Let the Conference Season Begin!

2010 looks set to be another year of learning and fun! I’ll be in beautiful Turku, Finland on 17 – 18 March to present at the academic conference of Turku Agile Day.

A Series of Firsts

Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and I will be presenting our first ever Agile Fairytale keynote. It’s significant because 1) it’ll be my first ever keynote; 2) it’ll be our first ever keynote together; and 3) it’ll be the first ever Agile Fairytale to be presented as a keynote; 4) we’ll be presenting a brand new Agile Fairytale – “Pinocchio: On Becoming a Lean Leader“. Exciting times indeed.

And There’s More!

Another first is that Staffan Nöteberg and I will be pair presenting for the first time on a brand session based on a topic close to my heart: “Timeboxed Thinking – How to Make More of Your Time“.

We’ve taken special care to make both the keynote and session highly interactive and full of fun. We hope you can join us. See you then!

‘Real love stories never have endings’ – Richard Bach

A Classic Tale of Love and Hate

On 13 January 2010 at 12.10 precisely, my friend Jack calls me to announce he’s resigned with a new job ready to start in March. Jack has been unhappy in his old job for over a decade. You’re probably thinking to yourself, ‘That’s your typical Man-Gets-Paid-To-Do-A-Job-He-Hates story. So what?’ and you’d be right. Except that’s not where the story ends.

Ever since Jack handed in his resignation, he’s taken on more responsibility and become more assertive. His colleagues tell me how he’s been helping to deliver more value to the organisation in the last 20 days than he has ever done in the past 10 years. Intrigued by this mysterious twist in the plot, I call Jack.

‘I’m not sure what’s happened really,’ says Jack. ‘The day after I handed in my resignation, I had an epiphany. You know I’m not a religious bloke. I just figured out that, instead of ekeing out my existence during my notice period, I would do what I’ve been meaning to do for a decade. A good job. By that I mean, make my voice heard. Share my ideas with people even if they’re a bit out there. After all, my boss can’t sack me anymore.’

Know Yourself

Stephen King says, ‘If you love what you do, you can do it forever.’ First you need to know what it is you love doing. Then find out what makes it so lovable. Richard Bolles, author of ‘What Colour is Your Parachute’, outlines an exercise in his book for coming up with your ideal job profile (aka job description). They are:

1. Your favourite interests
2. Geography – where you like to work (venue and location)
3. Your favourite people and environments
4. Your favourite values and goals
5. Your favourite working conditions
6. Salary and level of responsibility
7. Your top 6 favourite skills.

It’s up to you how much time you invest on completing the job description. I remember it took me a total of 5 hours one fateful weekend all that time ago. Once you’ve got your ideal job description, you’re ready to go job shopping.

Remember how much you enjoyed shopping for that gadget or picnic basket? And how was that possible? Because you’d somehow distilled (implicitly or explicitly) the key attributes of what it was you needed to achieve your goals. As Paul Arden said, ‘Without having a goal, it’s hard to score.’

Love the Job You’re In

Now imagine this. You’ve identified your goal. And you’ve got your dream job description. Ask yourself these 4 questions:

• What would happen if you got what you wanted?
• What wouldn’t happen if you got what you wanted?
• What would happen if you didn’t get what you wanted?
• What wouldn’t happen if you didn’t get what you wanted?

Answering these questions might be a challenge, but they really make you think. The questions force you to question why you want what you want and this, in turn, helps you refine your goal and your strategy to do what you need to achieve that goal.

The Neverending Story

On 11 February 2010 at 12.15 precisely, Jack calls me with some news. It turns out that, having seen his remarkable contribution in the past 4 weeks, Jack’s boss has asked him to stay and offered him a package that exceeds his other job offer. And that, dear Reader, is where our story ends. But not Jack’s. And what of your story?

