When I reflect on it, something which I hear way too often in corporate life but rarely heard in the army is the idea of accountability. We look for someone's head to be chopped off, why? Because we are planning for failure, planning for when things go wrong to know who to blame, who's head to cut off.
But what about if we flipped the narrative? What would it look like if we were to set the conditions for the team to succeed rather than fail? What if we started thinking with a success mindset? What would that look like?
During this talk I will share a few lessons I've learned on having a success mindset from the army. Some soft stuff, like what does the attributes, etc look like and then some more practical things you can start doing tomorrow to break free from the failure mindsets and culture.
Practical tools which you can use which can promote a success mindset and set your teams up for success
Everyone but mostly leaders
I will touch on a few things in here but this is only a small part of the topic - https://productcoalition.com/are-you-planning-or-building-a-plan-and-hoping-for-the-best-913bcbd57612
Past talks
Agile Sydney User Group Meet Up - "Just be...Innovative" Jun 2019
Macquarie Product Owner Community - "Decision Making - Art of Science" May 2019
Macquarie Scrum Master Guild - "Types of Leadership" Mar 2019
Macquarie Scrum Master Guild - "Value Uncertainty Game" Fed 2019
ABC Digital Guild Meetup - "How to maintain control whilst letting go" May 2018
ABC Digital Guild Meetup - "From projects to products" Feb 2018
Think about your last BBQ when your brother in law told you he was dealing at work with an "agile change manager".
What was your first reaction?
How your brother in law told you he understood now what your job is about?
Schrödinger faced the same challenges when quantic physic suffered from its own labelling between scepticism and dogmatism.
Drawing from both history lessons and thought experiments we will observe together with the effect of the challenges we face when assisting people finding their approach in context to develop agility.
Either we can let the box with the cat closed with no way to predict if the cat dead or alive, or open it to trigger the state.
In the same way, we can prevent yourself from using "Agile labels" to keep the box closed or start using them to trigger reactions and dealing with.
The craft of Agile Coaching fundamentally requires deep, insightful, meaningful communication. In everyday execution, this typically involves a coach and the coachees having a conversation, or dialog. However, there are other ways that an Agile Coach and their coachees can connect – nonverbal communication.
Explore the different aspects of nonverbal communication in the domain of the Agile Coach! This workshop overviews nonverbal communication in Agile Coaching and provides a starting point for developing this critical skill.
We often expect our leaders to be imbued with superpowers, effortlessly balancing the needs of the many against their own convictions and values. A leader's ability to navigate these scenarios can lead to their success or downfall. As such we don't often provide the space for leaders to admit failure or uncertainty.
"Contrary to equating vulnerability to weakness, exhibiting vulnerability offers the possibility of inspiring people and connecting on a deeper level" - Hanson
Join us in this session as we explore the concept of vulnerability in leaders and its impact on the ecosystem. We will share real life stories and tips we've learnt along the way in coaching leaders on transparency and vulnerability.
How can a Scrum Master ensures that the team feels safe and protected? Why building connections within the team is so important? Do we know what is the secret sauce for the magical recipe of high performing teams?
Let’s explore together three activities which can help in building connections within the team.
It started as a simple way to bring lightness and safety to a team’s scrum of scrums.
Shared learnings from my own journey as a leader and contributor within fiercely competitive teams.
Over time these lessons from the world of Dragon Boating became a regular feature with my teams and now I'll share them with you too!
From working smarter not harder, to developing a minimum viable habit and the power of compound interest. Come and learn how these honest and valuable lessons helped me power an awesome team & culture.
Architecture is a topic which I think doesn’t get the attention, especially not in the agile space, as it really should.
As the world demands us to be more adaptable and responsive the need for reinventing how we think and approach IT architecture is becoming ever prevalent.
The ship is sinking for many companies — the agile ship that is — as many companies continuing to approach architecture as they did 10+ years ago with the goal of enterprise architecture to maximise reuse, consistency and ultimately reduce operating costs. Over the decades this has left many companies with massive monolithic architectures, large “enterprise solutions” which are wide spread and shared by many teams across the organisation. Great from a $$ point of view but for speed to market and agility it does nothing but leave teams with their hands tied, bound by a proliferation of inter-dependencies.
Like a kid trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, organisations are "going agile" trying to make make feature teams work on top of a traditional architecture - have we neglected what's under the hood? Architecture and agility are not mutually exclusive things.
So what does an agile architecture look like? I will share with you things that I've found has both worked and not worked so well. As well as some guiding principles and patterns that I've found useful for creating an agile architecture of your own.
Boral is on a rapid Agile transformation and one of the challenges is to provide senior executives and the board of directors an understanding what agile really means for the company.
In the end its not about Scrum or Kanban, or any other framework for that matter.
They really just want to know what outcomes will it drive for the company.
We will explore the 9 factors that I've used to paint a picture of what an organisation would feel like if it truly became an agile organisation.
"Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart."
Has it ever crossed your mind to become a SCRUM Master?
Are you SCRUM Master starting your servant-leader journey?
Do you like stories?
