• organizational culture type
• type and temperament of the influential people or ‘change sponsor’
• flow of power throughout the organization

I am still learning about this and refining that theory.  Here’s a quick example, suppose you, as a change artist, are brought in to transform an organization to Agile.  Suppose this organization is a control culture (likes rules, process, stability, hierarchy and power) and the change sponsor (VP or Director or whoever brought in Agile, let’s call him Rick) has MBTI preferences that lend themselves to align with the attributes of a control culture.

Rick may be more likely to see ‘Agile’ as a set of processes and practices over a set of values and principles.  As a change artist, an Agile Adoption approach may make more sense.  ’Adoption’ and ‘Transformation’, IMO, are different.  Transformation is transforming an organization’s culture to build a learning culture or Agile mindset.  Adoption is adopting Agile practices and processes for perceived benefits that are (or at least seem) concrete.

As a change artist providing a less ‘fluffy’ and values/principles approach in favour of a more pragmatic approach of a list of processes and practices with benefits, possible outcomes and an implementation plan increase the odds of a successful change.

Today at AYE we had a small open space session and talked about MBTI and temperaments, how each temperament (SP, NT, SJ, NF) are affected by change using the Virginia Satir change model and how those temperaments may naturally fit into the different organizational cultures.  Susan Davis brought up using MBTI function pairings instead. (ST, SF, NT, NF).

First we talked about temperaments:

NT: Rationals, Visionaries – use logic to make decisions, have grand visions of what’s possible

SP: Artisans, trouble-shooters – like to solve problems as quick as possible to find the next problem to solve

NF: Idealist, catalyst – want to make sure everyone in the group is ok and feels included

SJ: Guardian, organizers, stabilizers - like rules and plans, certainty

Of course these are paraphrased, there is a great wealth of information about types and temperaments, these descriptions will suit the purpose of this post.

Next we related temperaments to the Virginia Satir change model.

NT: see the vision of the change and want to progress quickly through chaos.

SP: want to move through chaos as quickly as possible to get to the next problem and adapt quickly

NF: want to make sure everybody is ok while they move through chaos and want to get to the transforming idea so people will be ok.

SJ: may question the need to change and move back to the status quo

Each person will move through the change model at different rates and intensities.

Next we looked at Organizational Culture Types:

Control: rules, process, certainty, power, hierarchy.  ”we succeed by establishing and maintaining control”

Collaboration: teamwork, synergy, interaction.  ”we succeed by working together”

Cultivation: purpose/faith, creativity, let things evolve.  ”We succeed by growing people who fulfil our vision”

Competence: efficiency, craftsmanship, expertise.  ”We succeed by being the best”

For a fantastic description of culture types, check out Michael Sahota’s post here.

Next we talked about how some temperaments may have a more natural fit in certain cultures.  For example, NF’s may fit more naturally in a Cultivation Culture which emphasizes people and possibilities.  This culture is in direct conflict with a Control Culture and people who relate more to Control Cultures may have a hard time adjusting to a Cultivation Culture or they may not adapt at all.

What clicked for me was when Susan Davis brought up mapping MBTI function pairings with organizational culture types.  Quick side note on MBTI, my type is ISTP:

E/I: Introvert/Extrovert (Energy – Attitude)

N/S: Intuiting/Sensing (Data  - Function)

T/F: Thinking/Feeling (Decision – Function)

J/P: Judging/Perceiving (Action – Attitude)

My temperament is SP (Artisan).  My function pairing is ST.  I am a 50/50 split on N vs S so my temperament aligns well with the NT temperament.  I like solving problems, I like inflicting help, I like stuff that is awesome and in the end, it’ll all work out, whatever it is!  You can read more on function pairing here.

I will make a better diagram, here’s what we drew up.  On the Y axis of the organization culture type, “Reality Focus” for organizations aligns well with people with “S (sensing)” function while the “Possibility Focus” aligns well with “N (Intuiting)” function.  On the X-axis, “People Focus” aligns with “F (Feeling)” while “Company Focus” aligns with “T (Thinking)”.