Highlights of 2009

It’s been a tremendous year! Here’s my whirlwind tour down Memory Lane 2009:

• Pairing: Beyond Programming by John Daniels and Dave Cleal at SPA 2009 – What a fun-filled and meaningful session!
• Flirting with your Customers by Jenni Dow and Ole Jepsen at Agile 2009 which reminded me of the importance of listening ans respect to create rapport and understanding.
• Barcamp London – What a fantastic and diverse Open Space conference!
• The hospitality of the teams with whom I’ve had the honour to work with and learn from. A B-I-G Thank You to you all!
• The warm welcome from the organisers and participants at a myriad of Agile conferences including Agile 2009, XPDay Switzerland, Integrating Agile, ScanAgile and of course XP Days Benelux!
• Releasing the almost-new and much improved Agile Fairytale: The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption Through Peer Coaching which many found helpful for resolving conundrums at work.
• Releasing experiential training courses based on the R & D efforts from our games and conference sessions!

Followup on My Wishes from 2009

To Do

• ‘I wish to meet Seth Godin, Tom De Marco and Dale Chihuly. I also wish to meet Eli Goldratt again.’ I look forward to hearing Seth Godin speak live in April 2010!
• ‘I wish to try out Agile Fairytales beyond the IT industry.’ I look forward to introducing the Agile Fairytales to people and places such as teachers and students in schools!

In Progress

• ‘I wish to create a third Agile Fairytale.’ Two new Agile Fairytales are being developed as you read this: Pinocchio – On Becoming a Lean Leader (for SPA 2010) and The Emperor’s New Clothes – Meaningful Interactions in Stressful Situations (submitted to XP 2010).

Done!

• ‘I wish to learn more in 2009 than I did 2008.’ I learnt that the best way to keep learning is with a little help from my friends! I also re-learnt that I need to be more patient and respectful to others and with myself.
• ‘I wish to present the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Agile Fairytale in French in Paris.’ We ran the session partly al fresco at XPDay France on a fine Spring day in Paris!
• ‘I wish to collaborate with Agilistas such as Pascal and Vera to create A-W-E-S-O-M-E Agile games that help us all become a bit more agile every day.’ Pascal was one of the many people who helped to make the new release of The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption Through Peer Coaching possible!

Ongoing

• ‘I wish to learn more about Lean and use it more explicitly as part of my Agile Coach Toolkit.’ I’ll continue to consult and coach using Lean as the basis of enduring change. Presenting The Toyota Way with Pascal has helped us to explain how we apply Lean when we work with teams.
• ‘I wish to create more Agile teams that endure long after the coach is gone.’ I’ve helped to coach a number of teams and seen them flourish and learnt a lot along the way.
• ‘I wish to receive requests from you, the Reader, on questions you want answers to and the reasons why you need an answer. Think Selfish Programming: The Radio Request Blog.’ Thank You! for all your candid feedback on this blog. I look forward to more feedback in 2010!

A Week in the Life of an Agile Coach Who Keeps Learning

With Agile, the learning never stops. A good example of this is the marathon of new training courses we launched at emergn last week:

Monday: Agile Overview – a 1-day course that provides participants with enough knowledge to begin applying Agile at work (including emergn’s version of the ubiquitous XP Game by Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and Vera Peeters). We strongly recommend participants of other courses to attend the Agile overview first to establish a common understanding among all participants of what Agile is and what being agile really means. Judging by the feedback from the participants, this is an effective way of developing a meaningful understanding of Agile.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Customer Value Analysis – a 2-day course that combines Business and Systems Analysis techniques to consistently translate business goals into a steady and valuable stream of detailed User Stories and Acceptance Criteria. Instead of retrospectively mining value from what I call a ‘vomit of user stories’ (which inevitably results in perpetual backlog grooming), we pull stories from value to achieve Value-Driven Delivery.

Thursday and Friday: Agile Project Management – a 2-day course that provides an interactive experience of tools and techniques for tracking project progress (such as Real Options Thinking) and enabling personal and team growth (such as the Theory of Constraints).

Training Delight

The truth is, we have lots of fun creating and delivering the courses and judging by the feedback from many of the participants, they not only have fun but learn a great deal about Agile and personal development in the process. You only have to look at their faces to see that everyone is doing the best they can to improve.

The best thing of all is what goes into the training courses we create. We’ve taken our collective experience from working as Agile Consultant-Coaches in a myriad of organisations plus our experience as conference presenters, sprinkled in a dash of innovation and creativity and voilà, emergn training courses based on experiential learning to amplify each participant’s learning experience.

