Many teams suffer through retrospectives that have lost their spark, if there ever was one. Droning through the same process, iteration after iteration, the magic is gone. Or they may have given up on retrospectives all together. It doesn't need to be this way!

I've facilitated over 200 retrospectives with a variety of team types, maturities, and process philosophies. I've experimented with different techniques to derive value, from uber complicated to mind-numbingly simplistic. All this experimentation and practice has helped me better understand the real value of a good retrospective and how to have a better chance of getting it.

Using a basic Retrospective flow/structure, I will walk through my thoughts on planning and executing retrospectives, and share techniques and examples for different team types and maturity levels along the way. Warning: some minimal audience participation may be required!

My hope is that the audience will walk away with some immediately executable experiments, and new thought patterns for facilitating fun and effective retrospectives.

Are you going to this conference to learn new things like how to practice Agile, Lean UX, and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD)? Do you want to define the way of working, like you would in a start-up, but exist in a traditional business, like Myer, which has a long history of using a waterfall methodology and may not always have a high risk appetite?

This case study will give insight in to how an Agile team delivered Myer's latest MYER one app by changing directions, overcoming challenges, using team members and customers as testers and making internal and external customers happy.

Let me start by saying - It's complicated!  I've worked as a designer at SEEK for over 5 years and in the last year I've worked as a UX designer in a Moonshot style project/start-up within SEEK. We are funded by SEEK but operate independently as a lean start-up.  It's been an amazing learning experience and quite a  journey transitioning from a corporate to a lean start-up. In the last year I've had to adapt, a lot. I've fumbled my way through working out how to adapt my process to ensure design in a start-up environment is still considered . 

As a business we've gone from a business case and a design sprint to an actual business operating in a marketplace with thousands of real users.

In my talk I will be sharing my experience of adapting my process and creating new lean UX process/ tools to be successful within a start-up.

I will share -

How UX works in a lean start-up? 

The processes/ tools I've created to ensure stakeholder alignment and buy-in.

The lean research methods we've taken on board to ensure we are listening to our users and incorporating their valuable feedback into the design process.

How to develop habits in an Agile environment to perform better with less energy

Blame in the retro? Threats when work is not finished? Complaints rather than acting? You might have developed some bad habits here.

Are stand-ups taking forever? Are team members not updating the story board? Are retrospective actions not followed up upon? You might want to develop some good habits here.

Habits are regularly repeated routines, most often done subconsciously. Developing (the right) habits is crucial for individuals and teams to minimize the energy needed to perform at a high level. By developing a habit, more effort can be spent on the actual work rather than on the support functions.

Developing habits is not about working harder, but smarter. Habits enable you to:

• get rid of bad behavior and establish good behavior
• save time during meetings
• boost reliability and, ultimately, trust

Research and new findings within the last years have shown enormous potential for habit development having a huge impact on personal and business behavior. Applying this to Agile seems very promising.

Stephanie BySouth | Director, Authentika

We often expect ourselves to lead people like mythical legends with the mystical abilities to influence others. Expectations and judgements are thrown at leaders without consideration that they are also people. We aren’t afforded the same learning courtesy as Agile teams expect for themselves. That’s OK, because we know; no matter how safe, it’s not nice or easy to fail people. Especially those we are accountable for.

With this level of accountability and the need to support senior management to cross ‘the Agile team to Agile leadership chasm’ with clients, it was time for a leadership agility framework that serves us, the business and our teams simply and sustainably.