I’m sure that sounds confusing.  Here’s what clicked, which is my theory.  If you as a change artist understand the culture of the organization and the teams (organizations will have sub-cultures on different teams, departments, social circles etc) and the MBTI preferences of the change sponsor and people in the organization, you may be able to come up with an Agile Adoption or Transformation plan that as a higher chance for success.

The reason I theorize that is solely based on experiences I’ve had and the theory of culture types and MBTI temperaments. In a control organization where the change sponsor has an ST function paring (SJ for example), selling him/her “Agile” as a set of values and principles and creating a learning culture or Agile mindset might not be as effective as selling “Agile” as a set of processes and practices with tangible benefits.

These pieces started coming together during Don Gray’s ‘Reading the River: Understanding Organizational Currents to Get You Where You Want to Go‘ session.  It helped me understand how to find leverage points and how to ‘speak the language’ of change in the right way to the right people.  If you have a deeper understanding of organizational currents, you can use the knowledge of that organizations culture and people to help take you through the change more effectively than swimming against the current by using “Agile Transformation” approaches when an “Agile Adoption” approach may be a better choice.

To wrap up, no culture is ‘better’ than another, same for type and temperament.  Agile-ists will often say “once size Agile doesn’t fit all” and I believe the combination of organizational currents, organizational culture and type/temperament of the influential people in the organization are the keys to figuring out how to work through a change more effectively.

This year I haven’t figured out what I want to get out of AYE.  There are so many great sessions and so many areas of personal improvement I see that I haven’t widdled it down yet.  Blogging is therapeutic for me so I’m hoping I’ll figure it out before the end of this post.   As a consultant, I’d end up in more ‘coaching skills’ type of sessions to help me be a more effective coach.  This time around I’m going to be a bit more selfish and find sessions that are more personal to me.

I think the biggest area of improvement I want to make this year is figuring out how to be a more effective communicator.  I have a tendency to bottle up my thoughts until they explode and sometimes I won’t really say what’s on my mind because I’m worried how the message will be received on the other end.  Then, of course, the blow up happens. PSL helped a lot with that, I feel I want to do some fine tuning though.

Jerry’s session on handling “awkward situations at work” also looks interesting because as a “resource” I have to integrate more deeply into the existing culture which I do not do very well sometimes.  As a consultant it was much easier, you kind of expect to be fired at any point and you’re being hired to disrupt the status quo.

As I was typing this, my co-workers wanted to chat about what to expect since it’s their first time going.  I told them a couple of stories from the last 2 I went to and hopefully didn’t spoil anything.  I remember not knowing what to expect and being nervous and excited at the same time so I hope they experience that same feeling.   It was funny when one of them asked about the credentials of the hosts and what he should expect to learn!  I think he’s in for a treat!

I think that helped me shape my goal this year.  There are a couple of great sessions about change, organizational mapping and navigating organizational currents which I am fascinated by.  We’ve been going through many big changes over the last few months and anyone who knows me knows I’m not shy about stating my observations so it’s nice to be a real employee and see the outcomes of some of the jiggles that have happened here.  Usually as a consultant you try and help and organization, they do or don’t listen and you’re gone before you really see the outcomes of the change(s).  I have the benefit of seeing this change and experiencing it.

I’m rambling.  Shocking, I know.

This year I want to bring back skills for better integrating into existing cultures, for me personally and also to help others understand culture and temperaments and how to adjust to complex adaptive systems.  I strongly push back against the status quo which isn’t always the right thing to do and sometimes come across as a know-it-all because I am never satisfied with doing things the way they’ve always been done.  Historically that approach has alienated me as an employee and I get fed up and leave feeling like I don’t fit.  Perhaps what I’ll learn is that sometimes I should just shut-up!

Either way, I’m really looking forward to going back and catching up with some old friends and meeting new ones!  Look for the usual post-AYE, uh, posts and check out my other posts from previous conferences if you’re interested.

Jerry asked the coaches how they received the title ‘Coach‘ and when it came to my turn I said it’s for marketing.  All the cool kids are doing it, that’s what the industry is asking for and it sounds a whole helluva lot cooler than ‘Business Process Consultant‘.

