreeing upon working agreements to build an “awesome” relationship between customer and team. In this hands-on and highly interactive workshop, participants will have a chance to learn how to use the “Let’s Be Awesome” framework and cards to facilitate a team / customer ideation session focused on establishing the foundation for a strong relationship; an opportunity to learn, review and discuss many agile practices supportive of effective team / customer collaboration; and a chance to experience a “MarketPlace of Ideas” where they can exchange recommended patterns and practices for customer collaboration from others also attending the workshop.
Outline/Structure of the Workshop
This workshop has been designed to maximize time learning and playing “Let’s Be Awesome” (25 minutes) and then another 20 minutes for participant interaction to share / discuss different outcomes between groups via a MarketPlace of Ideas. Full group presentation is limited to only 15 minutes total to get things started, then it’s off to play, explore, share, and debrief.
The intent of this high level of interaction is to create a highly engaging and interactive session that enables learning and sharing with other participants.
Session Outline and Timing (timing shown in elapsed minutes):
* 0:00 - 15:00 = Explain background on the ideation framework and how to play
* 15:00 - 40:00 = Groups Play Let’s Be Awesome at their tables
* 40:00 - 60:00 = MarketPlace of Ideas - groups will divide in half - half of each group will have ~10 minutes to explore and see how other groups prioritized needs & practices, then the other half will have ~10 minutes to explore
* 60:00 - 75:00 = Debrief / Discuss Key Takeaways and Final Questions
Let’s Be Awesome card sets used for this presentation will be awarded to a member of each group / table - each group can decide who at their table/group is the lucky recipient of the card set used in the workshop.
Learning Outcome
* Experience how to facilitate the “Let’s Be Awesome” framework to have effective team / customer meetings to establish and update the highest priority needs to develop / sustain an effective trusting relationship between team & customer
* Learn, review, discuss over 60 agile practices most supportive of team & customer collaboration and expectations management
* Hear example success stories to provide insights and guidance on how to build strong customer relationships with an emphasis on “fun”
* Learn how to create a “MarketPlace of Ideas” supported by a visual canvas to enable accelerated sharing of recommended practices and lessons learned across teams / groups - presenting this Market Place within this workshop is included supportive of methods to increase effectiveness of organizational sharing and learning
Target Audience
team members, product owners, customers, customer proxies, project stakeholders, project sponsors, executives, sales / business development staff
Links
* Images, Video Clips from successful presentation of “Let’s Be Awesome” at Agile2016 = https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23agile2016%20%23letsbeawesome&src=typd
* Sample “Let’s Be Awesome” Facilitation Worksheet (Agile2016) - this worksheet will probably be updated slightly for future presentation based on feedback received at Agile2016 - https://submissions.agilealliance.org/attachments/2439
* Here’s a video that shows the background and an example mapping of how the ideation framework is put into action - https://youtu.be/gVoZhe6_PDw
