
Chris Murman
Agile Consultant
SolutionsIQ
location_on United States
Member since 4 years
Chris Murman
Specialises In
Chris’ first job out of college was the weekend sports anchor at an NBC affiliate. If he had only known what was in store for his career! Interestingly enough, he still loves telling the stories of others around him every day.
Each interaction is an opportunity to learn what made you unique, and understand where you came from. Chris thinks if you got to know each other more on a personal level, it would make the tough conversations easier to have.
Come tell him your story!
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"When To" Might Be More Important Than "How To"
60 Mins
Talk
Beginner
Early birds, night owls, and midday lulls. Acadian rhythms, Pomodoro technique, and batching.We have all sorts of terms and techniques to describe when we are productive. Teams are often faced with this issue when scheduling team events such as daily scrums. Is it better to start off the day with them, midday, or at the end?What if there was actual science behind the timing of things? Our cognitive abilities are not static. During the 16 hours of the day we are awake, those abilities change. Often in a foreseeable manner. We are faster, slower, more and less creative depending on what time it is.Based upon the research Daniel Pink published in his book called When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, this presentation will show that who we are, and when we do things, it just might be more important than how we do them.This will be an interactive workshop to take the science and apply it too all your team's events, and aspects of your own personal agenda. Participants will leave with an actionable calendar that sets everyone up more for success. -
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Brainwriting: The Team Hack To Generating Better Ideas
120 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
If you work in an office, you have probably participated in a brainstorming session or two (or 12). Invented in the 1940s by an advertising executive, the purpose was to solicit a large amount of ideas in a short period of time. By putting a collective of creative people in the same room, better concepts should come. Sounds very agile.However, science has shown several times that brainstorming not the best way to generate ideas. It’s cumbersome due to all of the interdependent activities happening at once. When spending time generating ideas as a group, you often spend more time thinking of others ideas than your own.Fortunately, a relatively unknown technique is starting to gain popularity called brainwriting. Incorporating it into your team events can produce more diverse ideas and provide a friendlier environment for collaboration. In this session, we will workshop them and leave the audience with all of the tools to bring the technique back to their offices. -
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Here's Why We Are All Control Freaks (And What We Can Do About It)
60 Mins
Talk
Beginner
Control freaks. We’ve either called someone that name or been the recipient of that moniker. I used to think it was a personality trait only a few possessed. Often reserved for someone who can’t seem let go of the steering wheel, or listen to the advice of others with an open mind. These are the people that are resistant to change and our harshest critics.Those assumptions were proven wrong after reading The Control Heuristic. I learned that control was a tool that is used by everyone to manage our discomfort in situations. That we are governed by our subconscious in subtle ways and are always concerned with emotional comfort.Learning all that helped me see clients in a new light, and I would like to share what I learned. By seeing this behavior in a new light, I was able to start meeting people where they were at in the moment and partner with them in the journey to change. The book's author helps present change in a way that can allow others to be more comfortable with it.Come explore this topic with me as I present my findings. By discussing control and the reasons we exercise it, I believe we can understand better ways to help teams be comfortable with change. -
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Brainwriting: The Team Hack To Generating Better Ideas
20 Mins
Keynote
Executive
Brainstorming has long been held as the best way to get ideas from teams for decades, but what if we are wrong? Can we take the successful aspects of collaboration and create a better environment for quality concepts? Come learn about brainwriting and get more from your team today!Description:If you work in an office, you have probably participated in a brainstorming session or two (or 12). Invented in the 1940s by an advertising executive, the purpose was to solicit a large amount of ideas in a short period of time. By putting a collective of creative people in the same room, better concepts should come. Sounds very agile.However, science has shown several times that brainstorming not the best way to generate ideas. It’s cumbersome due to all of the interdependent activities happening at once. When spending time generating ideas as a group, you often spend more time thinking of others ideas than your own.Fortunately, a relatively unknown technique is starting to gain popularity called brainwriting. Incorporating it into your team events can produce more diverse ideas and provide a friendlier environment for collaboration. In this session, we will workshop them and leave the audience with all of the tools to bring the technique back to their offices. -
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Brainwriting: The Team Hack To Generating Better Ideas
75 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