About a year ago while talking to a couple senior people at the organization I was working with, I realized there was a whole lot more to ‘Coaching‘ than I thought.  I was getting pressure to commit to having a project done with fixed scope for a fixed date and instead of trying understanding their perspective, I immediately went into ‘Agile Coach‘ mode and tried to explain to them why they were wrong.  Needless to say it failed miserably.   Over the last year I’ve had several epiphany’s about what a coach is and it all became crystal clear during a recent coaching session hosted by Michael Spayd.

Michael and Lyssa Adkins have been delivery “What is an Agile Coach?” webinars recently and Michael shared the model with our coaching circle:

The model is based on 4 pillars:

1. Coaching/Facilitation: It’s always about the client, not you.  IE: don’t let Agile get in the way of success
2. Education/Mentoring: Understand what level the client/teams are at to choose the best approach.  IE: more green teams need ‘how’ and a more directive approach.
3. Agile/Lean Process Knowledge: When to use which one and the rationale behind it.  IE: Figure out what process suites the work being done.
4. Domain Mastery: being able to coach AND do.  IE: An XP Coach who can coach AND write code.

What I love about this model is that it can help organizations understand what is expected of a coach and it can help coaches improve their skills by having some concrete details about what skills and knowledge are needed to help organizations become successful.  More importantly, it can help identify areas where the transformation may be falling down.  For example, if you’re focused on installing Scrum and ignore (or aren’t aware) of human transformation or organizational transformation you may optimize the team temporarily.  Once the Coach is gone, the transformation may not stick.

A team I worked with at a large enterprise company really understood what ‘being Agile’ really meant.  They didn’t have the process knowledge initially but they had desire and commitment to learn.  Simply put, these guys were awesome.  As their ‘Coach‘ my approach was very much non-directive as that’s what I believed would serve them best and they did not disappoint.  They outgrew me after a few months because I helped them be aware of their situation (often referred to as ‘holding up the mirror‘ to the team) and gave them the tools and knowledge to manage those situations.

At another client I worked for, they needed much more ‘how to‘ coaching so I took a much more directive approach where I would tell them how to apply the process until they learned it well enough to mold it to fit their work and style.    In this same organization, I was pairing with Alistair McKinnell.  He has super-mad skillz in XP.  He was very well-rounded in all pillars and was particularly strong in the Domain Mastery and Education/Mentoring pillars because he could get dirty with the teams and help them with code all the while helping them understand better technical practices.  I couldn’t do that.  I felt stronger in the Coaching/Facilitation and Process pillars as well as having deeper knowledge of Product Owner practices.  This combination of skills worked very well together.   Where we lacking, in my opinion, was deeper organizational change knowledge.  We knew that at the time and the focus was at a deeper level, however having this model would have been helpful as a communication tool to the client in the sense that we could point out where the train wreck was going to be.  We ‘knew’ and struggled with verbalizing it or creating a visual model to help them be aware of it.

This Coaching Piller is what’s missing from the Agile Community and I think it’s a more effective model for addressing the certification problem than all of the new programs surfacing today.  Certification helps with 1 of the 4 pillars, there’s still much more skills required to be an effective coach.  This model will create a new level of awareness for coaches and organizations and I think it relates well to the 4-step model I use when engaging with clients.  I would also argue this model can be applied to managers and leaders.  If they can understand what a coach can do for them, they can learn these skills and help their organization self-sustain their Agile transformation.

I’ve been participating in a couple of coaching circles hosted by Michael Spayd for about a year now.  In that time, I’ve learned various aspects of this model through what he has shared and what other members have brought to the table.  This has been much more valuable to me as a self-identified Coach than any process training I’ve done.  It’s helped me understand areas where I need to improve and also helped me understand how to find the best approach for the given situation I’m in.  I plan to use this model right away as a tool for me to visualize what an organization needs to be successful and where I can and cannot help them.

Are you a coach or coachee?  What do you think about the model?

