Moving to predominately remote ways of working has increased the challenges we face in reaching shared understandings of complex problems. And we need to be able to see the big picture together in order to really work effectively towards a common goal, especially when working as distributed teams. It’s hard enough to get people on the same page when we’re sitting together in the same room — achieving this when we are limited to communicating through online collaboration tools can be exhausting.

But even when we are not together, we can make use of simple visualization techniques to help share what we know and to better appreciate others points of view. And we don't need fancy tools to do this – a marker, a piece of paper, and a webcam are sufficient to allow us to harness the power of visualization to improve understanding. In this interactive session, you’ll experience a simple exercise that you can use to help any group use visualization, mental models, and systems thinking to increase comprehension of complex interactions, even when working remotely. Please bring a sheet of paper and a marker — this will be hands-on!

As leaders at any level of the organization, we sometimes make mistakes that break the trust we’re trying to build, especially when trying to introduce changes. In this interactive session, we’ll explore the kinds of behaviours that build or break trust and introduce a model for rebuilding relationships when trust is broken. We’ll use LEGO Serious Play to examine some real scenarios and consider how trust can be rebuilt (or further undermined!). You’ll leave with insights into how to foster trust in your organization and practical ideas about how you can grow as a leader.

Doodling is a powerful way of making thinking visible. Including graphical elements in our conversations and note-taking helps us to quickly share ideas, see patterns and connections, stimulate creative thinking and have fun all the while. Getting together with markers in hand increases presence and focus because multiple senses are engaged in playing with the ideas at hand. And doodling enables us to share complex ideas quickly and effectively, which leads to new insights and better problem-solving.

If you can hold a marker, you can quickly learn to doodle simple graphics that will add creativity and depth to your meeting artifacts and personal notes. You do not need to be an artist to use drawing to enrich how you communicate with others - it's about communication over artistry. In this hands-on workshop we'll practice skills that will enable you to confidently pick up a marker to share your thinking. And we'll put your new superpowers to work through some friendly drawing games that will help you build your personal visual vocabulary.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to set the stage to improve participation in workshops and other team events - in less than 2 minutes you can energize and focus participants to help them succeed at the work they will be doing together. In the same amount of time at the end of an event you can also deploy simple activities to help increase alignment and commitment to follow-up.

In this very interactive workshop we will explore why and how to start and close all kinds of meetings effectively. We’ll experiment with a number of activities that will accelerate learning and engagement. You will leave this workshop with several easy-to-try ideas that you can use to jumpstart meetings and improve closings in order to reinforce alignment and commitment to action.

Are you fed-up with participating in unproductive meetings that waste time, energy and enthusiasm? We believe everyone deserves well-facilitated meetings and events that make the most of everyone’s knowledge in the room - or the video call. Overcoming old patterns and habits for group interactions can be challenging, but by making small changes to how people are set up to work together you can create surprising improvements!.

In this workshop, we will share facilitation techniques for nudging group interactions towards increased participation, self-organization, and better decision-making. Together we’ll explore what it means to ‘hold space’ and give control back to the group while maintaining focus on getting things done together. In addition to learning about facilitation itself, you’ll learn in two additional ways - in the morning, by being facilitated by us - and in the afternoon, by understanding how we facilitated you, and why it works. You’ll also receive a resource list, so you can follow up on the methods that interest you.

Whether you lead meetings or just participate: you can influence your group’s interactions by introducing simple facilitation hacks. You will leave with a concrete next step, and a set of activities and techniques to start using right away, to enliven your meetings and achieve more satisfying outcomes.

Co-creating drawings helps teams enhance their systems thinking abilities by really seeing the big picture. A group of people talking around a whiteboard is an effective way to share ideas across a team. Imagine how much richer the conversation is when everyone on the team has a marker in their hand and is actively contributing! Graphic visualization is an important tool for talking about new ideas, generating insights and developing shared understanding. In a team context, drawing is a thinking tool rather than an artistic endeavour. When everyone participates in creating drawings, all team members can see how things fit together and what mental models are at play in defining the situation. And, by drawing together, the team is collaboratively creating meaningful records that are being validated and updated.

Come along on a visual adventure into how teams can collaboratively visualize ideas and make sure that everyone at the table has a voice. In this workshop, we will warm up with some basic doodling skills practice. No drawing experience is required to take part in this session: if you can hold a marker, we can teach you the skills needed to put your ideas on paper. Together we'll consider the ways that collaborative drawing can be used to enhance group work, and we will share practical activities that you can take back to use with your team for setting the stage, gathering information, and sharing stories.