Brainstorming has long been held as the best way to get ideas from teams for decades, but what if we are wrong? Can we take the successful aspects of collaboration and create a better environment for quality concepts? Come learn about brainwriting and get more from your team today!Description:If you work in an office, you have probably participated in a brainstorming session or two (or 12). Invented in the 1940s by an advertising executive, the purpose was to solicit a large amount of ideas in a short period of time. By putting a collective of creative people in the same room, better concepts should come. Sounds very agile.However, science has shown several times that brainstorming not the best way to generate ideas. It’s cumbersome due to all of the interdependent activities happening at once. When spending time generating ideas as a group, you often spend more time thinking of others ideas than your own.Fortunately, a relatively unknown technique is starting to gain popularity called brainwriting. Incorporating it into your team events can produce more diverse ideas and provide a friendlier environment for collaboration. In this session, we will workshop them and leave the audience with all of the tools to bring the technique back to their offices. -
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Your Brain Lies To You (And Other Reasons Why Change Is Hard)
60 Mins
Talk
Beginner
Humans are described as rational creatures. When making a decision, we gather all the necessary pieces of data in order to make the best decision and move forward. Despite this rationality, we continue to make choices that could be described as unhealthy. Even in the midst of admitting the habit as bad for us, we struggle to change.Countless books and studies have been devoted to this very topic, and still change is hard. Are we change averse? According to author Luca DellAnna, the problem lies much deeper than that. Our brains are wired at a subconscious level to lie to us about change, and the mechanism to resist is control.The Control Heuristic, as DellAnna writes, is a simple model for rationalizing the subconscious decision our brains make. By doing so, it ensures we will be as emotionally comfortable as possible at all times.Come explore this topic with me as I present my findings. Skeptics are welcome, because as I read this book I was one. By discussing control and the reasons we exercise it, I believe we can understand better ways to help teams be more comfortable with change. -
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Your Brain Lies To You (And Other Reasons Why Change Is Hard)
20 Mins
Keynote
Executive
Humans are described as rational creatures. When making a decision, we gather all the necessary pieces of data in order to make the best decision and move forward. Despite this rationality, we continue to make choices that could be described as unhealthy. Even in the midst of admitting the habit as bad for us, we struggle to change.Countless books and studies have been devoted to this very topic, and still change is hard. Are we change averse? According to author Luca DellAnna, the problem lies much deeper than that. Our brains are wired at a subconscious level to lie to us about change, and the mechanism to resist is control.The Control Heuristic, as DellAnna writes, is a simple model for rationalizing the subconscious decision our brains make. By doing so, it ensures we will be as emotionally comfortable as possible at all times.Come explore this topic with me as I present my findings. Skeptics are welcome, because as I read this book I was one. By discussing control and the reasons we exercise it, I believe we can understand better ways to help teams be more comfortable with change. -
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Brainwriting: The Team Hack To Generating Better Ideas
90 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
Brainstorming has long been held as the best way to get ideas from teams for decades, but what if we are wrong? Can we take the successful aspects of collaboration and create a better environment for quality concepts? Come learn about brainwriting and get more from your team today!
If you work in an office, you have probably participated in a brainstorming session or two (or 12). Invented in the 1940s by an advertising executive, the purpose was to solicit many ideas in a short period of time. By putting a collective of creative people in the same room, better concepts should come. Sounds very agile.
However, science has shown several times that brainstorming not the best way to generate ideas. It’s cumbersome due to all of the interdependent activities happening at once. When spending time generating ideas as a group, you often spend more time thinking of others ideas than your own.
Fortunately, a relatively unknown technique is starting to gain popularity called brainwriting. Incorporating it into your team events can produce more diverse ideas and provide a friendlier environment for collaboration. In this session, we will workshop them and leave the audience with all of the tools to bring the technique back to their offices.
What Makes It Compelling:
I was skeptical when I first read an article on the technique, mainly because I had always believed brainstorming produced quality ideas. As a “stickies and sharpies” type of coach, I’d seen so many teams collectively throw out ideas during planning and retrospective sessions. But in the ensuing weeks, I started seeing where the article was on point in terms of producing quality ideas.
After contrasting the ideas generated after using brainwriting for a few weeks, my mind was changed forever. Even better was the events themselves didn’t seem that different to teams.
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Things Are Broken: A Case Study In Moving Tooooooooo Fast
60 Mins
Talk
Intermediate
Speed.
It's been a driver in our industry before it was even an industry. The more Agile becomes more mainstream, the more we think it's part of the package. Books are out promising that certain frameworks can deliver twice as much in half the time. And yet, teams still struggle delivering what's expected of them.
Once I started asking people of all levels of leadership what they thought speed would give them, it allowed me to develop some experiments around those expectations.
Please join me for a case study where we discuss the need for speed, the origins of that desire, and the ways it manifests itself into deliverables. My desire is for the audience to take away some powerful learning into their places of work. Only by understanding the expectations around speed can we reset them into an environment built around trust and support for motivated individuals.