In this workshop there were 4 main approaches: Solve, Manage, Cope, Exit.   We were asked to envision a work-related problem and then choose which particular approach we felt we were using by spreading out across the room from Solve to Exit.  Everyone ranked their problems from 1 – 10 with 10 being “holy-ka-smoly I need to fix this now”

Our Finished Product

The first half of the session was a simulation where we broke into groups and the hosts gave us a ‘problem’.  Well, actually it wasn’t a problem, it was a goal where we needed to work as a team and deliver ‘the most value’ to our customers who were Star Wars collectors.  Ah, the good ‘ol Lego game.  Steve Smith handed out the boxes of Lego and my first instinct was to do nothing and instead give our collectors an autographed box from the original Star Wars cast.  That seemed like it was have the most value to collectors.  Something neat happened then.  The team LOVED the idea and we had instant buy-in through a unanimous fist-of-five which more or less contributed to our LACK of problems since we dissolved it through solid buy-in.

Other groups that built the model ran into skill problems (some people aren’t good at building Lego), workflow problems (hard to co-ordinate that many people on 1 model) and other issues that collaborating teams typically face.

We did a bit of planning to figure out how to make the display case, get the autographs and print out a certificate at the hotel desk and during our execution everyone volunteered for a task and did it.  As people were coming and going from our main work area, we talked about how the goal was extremely clear and there was never a moment where we questioned each other.  Perhaps it was dumb luck.  Perhaps not.In the afternoon we broke into groups and helped fellow attendees apply the framework to their problems with the goal being to give people multiple options to go back to work with.

What I really enjoyed about this was that it was a chance to learn and practice since for the most part this is pretty much what I do for a living.  During each de-brief I was writing like a madman as so many awesome ideas for attacking problems were talked about.  Most importantly I took away that no matter what the problem is you always have more options than you think.

This led me to believe that problems really just change shape.  You end up managing your gains and losses all the while morphing problems in manageable pieces by either ‘solving’, managing, coping or exiting.  I put parenthesis around ‘solving’ because when you solve a problem (like we did by not doing the work), we just morphed it into another problem.  I’d argue that the problem wasn’t about building the model in the first place, it was about invoking team problems that would serve as the discussion later on.  The artifact is irrelevant.

Most importantly, creativity ruled this workshop and all 3 groups came up with completely different approaches to the exercise and now I have a big pile of notes to sort through!

Thanks to everyone who participated and to our hosts who gave willingly of themselves and their knowledge, I’m looking forward to PSL in May!

I’ve been a manager before and now as a coach/consultant, I’ve experienced the same issue and I’m guessing other managers probably have as well based on my experience.

A couple of ways for handling this are:

1. Make YOUR work visible: I’ve used personal task boards at previous companies, where in fact, all of us did.  It was accepted to question anybody anytime about what they were working on and it was self-imposed, not management directed.
2. Track impediments over time: Again, make this visible.   As your teams run into problems, and whether or not you’re ‘agile’, take that data and make it visible that you are making progress towards removing them.  This type of accountability shows the team’s concerns are not falling on deaf ears.  A simple wallboard that shows a list of impediments to resolve now or later as well as impediments that are in progress, done and a cycle time showing how long it’s taking to remove them.

How Does This Help Build Trust?

Making your own work visible shows you care enough about the team to model the behaviour you seek from the teams.  It also helps prove to your team that you expect to be held accountable for your own work.

Simple work boards that visualize the team’s impediments, how long they’ve been open and data around how they get resolved can be a powerful motivator for the team and a great way to keep yourself honest.

Finally, it can be an effective way to influence others on the value of making work visible outside your direct sphere of influence.  The best way to figure out if it’ll work is to try it out, get feedback and adjust as necessary.

More than half the conference attendees showed up for the morning session which surprised Steve a bit and he adjusted well considering he admitted he wasn’t sure how it would scale.  There was so much that I learned in this session that it’s difficult to start writing about it.   Look for a future post and mind-map for more details, and for now, I’ll attempt to single out my one takeaway.

Oddly enough I will choose a statement that came from one of the participants, Michael.  Michael had brought a few co-workers who were also in the session and is an authority figure in his company.  He self-identified at the beginning of the session as having power in the organization he works for.  I was fortunate to be an observer in the group Michael was part of.  Long-story short, after the de-brief one of his co-workers that reports to him explained Michael’s leadership style.  While he is a figure of power, he displays the attributes of a great servant leader.  They mentioned he ‘walks the floor’, respects the people who report to him and leads by example, not by the carrot or stick method.