More asking, less telling. As an agile leader, adopt the approach of humble enquiry to build relationships, increase trust and collaboration, and deal with the challenges of organizational transformations.

"Humble enquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person." - Edgar H. Schein

Working in an agile way asks us to rethink how we relate to each other as we tackle complex problems and challenge the traditional structures of our organizations. Humble enquiry - the art of asking instead of telling - is a critical skill for agilists who seek to improve collaboration and address difficult problems head on. Inspired by Edgar H. Schein's book 'Humble Enquiry, this workshop will teach you the fundamentals of how to do more asking and less telling. Through mini-lectures and interactive exercises, we'll discuss the different types of questioning, consider the forces around and within us that inhibit our ability to ask instead of tell, and examine how this powerful technique can improve collaboration within agile teams as well as help to address some of the challenges of agile transformations.

Co-creating drawings helps teams enhance their systems thinking abilities by really seeing the big picture. A group of people talking around a whiteboard is an effective way to share ideas across a team. Imagine how much richer the conversation is when everyone on the team has a marker in their hand and is actively contributing! Graphic visualization is an important tool for talking about new ideas, generating insights and developing shared understanding. In a team context, drawing is a thinking tool rather than an artistic endeavour. When everyone participates in creating drawings, all team members can see how things fit together and what mental models are at play in defining the situation. And, by drawing together, the team is collaboratively creating meaningful records that are being validated and updated.

Come along on a visual adventure into how teams can collaboratively visualize ideas and make sure that everyone at the table has a voice. In this workshop, we will warm up with some basic doodling skills practice. No drawing experience is required to take part in this session: if you can hold a marker, we can teach you the skills needed to put your ideas on paper. Together we'll consider the ways that collaborative drawing can be used to enhance group work, and we will share practical activities that you can take back to use with your team for setting the stage, gathering information, and sharing stories.

More asking, less telling. As an agile leader, adopt the approach of humble enquiry to build relationships, increase trust and collaboration, and deal with the challenges of organizational transformations.

"Humble enquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person." - Edgar H. Schein

Working in an agile way asks us to rethink how we relate to each other as we tackle complex problems and challenge the traditional structures of our organizations. Humble enquiry - the art of asking instead of telling - is a critical skill for agilists who seek to improve collaboration and address difficult problems head on. Inspired by Edgar H. Schein's book 'Humble Enquiry, this workshop will teach you the fundamentals of how to do more asking and less telling. Through mini-lectures and interactive exercises, we'll discuss the different types of questioning, consider the forces around and within us that inhibit our ability to ask instead of tell, and examine how this powerful technique can improve collaboration within agile teams as well as help to address some of the challenges of agile transformations.

Join a panel of Agile Coaches for a discussion as to what we've seen, both the good and bad, in organizations they've been coaching. And, what you can do about it, no matter where you are in your organization. Plus, bring your own questions to ask this panel, and take from the experiences of coaches including Glenn Waters, Ellen Grove, Omar Bermudez, Jesus Mendez, John Tobin, and Michael Kaufman.

More asking, less telling. As an agile leader, adopt the approach of humble enquiry to build relationships, increase trust and collaboration, and deal with the challenges of organizational transformations.

"Humble enquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person." - Edgar H. Schein

Working in an agile way asks us to rethink how we relate to each other as we tackle complex problems and challenge the traditional structures of our organizations. Humble enquiry - the art of asking instead of telling - is a critical skill for agilists who seek to improve collaboration and address difficult problems head on. Inspired by Edgar H. Schein's book 'Humble Enquiry, this workshop will teach you the fundamentals of how to do more asking and less telling. Through mini-lectures and interactive exercises, we'll discuss the different types of questioning, consider the forces around and within us that inhibit our ability to ask instead of tell, and examine how this powerful technique can improve collaboration within agile teams as well as help to address some of the challenges of agile transformations.

Mob programming is collaboration taken to the extreme, eliciting the best from every member of the team. In this session, you will experience the dynamics of mob programming and learn how to use this technique successfully in your own environments.

After mobbing with well over thirty teams, we've seen definite patterns emerge, that we'll discuss here.

Join a panel of experienced Agile Coaches for a discussion and Q&A of their experiences as coaches. Each of the panelists has a different background, and a unique journey into their role as an Agile Coach. Along the way, they've each built up a wide and diverse set of skills, from their careers, interactions, and experiences. 

What have some successes been?
How do we even define success for ourself, as an Agile Coach?
More importantly (and hopefully more entertaining), will be some of the lessons learned... We'll explore what was tried, but had a surprising and unexpected outcome. 
And, we'll discuss some of the ways experienced coaches continue to learn, share, grow, and develop everyday!

