Weeknotes #05
DXB
This week I’ve been out in Dubai in the PwC Middle East office, running three 1-day Agile Foundations sessions for people in IT, Digital and Finance.
For these sessions I made some tweaks to the usual format our team uses, mainly in replacing Featureban with our version of Lego4Scrum. Reason being that I wanted to have an environment where attendees of the training get the chance to bring all their learnings (agile principles, scrum roles, kanban, MVP) together. Plus I find the lego exercise in a lot easier to facilitate than Featureban, as there is more freedom for creativity, whereas with Featureban some teams do need a lot more help in order for the exercise to be effective.
The training was requested by members of a new leadership team being formed out in Dubai, who have decided to really focus on their own people as a starting point, with Agile one of the first things to introduce to the group. I really appreciated that a number of the leadership team made the effort to attend, as quite often leaders want to “go agile” but then won’t attend sessions like this, immediately leading to attendees questioning the validity/seriousness of the message.
Thankfully this didn’t happen here, which made the training had even more impact, I’m very thankful to Sophie Thomas and the rest of the team for “being the change they want to see” and inviting me out there this week.
Feedback over the 3 sessions was extremely positive, which is always nice.
My favourite being this:
After the second day I was getting quite tired, but reading this at the end of the day definitely did spur me on to make the third session just as enjoyable and energetic. It reminded me of when I was out in Brazil before Christmas and ran seven ½ day sessions over five days, in particular how I really struggled motivation wise both towards the final sessions and in subsequent weeks when back in the UK.
Recently I’ve reflected on the fact that when you’re running training, remember that people are giving up their time to listen and learn from you. So, whilst it may feel onerous, repetitive, and potentially boring, remember that by attending people are saying they believe in you and what you’re saying, as well as showing a big appreciation for what it is you do.
As a trainer you shouldn’t view that as a chore but a privilege that many people don’t have, so make sure that is reflected in your delivery and mindset.
We’ve already been talking about adoption and next steps for the Middle East, with the potential for another set of sessions in the coming months.
One of the attendees in particular seemed really impressed with the concepts/demos I showcased around portfolio kanban, which I feel would be a good first step for the team out there, especially as thief too much WIP and thief conflicting priorities seem to be prevalent in discussion during the training.
LLKD19
Unfortunately being out in Dubai meant missing out on my favourite conferences — London Lean Kanban Days. Despite not being able to attend I was following the hashtag on Twitter through breaks in the training with a bit of FOMO. Sessions that caught my attention included:
Pawel Brodzinski — Power as privilege
Mainly due to his LLKD17 session on Emotional Safety, which I found to be so honest and genuine, I always find Pawels talks engaging, emotive and a must see.
Olga Heismann — Forecasting in complex systems
I actually had the pleasure of seeing this at LKCE18, with Olga’s talk in the same room before my own session. I was blown away by the incredible detail and knowledge within the talk, looking forward to watching again.
Dan Vacanti — Don’t be a ditka
This session has caused a bit of stir over the Agile twitter-sphere, mainly due to this slide:
As someone who takes a lot of inspiration from Dan, I always find his books and talks interesting, engaging and full of learning. So looking forward to when this one is available. I also need to have an in depth read of his supporting piece here (one for the flight back).
Looking forward to those as my “top 3” when available, and congratulations to Jose Casal and the rest of the BCS team for what looks like another successful conference.
Next week
Next week I’m back in the UK (as this goes out I will hopefully be in the air on the way back to London) and looking forward to a number of coaching conversations. For our team next week is a big one, as James takes the lead on running a kaizen event for our cloud provisioning process.
With our UK CIO Stuart Fulton attending it’s again a strong statement to the rest of the organisation around how serious we are about enabling business agility. Looking forward to the outcomes of what should be another good week for learning in our Agile journey.