My Takeaway

As an emergn coach and trainer, I strive to apply the following 3 principles:

• Everyone adds value.
• You can only change yourself.
• Invest in people, invest in yourself.

One of the participants quoted golf player Arnold Palmer as saying, ‘The more I practice, the luckier I get.’ If that’s true, then I’m in luck. My acceptance criteria as a trainer for each course I deliver is that I learn at least as much as the participants. True learning demands an equal exchange of knowledge and experience.

Appreciations

Many thanks to the participants for their enthusiasm and pursuit for Continuous Improvement – for themselves and for their teams. We wish everyone  Happy Continuous Learning!

More Learning in the New Year

We’re in the process of drawing up the emergn training schedule for 2010. If you want to make work fun and worthwhile, we look forward to meeting you at one of our courses in 2010!

Pascal and I will be presenting The Toyota Way Management Principles for Sustained Lean and Agile at XP Days Benelux this Monday. We’ve presented this session twice this year, once at Integrating Agile and once at Scan Agile. The presentation has received great feedback – including feedback from Tom Poppendieck at Scan Agile.

We’ll be sharing insights and lots of stories based on our experiences with real teams. We’ll show you how we apply our interpretation of the Toyota Way to achieve Respect for People and Continuous Improvement. Come to this session if you’re interested in learning how to create happy teams who do inspired work!

I like to think of work as an adventure. This makes me an intrepid adventurer who:

• Goes about with an open mind – always striving to listen without judgment to discover the facts
• Seeks to deeply understand – always listening first and asking questions
• Is ready for anything – constantly refinining my existing skills and acquiring new ones
• Strives to create a happy ending for everyone involved – helping to make WIN-WIN situations possible for everyone.

Postcard from Norway

I was invited to Haugesund in Norway last week to meet an Agile team keen to do what they do even better.

It was my first visit to Norway and, as usual, I ask many questions and get many answers. For me, this is the best way to learn about a new culture and help me develop a better understanding of those with whom I work.

For instance, on arrival, I ask my taxi driver to describe the Haugesundians in 3 words. After a brief moment of consideration, he replies, ‘Happy. Friendly.’ And last but not least, ‘We’re full of guts!’ he says as he strikes his chest with a closed fist and beams a smile. We both laugh out loud in appreciation of his answer.

I learn that the Norwegian working day is from 8 am – 4 pm with lunch at 11 am and dinner from as early at 5 pm. An earlier lunchtime demands a slight physical adjustment for me since I’m a Brit used to having lunch at midday. It leads me to wonder if the concept of ‘brunch’ exists and, if so, what its definition would be and when it would be scheduled.

While we’re on the subject of food, I experience firsthand that fish features a great deal in the Norwegian diet, including what’s best described as edible white discs made of fish. It’s known as fishcake which can be served cold or hot (lightly fried until it’s brown on both sides). They taste fairly bland, but since it’s fish, I figure out they’re probably an important part of a healthy diet.

I notice that monkfish is a popular fish and discover a curious story about how the monkfish reached the dining table of the Norwegians. The monkfish is considered to be an ugly fish by many. And so, for a long time, the fishermen would discard the monkfish from their catch because it was too ugly to eat. Then one day,  a fisherman set aside this deep-rooted prejudice and served monkfish to his family for dinner. Lo and behold – he discovered what a tasty fillet the monkfish made! Ever since then, monkfish has become a special dish featured on many restaurant menus. Now’s that food for thought.

Since I remain intrigued by the Finnish fascination with saunas, I share my encounter with the concept of the Finnish sauna with some of the team. The result? 4 out of Scandinavians polled (3 Norwegians and 1 Dane) clearly identified the passion for sauna as predominantly a Finnish pastime.

Last but not least, I come across a troll with three heads at the airport. I wish I knew why the troll had three heads and why he needed so many. I wonder if having three gives him a real headache. I look forward to asking the questions the next time I meet up with the team!

BarCamp London 2009 is undoubtedly one of the best conferences I’ve been to this year: it’s fun, it’s inclusive and, most important of all, it’s all about people. All this came as quite a surprise since I really didn’t know what to expect.