Mob programming is collaboration taken to the extreme, eliciting the best from every member of the team. In this session, you will experience the dynamics of mob programming and learn how to use this technique successfully in your own environments.

After mobbing with over two dozen teams, we've seen definite patterns emerge, that we'll discuss here.

In order for teams to step into high performance. it's critical that they develop the practice of having effective conversations about what is and isn't working. Yet in practice, the retrospective meeting is often the least-valued of the agile events: team members feel that their retros are boring, repetitive, and superficial.

In this workshop, we will teach participants how to design and deliver a really useful retrospective using LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. We'll cover the basics of this powerful facilitation technique, and give advice about how to build your own SERIOUS PLAY kit using pieces easily available at the local toy store. We'll also offer practical suggestions for how to design a retro that gets everyone talking (and building), and results in the team agreeing on action.

The participants will leave with a powerful retrospective technique that they can immediately use with their teams.

Mob programming is collaboration taken to the extreme, eliciting the best from every member of the team. In this session, you will experience the dynamics of mob programming and learn how to use this technique successfully in your own environments.

After mobbing with over two dozen teams, we've seen definite patterns emerge, that we'll discuss here.

In order for teams to step into high performance. it's critical that they develop the practice of having effective conversations about what is and isn't working. Yet in practice, the retrospective meeting is often the least-valued of the agile events: team members feel that their retros are boring, repetitive, and superficial.

In this workshop, we will teach participants how to design and deliver a really useful retrospective using LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. We'll cover the basics of this powerful facilitation technique, and give advice about how to build your own SERIOUS PLAY kit using pieces easily available at the local toy store. We'll also offer practical suggestions for how to design a retro that gets everyone talking (and building), and results in the team agreeing on action.

The participants will leave with a powerful retrospective technique that they can immediately use with their teams.

In order for teams to step into high performance. it's critical that they develop the practice of having effective conversations about what is and isn't working.  Yet in practice, the retrospective meeting is often the least-valued of the agile events: team members feel that their retros are boring, repetitive, and superficial.  

In this workshop, we will teach participants how to design and deliver a really useful retrospective using LEGO SERIOUS PLAY.  We'll cover the basics of this powerful facilitation technique, and give advice about how to build your own SERIOUS PLAY kit using pieces easily available at the local toy store.  We'll also offer practical suggestions for how to design a retro that gets everyone talking (and building), and results in the team agreeing on action.

The participants will leave with a powerful retrospective technique that they can immediately use with their teams.

Using play to build a better beginning through Agile Chartering

Better teams create better outcomes.  A liftoff (as described in the book Liftoff by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies) at the outset of a new endeavour helps teams set the stage for betterness by cocreating a shared understanding of purpose, establishing alignment and understanding the context of the work they will do together.  While the activities to include in a Lift Off will vary according to team and context, the practice of Agile Chartering - collaboratively developing a lightweight yet effective roadmap for the project and the team - is key to aligning and inspiring people to do better work together.

The purpose of an Agile Chartering workshop is to give all stakeholders of a project a voice and the opportunity to co-create a common understanding of the project dynamics, its purpose and context. It creates co-ownership of the project within the project team and thereby higher commitment to the project goals.

In this workshop, we will explore the objectives of Agile Chartering and foster a playful approach to doing this work. We'll talk about what kinds of games can be used to cocreate Purpose, Alignment and Context with a team, and run at least one game that can be used for each of the elements of an Agile Charter

Scaling Agile across the enterprise can also scale up or create new organizational conflicts: groups that are accustomed to working in their own silos struggle to find ways to identify their shared interests and collaborate effectively.  Equipping team members with effective conflict resolution skills is important in helping everyone navigate change successfully.

Conflict isn’t inherently a bad thing – it’s inevitable when people are working closely together on things that they care about. In fact, diverging viewpoints can bring new insights to help teams move forward and create something new. Dealing with conflict head-on is challenging for many people, yet few organizations and teams spend time explicitly considering “how will we work together when things get rocky?” Teams need to build the skills to be able to navigate through rough times together and come out with win-win solutions.

This workshop will present useful models for considering conflict supported by games teams can use to develop and practice conflict resolution skills. The models address underlying drivers of conflict, modes for responding to conflict, assessing conflict severity to determine appropriate interventions, and the patterns of principled negotiation. The games build on the concepts to help participants gain insight and develop important skills in a non-intimidating and memorable way.