Then this talk is for you! Step into the confessions of a Software Engineer turned SCRUM Master.
I was a Software Engineer for 7 years before I fell in love with Servant Leadership. My journey began with a great servant-leader & our Daily Stand up.
In this talk, I will share the story of my ongoing journey into servant leadership, the hurdles I encountered and the lessons & essential skills I have acquired along the way.
Let's explore the woes of being part of a team that strongly believed that they didn't need a SCRUM Master, the perils of becoming a servant-leader with a Software Engineer problem-solving mindset, and the joys of getting the team's buy-in on an idea.
Let's venture into the wonderful world of influencing people, knowing your team as individuals, and embracing what it means to be a servant-leader.
How can an Agile Coach figure out when an Agile “Transformation” is going wrong? Are there signs that they might see, heed, and take action upon? Of course, there are!
Hindsight is 20/20, but in the moment, these warning signs can be hard to see. Let’s explore some of the more common, and frightening, warning signs that your Agile “Transformation” might be exhibiting. We will discuss transformation provider types, frameworks, keywords, and other anti-patterns that might be signs that THE END IS NIGH.
This session will review common themes and help familiarize you with the warning signs. Armed with this new knowledge, you will be able to plan as appropriate, to help navigate your organization through potential impending doom.
Imagine you are a Mad Agile Scientist and have a diabolical experiment to conduct - what would happen if you exchanged the brains of a Product Owner and Scrum Master? Mwuhahahaha!!! How would the body of a Product Owner with the brain of a Scrum Master act? And vice versa?
Perhaps the Scrum Master would now treat the team like a backlog? This Scrum Master would be focused on value and maintaining a coaching backlog of team and person improvements. This Scrum Master is refining the team, crafting a group that delivers value.
And perhaps the Product Owner might treat the backlog like a team? Rather than backlog refining, they coach the backlog. They would be focused on nurturing, protecting, and empowering the backlog. The backlog might transform from an irritation into a labor of love.
Although this experiment sounds terrible, this change of perspective might be what you need to reanimate your dead team or backlog.
Join the fun and come learn what horrifying results await!
Do you like green eggs and ham?
As I read these bed time stories to my son, I can't help but notice the many lessons that Dr Seuss could be teaching Agilists.
We can get inspiration from our everyday activities, such as reading bed time stories and this presentation will explore 6 lessons to grow your agile mindset.
From the experimentation mindset to making people awesome, come and explore how these stories relate to growing our Agile mindset
"That's just how it's always been"
"Don't bother asking, nothing changes around here"
"It's easier to just go with the status quo"
Ever heard these terms being spoken amongst your teams? Your peers? Fellow coaches?
Learned helplessness can be a pervasive parasite in your organisation, creating a persistent barrier to change and a dangerous edge to disengaged individuals.
Join us in this talk as we share practical take away's to spot learned helplessness and the tips to stop the infection spreading.
Cumulative flow diagrams (CFDs) can seem complicated and theoretical - something we should put off until our teams are more mature. There's a lot of mythology around them too, like how they're all about heuristics and terrifying maths (Queuing Theory anyone?). To top it off, tools like Jira, that have CFDs as part of automated reporting, actually obscure the real benefits.
Over 9 months I kept CFDs for a couple of new teams. I learned a huge amount about the teams and quite a bit about CFDs. In this session, we'll make a CFD with Post-It notes for one imaginary sprint by an imaginary team. As we make it, and when we inspect the result, we'll see that:
Credits: This workshop has been evolving out of some of comics I drew earlier this year that led to discussions at Agile Coach Camp, and the Lean Coffee meet-up. Thanks to Nina for your support and ideas, and to Alex for tolerating my "obsession" with CFDs.
About limits and the limits of our limits... !?
The word “boundary” has been very successful in its literal sense, even more so as a metaphor of multitude realities involving limits.
A good appreciation of boundaries supposes we go beyond the simple jump over an imaginary line in the sand.
Playing on the edges with limits for both a personal and systemic growth
What can the theory of constraints and our brain both tell us on our usage of limits?
What separates the comfy from the danger zone and how we can see and use it better?
Where can we find help and supports from some limits to go further than our own preconceived ones?
Are our beliefs limiting us from going where the magic happens?
Can parenting strategies, which deal with a complex environment, inspire our daily routine?
Let's explore together and clarify blurry concepts to make small yet tangible improvements.
There is nothing more disruptive than someone who thinks differently to you!
Then we very naturally seek out people like us... We certainly know we shouldn't be we still do it!
So why research proved to us that diversity makes us collectively smarter but we cannot marry this with our instinct feeling when opportunities occur.
The world is telling us to tidy up and order things to help to clear out uncertainty, improve efficiency.
What can we learn from jazz and the principles of improvisation?
A thin frontier separates music from noise, how beauty can come out from the mess?
Let's explore some fascinating experiment to identify the most productive and inspiring office setup.
Creativity is not out of reach, how to celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives?
Most transformations fail, a staggering amount! I once heard a figure that over 90% of transformations fail and I wouldn’t be surprised if that number is closer to 100%.
