The time we went to Lean Agile Exchange…
Recently I was fortunate enough to speak at Lean Agile Exchange 2021 on a topic that evolved from one of the previous posts on this blog about blocked work and its impact.
The conference setup at Lean Agile Exchange was super cool, with an interactive ‘map’ on the day taking you to an ‘auditorium’ where you could pick from any of the live talks in progress on the three respective tracks.
As well as speaking at the event, there were another 25 Nationwide folks in attendance across the two days! As part of our commitment to shared learning, here are some of those who attended and their key takeaways…
Kylie Upton — Product Owner (Landlord Member Needs Stream)
Which session was your favourite? Why was that?
This is an incredibly hard question to answer, however, if pushed I would say personally, I found the session “You gotta water your own plants” from Arika Pierce resonated the most with me.
The idea of how I continue to grow and develop is top of mind for me right now. I have found that over the last year I have almost completely dropped personal development activities. I used to spend a day every week and now I am barely doing an hour. This session gave me the motivation to get back to investing in myself. It also contained a number of great tips for how I can take the next few steps in my career. In particular, I am going to work on shifting from doing to delegating and I will be creating what the speaker called a “not to-do list”.
What were some of your learnings you picked up on from attending other sessions?
The three main learnings I took from other sessions are:
- We should be properly tracking our sprints for capacity and flow
- We have a responsibility as a team to ensure everything we are building is ethical and we should be looking at the potential consequences of things we are doing
- The Spotify model was never meant to be a model but just something that worked for them
What’s the one thing you took away that you’re going to look to implement with your team(s) straight away?
Of the three learnings mentioned above I am definitely going to be working with my Delivery Manager and Tech Lead to implement point one. We are not doing a great job of understanding how much work we put into a Sprint and how things are flowing through. The other learnings I will be keeping in mind as I continue to work with my teams to adapt to new ways of working.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experience of the event?
We’ve now been living in a pandemic laden world for almost two years now. I have managed to get used to working from home, video chatting friends and not ever seeing the bottom half of people’s faces. However, the one thing I don’t think I’ll ever get used to are virtual conferences. I have now attended four virtual conferences, and although I am very grateful for the opportunity and the insight I gain, I don’t think they will ever match the value of in person events. The biggest thing I missed from this conference and every other conference I have attended during “the covid years” (if you can use that) was the opportunity to network. The opportunity to talk to other people doing a similar job to me and see what they are finding hard or what they have learned. Hopefully we will be able to go back to in person conferences soon.
Megan Harrison — Scrum Master (Home Member Needs Stream)
Which session was your favourite? Why was that?
My favourite session was the closing talk on Day 1: The magic of human connections. I think human connection is what underpins everything we do so it was really interesting for me to listen to a talk that focussed on this and the science behind it. In this session Emily Webber spoke about our innate need to connect with others. Taking Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for example — if we don’t prioritise social needs, then who is going to help us achieve our physical needs? We need others in order to have shelter and food.
Taking this thinking into our work lives, we need to ensure we build relationships with our teammates and others around us to allow us to get the most out of our work. Fostering an environment where people feel safe to speak openly and honestly with one another. This is even more important now that we spend so much time working remotely because we no longer experience…
So even though it may seem daunting at times — we need to make that extra effort to experience the magic of human connections.
What were some of your learnings you picked up on from attending other sessions?
- Arika Pierce spoke about ‘trimming off the dead leaves’ in “You gotta water your own plants — how to grow and thrive as a leader”. And by this she was referring to embracing failure, failing early and often, and moving on. If something goes wrong, just trim off the dead leaves and things will come back to life with new growth.
- Joakim Sundén reminded us all in “So you copied the Spotify model — here’s what you got wrong” that, just because it seems as though the BNOCs (big names on campus) are doing something and it’s working for them, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, but before you imitate someone ask yourself “Why is it working so well for them? What do I need to adapt to make this thing work in my circumstances?”. And also remember, if it’s something the BNOCs were doing 5 years ago, is it likely still the best idea?
What’s the one thing you took away that you’re going to look to implement with your team(s) straight away?
The main message from the Keynote on Day 1 — look to find opportunities in uncertainty.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experience of the event?
This was my first virtual conference and although it wasn’t quite the same as being in the same room as the speaker and the other guests, it was managed really well with multiple Slack channels, a “site map” on the website where you could go into different zones, recordings of talks you might’ve missed, and loads more things. So I guess I just wanted to share that if you are going to host, or attend, a virtual event — do your best to ensure there’s plenty of ways for the guests and speakers to interact with one another, and make the most of those channels. Also — it might be a nice idea to get together with someone else who’s attending and watch talks together (with snacks, obvs).
Ade Olowofela— Scrum Master (Speed Layer)
Which session was your favourite? Why was that?
The Lean Agile Exchange virtual conference was loaded with enlightening sessions delivered by seasoned Agile professionals from across the globe. Out of the array of topics presented, ‘Creating psychological safety in teams’ presented by Mehmet Baha, a reputable Senior Consultant in Agile Mindset and team collaboration really stood out for me. It was an exceptional interactive session which was a lot different from a conventional keynote speech. It involved breakout session and case studies from real life organisations such as Pixar and the US Healthcare sector.
High performing teams require psychological safety and should be able to share knowledge, concerns, questions, mistakes and hard formed ideas without the fear of being punished or humiliated. As Agile leaders, it’s essential to create an environment that empowers team members to make decisions, explore new ideas for innovation, openly share mistakes, foster trust and respect as well as enable constructive conflict for the team to embrace different ideas and views.
What were some of your learnings you picked up on from attending other sessions?
One was the key phrase that I picked up from Nick Brown’s (not a sponsored plug we promise!) session on ‘The importance of being blocked’ — “impediments are not in the path, they are the path”. This phrase resonates and changed my perspective of dealing with blockers as what stands in the way will become the way.
What’s the one thing you took away that you’re going to look to implement with your team(s) straight away?
My key takeaway was from the breakout session of the Psychological Safety talk where I joined other participants to discuss the different types of mistakes that could happen and the practical approach to provide an environment where team members feel free to share their mistakes, brainstorm for actions to navigate, learn from the mistake, adapt and thrive.
Furthermore, in order to evaluate and improve the psychological safety within my team, I will be exploring different themes for Retrospectives such as the Explorer, Shopper, Vacationer and Prisoner (ESVP) theme to prompt team members to express their level of engagements and overall psychological safety.
Conclusion
Overall, it’s fair to say everyone who attended Lean Agile Exchange 2021 took many learnings away, with it clearly adding value to us as an organisation and the journey we are on — looking forward to the next one! Comment below if you attended and want to share your learnings :)
