Not all team decisions need to be made by the entire team. There. Someone said it. In some cases, we can trust a single individual to make the decision because they have the most experience and insight. In other situations, we want a variety of interests and perspectives included to ensure a well-considered, unbiased decision. But how do we decide who and what and when?

Put down the RACI chart - there's a better way! A Collaboration Contract is a simple tool that allows team members to opt into conversations and decisions. With a Collaboration Contract, teams identify the decision makers, and through an open selection process, establish their desired level of autonomy. This is a not a decision-making tool, but a tool for assembling the decision making team with clear expectations and agreements.

Join Diane and Doc in this hands-on workshop where you will learn what it takes to run your own Collaboration Contract. Learn this powerful technique today and establish clearer decision making for your team tomorrow.

Stable Teams have long been a known and accepted leading practice in agile. And Tuckman's stages of group development proves the need for stable teams, right? But what if that's not correct? Doc posits that Tuckman's is actually a disproven theory that none-the-less mysteriously persists. What if, by stabilizing teams, we solved a completely different problem? And what if by de-stabilizing teams we could better solve other problems?

If your team uses velocity for planning but you don't find it very useful, this workshop is for you.

If your manager or scrum master or other pseudo-authority figure keeps obsessing over your velocity, this workshop is for you.

If you want to know about better ways to forecast when a piece of work will be done or how to gather data that actually helps your team, this workshop is for you.

In this interactive workshop, Doc and Diane share insights into metrics and how they can be used to improve your team's performance. From cumulative flow diagrams to lead time distribution charts to forecasting using Monte Carlo simulation and more, you'll come away with the ability to better forecast when work will be done and better diagnose issues with your process.

If your team uses velocity for planning but you don't find it very useful, this session is for you.

If your manager or scrum master or other pseudo-authority figure keeps obsessing over your velocity, this session is for you.

If you want to know about better ways to forecast when a piece of work will be done or how to gather data that actually helps your team, this session is for you.

Doc Norton briefly addresses some issues with velocity, looks at root causes for said issues, and then dives into other, better metrics. You'll be able to better forecast when work will be done and you'll be better able to diagnose issues with your process and work toward correcting them.

Technical Debt has become a catch-all phrase for any code that needs to be re-worked. Much like refactoring has become a catch-all phrase for any activity that involves changing code. These fundamental misunderstandings and comfortable yet mis-applied metaphors have resulted in a plethora of poor decisions. What is technical debt? What is not technical debt? Why should we care? What is the cost of misunderstanding? What do we do about it?

Doc discusses the origins of the metaphor, what it means today, and how we properly identify and manage technical debt. In this talk I’ll share how these four principles power world-famous companies and how they can help you work with greater speed, simplicity, safety and success.

Technical Debt has become a catch-all phrase for any code that needs to be re-worked. Much like refactoring has become a catch-all phrase for any activity that involves changing code. These fundamental misunderstandings and comfortable yet mis-applied metaphors have resulted in a plethora of poor decisions. What is technical debt? What is not technical debt? Why should we care? What is the cost of misunderstanding? What do we do about it?

Doc discusses the origins of the metaphor, what it means today, and how we properly identify and manage technical debt. In this talk I’ll share how these four principles power world-famous companies and how they can help you work with greater speed, simplicity, safety and success.

Technical Debt has become a catch-all phrase for any code that needs to be re-worked. Much like refactoring has become a catch-all phrase for any activity that involves changing code. These fundamental misunderstandings and comfortable yet mis-applied metaphors have resulted in a plethora of poor decisions. What is technical debt? What is not technical debt? Why should we care? What is the cost of misunderstanding? What do we do about it?

Doc discusses the origins of the metaphor, what it means today, and how we properly identify and manage technical debt. In this talk I’ll share how these four principles power world-famous companies and how they can help you work with greater speed, simplicity, safety and success.

The world as we know it is growing more complex. As we automate away those things that can be easily repeated, we leave ourselves with ever more challenging work. The way we’ve worked in the past won’t necessarily work for today’s problems… or will it? Join Diane and Doc as they explore dimensions of complexity in software development and look at how teams and leaders might adjust their behaviors (and the software they create) based on the complexity of the problem at hand.

This hands-on, interactive workshop will provide a practical introduction to Cynefin (a sense-making framework for complexity) and show how it applies to the work we do every day as creators of software. You’ll map your own work to Cynefin and learn about applicable management styles and optimal team interactions for each of the Cynefin contexts.

Technical Debt has become a catch-all phrase for any code that needs to be re-worked. Much like Refactoring has become a catch-all phrase for any activity that involves changing code. These fundamental misunderstandings and comfortable yet mis-applied metaphors have resulted in a plethora of poor decisions. What is technical debt? What is not technical debt? Why should we care? What is the cost of misunderstanding? What do we do about it? Doc discusses the origins of the metaphor, what it means today, and how we properly identify and manage technical debt.

Even high functioning teams occasionally have a hard time making decisions or coming up with creative ideas. There are times when the conversation seems to drag on long after a decision is reached. There are times when we have too many people involved in the discussion or the wrong people involved. There are times when we’re not sure whose the actual decision maker. And there are those times when we just seem to be out of synch with each other. This creative collaboration workshop provides tools that help resolve all of these issues. Come have some laughs with Doc, play with new friends, and learn one or two new techniques you can try at home.

Much of what we've learned about management and motivation isn't necessarily wrong, it's just inappropriate and ineffective for knowledge work. To create a truly impactful knowledge work environment, you need to use appropriate leadership styles and create an environment that allows people to achieve their highest potential. Doc takes a look at types of work, the management styles that work best for them, and the qualities necessary to create a high-performing knowledge work culture.

Among the traits that distinguish a good team from a great team is their ability to innovate. Despite the rhetoric in favor of innovation, most organizations are stuck in an implementation mindset, stifling creativity, excellence, and the resultant innovation. The experimentation mindset frees us from self-imposed constraints, allowing us to continually learn and improve. In this session, we'll talk about how we learn as individuals and how we learn as organizations. We'll take a look at some examples of the experimentation mindset happening in the agile community today and we'll talk about how you can foster such a mindset in your own organization.