Michael said his philosophy was simple:

“We point the guns outside the boat in the direction we’re going, not inside the boat”

It was refreshing to hear that from a leader.  It was equally important to hear his co-workers echo that back when Michael was not in the room.  The topper was observing how he interacted with the group during the simulation.  I guess what I’m getting at is similar to my recent post about my statement that strong leaders don’t need agile.

I’ll admit I was a bit nervous about Johanna’s session on coping with personal change.   That’s odd considering I help organizations change yet feel a bit icky about change in my own life.  I expected this session to be intense and it ended up that a large number of folks attended which surprised Johanna.  I was a bit disappointed at first because I thought a more intimate setting with less people would have been more effective.  The power of this session came in the de-brief near the end where people explained their ideas about how to cope with change.

Again, it’s difficult to describe the feeling of this session and with a large and diverse group, the thoughts expressed were deep and profound.   The session was based around the Satir model and how people progress through this model.   The overall goal of the session was to figure out how to cope with loss as a result of change.  A change in your life may be self-instituted (you quit your job) or not (you get fired) and either way something is lost and you need to be able to handle that loss.

People cited ideas like redirecting the negative energy through activity (working out, playing an instrument) to retail therapy (going out and buying stuff!) to prayer and everything in between.  The one key takeaway was the multiple responses about focusing on what really matters in your life and never losing sight of that.   Regardless of what stage of change you are in setting perspective is important regardless of the type of coping mechanism you use.

My wife and family are my world.  Period.

I will share a bit of advice and suggest the next time your boss is being an asshole about a report or some other work related thing that often seems to have come right out of a scene out of a soap opera you step back and think about what REALLY matters.

At the time you may think it’s the most important thing but I can tell you it isn’t.  Learn how to cope with what DOESN’T matter by just letting it go or going to the gym to release the negative energy and remember there are 2 things far more important than work.

#1 Your health.

#2 Your family.

I need to thank Johanna for this.  I am fumbling to find words that can describe my deep admiration for her, and all the hosts’, sincerity and openness for sharing what they know.   I am completely exhausted and most importantly I feel I’m a better person than I was 3 days ago.

Today was Esther Derby day for me as I ended up going to both of her sessions.  Up first was ‘Seeing How the Work Works’.  This was, from my perspective, part II of the ‘Lifting the Veil’ session from yesterday which was a deeper dive into containers and systems.  We were randomly divided into groups for a simulation where the participants created a product for a customer.

After the simulation was done we were broken into small groups tasked with visualizing the flow of work and communication through the organization.   We also noted delays and where value and waste were created and finally we drew what the new system would look like that would be more suited to accomplish the work.   Oddly enough I was a test manager and our small group that had all managers in it decided that we should all be fired because we added no value for the type of work being done. Similar to yesterday’s session, fit for function is important.  The system should be designed to support the type of work being done instead of forcing work through structures that can’t handle it.

In my usual ‘one takeaway’ fashion, I’d say my one takeaway was the power of visualization.  I *knew* that already yet often I feel pulled in too far into the system to step back and take an objective look sometimes.   A quick diagram of how work and communication flows is visually powerful and invokes equally powerful discussions.

The afternoon session I attended was ‘Facilitating Group Discussion’.   We were split into groups and each group had an opportunity to participate in a meeting simulation to solve a problem.  Observers noted details about what the people in the meeting were trying to achieve and how they were trying to achieve it.   All the groups had the opportunity to observe and hold their meeting.

After the simulation was finished we broke into different groups and debriefed on what we observed.  We then took the patterns that were observed and related them to the framework that Esther presented followed by an open discussion.  One thing about AYE is that it’s hard to explain what happens, you really need to experience it so my apologies if this sounds too abstract at times!

Biggest takeaway?  Teams often don’t diverge enough to reach meaningful decisions in meetings.  Stated another way, if you move from divergent conversation into convergent conversation too quickly, you’ll end up with lower quality decisions and no buy-in.  Debate long enough and have meaningful discussions instead of rushing to a decision because it feels too hard or is too painful.  Jean Tabaka talks about this in her Collaboration Explained book.  Great read, by the way.  There was much more information shared in this session, I ended up taking 3 pages of notes that will make up future posts.