The Story of BarCamp

Once upon a time, there was FooCamp where Friends-of-O’Reilly got together at an annual invite-only participant-driven conference hosted by Tim O’Reilly. Since not everyone could be friends of Tim O’Reilly, some folks got together and created BarCamp, a place where others could participate by presenting their ideas, too.

BarCamp is described as an ‘unconference’, a conference where the programme is based entirely on material generated by the participants themselves. You really don’t get more inclusive or spontaneous than that!

Open Space Technology in Action

FooCamps and BarCamps are based on a simple variation of Open Space Technology format, where participants post up topics they want to talk about in 20-minute timeboxes. Like successful Open Spaces, the success of BarCamp depends entirely on strangers self-organising around passion and mutual interests.

There are two key rules to BarCamp:

• ‘When you come, be prepared to share with barcampers.’
• ‘When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.’

Real Options at BarCamp London

And since I was lucky enough to get a ticket in, I wanted to give something back that would be useful to most. The result: a 20-min session on Real Options, Bottled Common Sense to Better Decision Making. Around 30 people attended out of a crowd of 200. I described BarCamp London 2009 as a Real Option, just as Agile 2009 was a Real Option for me. We even touched briefly on the importance of applying personal values when deciding the value and application of Real Options Thinking. Judging by the quiet yet definite sound of lighbulbs going off in the room, I think Real Options Thinking resonated with many conference participants.

What I liked about BarCamp London 2009

• Sessions were run in separate rooms where participants could concentrate comfortably on the session topic.
• Each room had a mixture of facilities such as projector, flipchart and tables.
• One Saturday alone there could have been as many as 12  x 9 sessions – now that’s a lot of Real Options!
• It was great to learn from and meet people beyond the Agile Community
• A two-day event during the weekend is a great opportunity to meet new people and make new friends

What would make BarCamp London 2009 perfect

• A stationery stash provided by organisers so we be even more creative!
• An ice breaker that would engage and involve everyone and not just those with a passion for Lego
• More BarCamps throughout the year – I wish we could have more BarCamps, perhaps mini BarCamps, may be one a quarter to increase learning from one another!

Expect the Unexpected

BarCamp London 2009 was exactly what I’ve been looking for. BarCamp has helped me better understand people’s fascination with Open Spaces, something Marc Evers tried to explain to me at ScanAgile 2009. I think I understand now and I want to go to more Open Space conferences!

BarCamp is living proof that the most invaluable learning is about connecting, sharing, courage, learning and having fun. BarCamp is about leveraging the Wisdom of Crowds. BarCamp is a great inspiration where you can expect the Unexpected. And expect to participate. Get to a BarCamp near you. Go, go, go!

And if you like BarCamp, you’ll love XP Days Benelux, a mixture of pre-scheduled sessions and the option of running Open Space sessions!

It’s my second visit to Helsinki and it’s been quite an adventure! It’s been almost a year since my first visit.

What Went Well

• The location: Getting the chance to see beautiful Helsinki in the fall
• Over 280 participants attended – and it’s only the second time ScanAgile has been run!
• The conference was well-organised, everything went really smoothly!
• Learnt a bit about Beyond Budgeting from Bjarte Bogsnes in his experience report on implementing the techniques at Statoilhydro
• Being challenged by questions that made me think hard about how I coach and why
• Meeting Agilists from all over the world, including Brits who now live in Finland!
• Getting a chance to sample Open Space sessions on Day 2 of the programme
• The Toyota Way Management Principles session with Pascal: Illustrated how to implement a kanban system using baskets with the help of Snow White’s Seven Dwarves and the Evil Queen
• Receiving feedback and recommended reading list from Tom Poppendieck (thanks Tom!) on our Toyota Way session
• The Conflict Resolution Open Space session by Pascal where we learnt that we don’t have to compromise: it’s not either or. It’s  AND!
• Post-conference get-together with the very warm and friendly folks from Reaktor (voted second in 2009 Best Workplaces in Europe competition)  at their very stylish office (with its very own onsite sauna!)