How many of us have watch companies start their agile journey only for a few months or years later they abandon it and fire all their scrum masters and coaches, regress and ironically years later start the cycle again often re-hire the very same scrum masters and agile coaches they fired in the first place! We are stuck in agile-groundhog-day!
Einstein said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results - perhaps the same could be said about us as we continue to jump on the latest in a very long line of failed agile transformations?
Worse, it would seem we creating our own demise.
Much like words, definitions change over time. You may have a definition well documented but how it's perceived is everything. As perception changes so too do definitions. The more we continue with these failing transformations and allow for poor implementation of scrum, etc and roles like the Scrum Master to be reduced to a "delivery manager" or worse a jira monkey, the more it is becoming the perception and norm.
Are we in a race to the bottom and we don't even know about it? "agile fatigue" is very real and even us practitioners cringe when we hear the words "tribes" and "squads" even "agile" at times! We dodge labels and do things by stealth but ultimately still fail in the end.
I am reminded of the (then) chief of army whilst I was at the Royal Military College who famously said, “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept” are we accepting this by allowing it to happen? By saying yes to a part in these large transformations? Is this our slow death by 1000 cuts? Have we created our own demise?
So I ask what is the future of being a Scrum Master and Agile Coach? Is there even a future? Do we need to radically change how we approach the adoption of agile?
Help me workshop how we might approach things differently and not allow ourselves be end up like taxi drivers vs UBER. Or perhaps we past the point of return? Perhaps there is a second wave beyond agile? A new agile?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Let's find out together!
Practices change across different complex domains (like software engineering, medicine, agriculture etc.) but the principles are universal. In this experiment, we take the guiding principles from an eclectic range of practices, including permaculture, Buddhism, medicine and science, and then apply them to our own work with Lean-Agile teams and organisations.
Cole Sear: I'm ready to tell you my secret now.
Dr. Malcolm Crowe: Okay.
Cole Sear: Come closer.
Cole Sear: I see User Stories. They don't know they're User Stories.
Dr. Malcolm Crowe: Where are they?
Cole Sear: Everywhere.
In my experience, User Stories are one of the most powerful tools in the universe but we are using them poorly and not in all the domains where they can help us to thrive and succeed. Confining them into our Product Backlogs is like buying a Ferrari and using it JUST to go shopping to Woolies. Do you want to unleash the ultimate power of User Stories? If so, please join us in this Hands-On session.
Cole Sear: i see people, they don't know they are User Stories
Dr. Malcolm Crowe: User Stories like, in organisations? In teams?
Cole Sear: Yes. Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're User Stories.Dr. Malcolm Crowe: how often do you see them?
Cole Sear: all the time, they are everywhere, they only see what they want to see
Dr. Malcolm Crowe: How often do you see them?
Cole Sear: All the time. They're everywhere.
In this session, I´d love to share with you how I´m using them. Everywhere. Every time. How I´m recognising them, even if they don´t know (yet) they are User Stories. And how I help them to become beautiful and useful tools for us to understand our context better and, from there, take better decisions and deliver greater value.
In this session, we´ll practice User Story identification and creation through several exercises closing with the eXtreme User Story Splitting Challenge. wish you enjoy this session and get some good take-aways from it. Meanwhile, I´ll appreciate your comments to my proposal to be able to tweak and improve it if required. Thanks
What does Sir Francis Bacon's scientific method (1620) have to do with lean-agile? When was The Agile Manifesto written? What lean-agile stuff happened in Japan after WW2? What is "complexity" and why is it even a thing?
Sometimes, to know where we are, it helps to look at where we've been. Agile didn't just arrive fully formed, it's a dynamic process that is unfolding over time. People, thoughts and events have come together and gone off on trajectories. We're all part of that here today.
Whether you're a beginner or an expert, come along and contribute to this variation on the classic "Timeline" retrospective. There are no wrong answers. We'll learn from each other and build a chronological map of our field over time.
As agile coaches we are often asked by companies to give them what they believe are shortcuts to success. They are scared or unwilling to put in the hard work and want a playbook from someone who was successful to be laid out for them to follow in their footsteps. Explaining why this is not something that will work is often seen as a reason to mistrust coaches. They think we aren’t giving them the quick path because we are just in it for the money. I found a way to help me describe this in a way that makes my clients feel more at ease. Everyone can relate to cooking shows about starting off as a home cook (non-agile organization) and what it involves to become a master chef (an agile organization).
Welcome! We are super excited to hear from you.
As we are focused on the local community, we don’t expect people to travel from interstate or overseas to participate, although you are welcome if you choose to come. LAST Sydney is an event with low registration prices, so we need to keep overheads low. Therefore, we generally do not reimburse travel and accommodation or pay a fee to session leaders/speakers.
Paid registration for LAST Sydney opens on Monday 6th May. As we always sell out, and as successful submitters won't be notified until early July, it could be wise of you to grab a registration. If you are accepted onto the schedule, you can request a refund.
We would love to know who else you know who has a great idea but needs a nudge. LAST welcomes first time and experienced speakers. Let us know, and we'd be happy to reach out.
We look forward to hearing from you!