The evening brought 2 more BOF’s, one that I hosted on using social media to market yourself and connect with peers.  This was by request as people had approached me and asked about it from comments I made during the hiring BOF yesterday.  This was a great discussion that Jerry Weinberg came to as well, we chatted about social media strategies and tools to support our professional goals and objectives and then talked a bit about the state of Agile and shared some consulting stories.  I could talk with Jerry for hours, it’s amazing to experience how humble he is and how, knowingly or not, he creates such a safe environment for conversations.

Finally the night came to a close with a feedback session about AYE and by this time I could hardly move let alone think!  Lot’s of great suggestions about future AYE conferences, some of which I didn’t really understand since I’ve only been to 2 of them!

Looking forward to Day 3!

In the morning I attended Esther Derby’s session “Lifting the Veil: How Visible and Invisible Structures Drive Organizational Behaviour”.    A client I was working with had made some org structure changes and I had asked the decision maker what different outcome they expect by making this change.  The response was a stare back at me that made me feel like I had grown 7 or 8 extra heads.

In this session we talked about how managers often get fooled by looking surface structure (IE: org chart) where they may be better served by understanding containers and what effect the system has on the behaviour they’re seeing.  When I was probing that client about the expected outcome, I wanted to understand why they thought moving pieces around on a chess board would make a difference without necessarily understanding how the current system was influencing the behaviour they didn’t like in the first place.  That was kinda confusing, what I mean is, org changes are often a gut-reaction to some behaviour managers don’t understand and don’t know how to deal with.

In this recent situation, I feel I failed to help the client understand this by not being able to explain it well.  This session gave me better language and real concrete examples from our workshop that I will use to be more effective next time.  Suffice to say, managers are also caught in that same system and they themselves are behaving because of the system they’re in as well.  Perhaps the org change was the result of pressure from elsewhere or desperation out of fear.

The one (of many) takeaway for me was that you have better options for solutions once you’ve made those patterns visible.  For me that means taking time to watch these patterns emerge instead of making a gut-reaction change.  I suppose the other takeaway is a list of more books I now want to read and different language I want to learn to be more effective.

In the afternoon I attended Jerry Weinberg’s session on Coaching the Coaches.  I’ve participated in 2 coaching circles and pair coached before so this was a great opportunity to learn some skills from the other attendees and of course Jerry!

It’s tough to put my finger on what the best part of this session was because the whole session was executed so well.  It was pretty clear that nobody really knows what an Agile Coach is or what they do only that there is a big list of stuff they may or may not do depending on the situation.  I’d have to agree, like I mentioned in my other post, ‘Agile Coach’ is what resonates with the market because it’s popular nowadays.  I guess it also sounds better than a boring old ‘consultant’ title.

It was interesting to see the perspective from people who’ve labelled themselves as ‘Agile Coaches’ (myself included), people who’ve been coached and people who thought they did some ‘coaching’ tasks as managers.  Coaches seemed to have the opinion of team focus whereas people who had been coached felt that their individual interests were served well by coaches.   There were some overlapping similarities as well.

My one takeaway was that as a person who’s brought in to coach a team or organization it’s important to understand their perspective and ask what they expect to get from being coached.  By ‘they’, I mean the individuals being coached, not the organization.  Jerry had a great example.  Suppose somebody comes to your door and tells you they have come to fix your problems without having any context or knowledge about YOUR problems.  What would you do?

Often individuals have coaching PUSHED on them, as a coach it’s important to be receptive that.  It’s also important to realize that what we may perceive as resistance is actually a safety reflex in the person being coached.  Adding to the complexity is the fact that people go through change at different paces and intensities which makes coaches have to adapt on the fly to different people and situations.

Great first day, and I haven’t even talked about the lunch, hallway and post-session conversations!  Looking forward to tomorrow, think I’ll skip the morning swim and get a bit of extra sleep!

Tonight I connected with some folks I met last year and it’s amazing after a year what sticks.  Last year I didn’t know what to expect and this year I am opening my eyes to find one thing each day I can learn and take back and use immediately in my day-to-day life.

We as humans often see big problems and feel a need to solve big problems that seem impossible to solve. While I didn’t know what to expect last year, I took away 5 simple things from our gracious hosts that I believe helped me be a more effective person:

Steve Smith: I learned to ask for what I want and stick around to negotiate.