What Went Wrong

• Too many theoretical presentations
• Too few sessions based on real-life experiences of using Agile
• No list of attendees, where they work and the country of where they come from

Puzzles

• How do you get the most out of Open Spaces?
• What’s the best way to hear everyone speak and engage those interested at an Open Space?
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarves proved popular with the crowd: Would ScanAgile be interested in featuring an Agile Fairytale session next year?

Lessons (Re-)Learnt

• I learn more from interactive sessions
• I learn more when I disagree with the material being presented or the speaker because it forces me to question what I think and why I think it
• We often ask questions not to find answers, but to merely seek for affirmation of our pre-prepared answers. By asking questions with a closed mind, we limit our capacity to learn compared with when we inquire with an open mind
• ‘You don’t lose weight just by standing on the scales’ – thanks Bjarte Bogsnes for a great reminder!
• Fixing budgets once a year is like having banks that only lend to customers once a year. That simply wouldn’t be acceptable nor practical
• It’s customary in Finland to relax with your colleagues in saunas in just your birthday suit!
• Design and creativity are a matter of national pride judging by the myriad of colourful shops of handmade goods and crafts!
• Using Thinking Tools such as the Conflict Resolution Diagram allows us to have our cake and eat it! No more compromises through clear thinking. Hoorah!
• Instead of eating your own dog food, drink your own champagne instead. Cheers to ScanAgile’s organisers and the humorous participants!

I’ll be co-presenting The Toyota Way Management Principles with Pascal this Thursday in Helsinki, Finland at ScanAgile (Scandinavian Agile Conference 2009).

We’ll be sharing lots of stories based on our experiences of how we’ve applied The Toyota Way Management Principles in our work as consultants. We’ll go through each of the 14 Toyota Way Principles for implementing Lean and illustrate how we’ve applied them when working with aspiring Agile teams.

Thanks to all your feedback when we presented this at Integrating Agile back in June, we’ll be presenting a newer and much improved version. I hope you’ll join us! Learn more about the session from http://www.agilecoach.net/coach-tools/the-toyota-way/.

‘Be the change you want to see.‘ – Gandhi

Agile as a Party

I like to think of Agile as a party. And like any good party, everyone gets invited. It’s then up to you whether or not you show up. And when. If you do, it’s then up to you how much time and effort you want to put in. As to whether you’re a party animal or a party pooper, the choice is entirely up to you.

The key is to include everyone on the invite. Agile, to me, is about inclusion. It’s about making-change-for-the-better an option for everyone. It’s the kind of option that has no expiry date.

Party On!

The folks who have the most fun at such a party are those who have an open mind. Folks who’ll give things a go, including that dodgy looking punch that looks too funky a blue to be made from 100% natural ingredients. Or may be you do the Macarena because it reminds you of your first year at university.

And that’s the thing I like most about Agile. I never know upfront what I’ll get personally out of a day’s coaching or consulting. The only thing I can be certain of, right from the start, is that it’s going to be a lot of fun. That’s the thought that gets me started. It’s also the one that keeps me going.

Take today for instance. I’m on the last day of an Agile Healthcheck engagement with a team who’s Agile Enablement journey began almost exactly a year ago. The team invited me back to help take them to the next level of applying the Agile Values and Practices. We began by identifying a handful of goals, back at the start of September, such as ‘Increase team customer satisfaction’ and ‘Increase team velocity’ and defined acceptance criteria for each goal so we would know when we were done.

A month on, I’m back for a Show & Tell of the Team Improvement kind, to see how many of the acceptance criteria the team has met in 4 weeks (two iterations’ worth) of concerted effort on Continuous Improvement.

A lot has happened. Judging from the smiling faces that greet me, the team’s proud of what they’ve achieved. And so they should be. It’s a humbling moment to find oneself among people who rise to the challenge of becoming better. People who strive to improve despite the alternative, namely, this-is-what-we’ve-always-done-and-that’s-the-only-reason-we-continue-to-do-it attitude otherwise known as Mediocrity.

Learning the Unexpected

So what did I learn today? It turns out today’s Gandhi’s birthday. And how did I get to hear about it? During the ‘Information’ part of the Temperature Reading exercise. It’s exactly this sort of serendipity that makes me smile as I look up at the team’s new poster with intriguing smileys hand-drawn by each of the team member which reads:

• Everyone has value.
• You can only change yourself.