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Brainwriting: The Team Hack To Generating Better Ideas
45 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
Brainstorming has long been held as the best way to get ideas from teams for decades, but what if we are wrong? Can we take the successful aspects of collaboration and create a better environment for quality concepts? Come learn about brainwriting and get more from your team today!Description:If you work in an office, your boss has probably forced you into a brainstorming session or two (or 12). Invented in the 1940s by an advertising executive, the purpose was to solicit a large amount of ideas in a short period of time. By putting a collective of creative people in the same room, better concepts should come. Sounds very agile.However, science has shown several times that brainstorming is a terrible technique. It’s cumbersome due to all of the interdependent activities happening at once. When spending time generating ideas as a group, you often spend more time thinking of others ideas than your own.Fortunately, a relatively unknown technique is starting to gain popularity called brainwriting. Incorporating it into your team events can produce more diverse ideas and provide a friendlier environment for collaboration. In this session, we will workshop them and leave the audience with all of the tools to bring the technique back to their offices.What Makes It Compelling:I was skeptical when I first read an article on the technique, mainly because I had always believed brainstorming produced quality ideas. As a “stickies and sharpies” type of coach, I’d seen so many teams collectively throw out ideas during planning and retrospective sessions. But in the ensuing weeks, I started seeing where the article was on point in terms of producing quality ideas.After contrasting the ideas generated after using brainwriting for a few weeks, my mind was changed forever. Even better was the events themselves didn’t seem that different to teams. -
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Things Are Broken: A Case Study In Moving Tooooooooooo Fast
45 Mins
Experience Report
Beginner
Speed.
It's been a driver in our industry before it was even an industry. The more Agile becomes more mainstream, the more we think it's part of the package. Books are out promising that certain frameworks can deliver twice as much in half the time. And yet, teams still struggle delivering what's expected of them.
Once I started asking people of all levels of leadership what they thought speed would give them, it allowed me to develop some experiments around those expectations.
Please join me for a case study where we discuss the need for speed, the origins of that desire, and the ways it manifests itself into deliverables. My desire is for the audience to take away some powerful learning into their places of work. Only by understanding the expectations around speed can we reset them into an environment built around trust and support for motivated individuals.
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Designing YOUR Game with a Ball of Whacks
David KoontzAgile Transition GuideLifeWorksIQChris MurmanAgile ConsultantSolutionsIQschedule 4 years ago
Sold Out!180 Mins
Workshop
Advanced
Let's experiment with several creativity tools (a Ball of Whacks, X-Ball & Y-
Ball, etc. https://creativewhack.com) and brain storm some ways to relate Agile concepts to this very abstract tool for creativity exploration.We will create new never before seen games - using well known processes and new toys to the Agile community.
I have the creativity tools - you have the brain. Let's put them together and invent a new use for an existing tool, and a new game for Agile teams to learn old concepts. We will use several play frameworks; LEGO Serious Play framework will be overviewed and incorporated into our play. Also we will incorporate "Agile Game Incubator" workshop outline by McGreal & McCullough.
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Things Are Broken: A Case Study In Moving Tooooooooo Fast
60 Mins
Case Study
Intermediate
“Move fast and break things.” — Mark Zuckerberg
Mobile is no longer a hobby for companies. In that world, speed is the key. My company embraced the principle of “welcoming changing requirements, even late in development.” It’s allowed us to grow, and we have accomplished some amazing things.
It’s also caused some challenges for teams. They felt the pain of this pace, and our clients were frustrated by delayed releases.
This presentation describes a 3-month case study I ran to measure things like team communication, productivity, and quality while implementing Scrum for the first time. The results were convincing, and allowed us to learn what happens when you value speed more than anything else.
I hope you’ll join me in seeing how we learned to work smarter instead of harder.
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Things Are Broken: A Case Study In Moving Tooooooooo Fast
45 Mins
Case Study
Intermediate
“Move fast and break things.” — Mark Zuckerberg
Mobile is no longer a hobby for companies. In that world, speed is the key. My company embraced the principle of “welcoming changing requirements, even late in development.” It’s allowed us to grow, and we have accomplished some amazing things.
It’s also caused some challenges for teams. They felt the pain of this pace, and our clients were frustrated by delayed releases.
This presentation describes a 3-month case study I ran to measure things like team communication, productivity, and quality while implementing Scrum for the first time. The results were convincing, and allowed us to learn what happens when you value speed more than anything else.
I hope you’ll join me in seeing how we learned to work smarter instead of harder.
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Things Are Broken: A Case Study In Moving Tooooooooo Fast
45 Mins
Case Study
Intermediate
“Move fast and break things.” — Mark Zuckerberg
Mobile is no longer a hobby for companies. In that world, speed is the key. My company embraced the principle of “welcoming changing requirements, even late in development.” It’s allowed us to grow, and we have accomplished some amazing things.
It’s also caused some challenges for teams. They felt the pain of this pace, and our clients were frustrated by delayed releases.
This presentation describes a 3-month case study I ran to measure things like team communication, productivity, and quality while implementing Scrum for the first time. The results were convincing, and allowed us to learn what happens when you value speed more than anything else.
I hope you’ll join me in seeing how we learned to work smarter instead of harder.
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No more submissions exist.