How This Helped: You don’t know what you’re going to get if you don’t ask.  You may feel that you want to ask for less assuming the other side will reject what you are saying, however, ask for what you want and stick around to negotiate.  You may be surprised by the results.

Esther Derby: When I was asking how to approach my team and push all the knowledge I gained in order to help them she replied with “Make it about them.”

How This Helped: This helped me realize I’m not the focal point as a Scrum Master or Coach.  It’s not about me, it’s about them.  It’s helped me become a better listener and also helped me be more attentive to understanding other people.

Johanna Rothman: In context of how to get started as an Agile Coach/Consultant she said “start writing”

How This Helped: Blogging frequently has helped me find my style and learn more about myself all the while giving me the opportunity to share what I know with others.  It’s also a great way to gain more contacts and has inspired me to write a book that’s in progress now.

Don Gray: I missed the warm-up tutorial and Don talked with me and gave me the book “What Type am I” to understand Myers Briggs Type Indicators.

How This Helped:  Most importantly this helped me realize that as an Introvert I’m not just a weirdo that I initially thought I was!  It’s helped me understand myself and other people better by recognizing other types and how to more effectively interact with them.

Jerry Weinberg: If you say ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no’ your ‘yes’ becomes meaningless.

How This Helped: This has helped me be more honest with myself and worry less about the reaction I’ll get by saying ‘no’.  This prodded me to learn about Christopher Avery’s responsible model which has helped me learn the difference between obligation and responsibility.

These 5 simple learnings have made a profound difference in how I approach my life.  Last year I would have said ‘my work life’ however I also learned, from Jerry Weinberg, that why do we separate work life from home life?  It’s just life.

It’s amazing what sticks and here I am a year later with vivid memories of those conversations and stories of how I’ve been influenced by them.  Can’t wait to see what the next 5 little things will be this year.

I’ve been staring at this one line post for about 10 minutes wondering how to better explain my euphoric state right now and “wow” seemed like the right word to start with.

Much like other folks who came here, I had heard great things about AYE and the notion was always that if you can only make one conference, make it to AYE.

First I’ll start with day 2 since I was far too mentally exhausted yesterday to post. Well, maybe the swim, hot-tub and beer had something to do with that exhaustion.

After Day 1 I realized I had discovered what I wanted to take away from this conference so I attended the more tactical sessions from Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby.  Johanna’s session was about portfolio management and Esther’s was about a manager’s role in self-organizing teams.  Both of these sessions hit home for me and I gained some valuable tools that I know will help given my current environment.

Johanna’s started with a brief introductory chat followed by a simulation with a twist that produces a great “AHA!” moment for me.  I felt I participated much more in this session and it helped me gain more confidence in how I can apply this learning in my day to day work life.

Esther’s session was fantastic.  Folks broke out into groups and talked about advantages and disadvantages of self-directed vs management directed teams from the manager’s and team’s perspective.  The groups then compared notes and the lesson I learned is that there needs to be a balance between what the manager’s do and what the team does.  The more a manager does for the team, the less things the team will do for themselves.  The key is to identify what activities the team can contribute with and how manager’s can foster and nurture that learning.  This topic is particularly interesting given my current work environment so I was pleased I chose this session.

Today started off with Steve Smith’s session on how to sell an idea to management.  The class broke into 4 groups and each group had a “Star”, manager, coach and observer.  The goal was to take a real life scenario for the “star” and play out a scenario where the star wants to ask the manager for something.  I was the observer for one group and after each interaction between the manager and star, the whole class would debrief on observations and feedback from the observer, manager and star.

After round 1 the coach would help the star improve and we’d repeat the exercise by either simulating a second meeting or starting over.  This was my favourite session of the conference and Steve provided very valuable insights for how to effectively communicate with a manager when you are asking for something.  Gil Broza also provided some insights on human behaviour that provided more value to everyone.  All in all because there were 4 groups, and therefore 4 simulations, there was a wealth of knowledge shared and I learned the most from this session.

Today finished off with Don Gray’s session on a personal retrospective which helped me digest the knowledge presented to me over the last 3 days and it was very low-key and quiet.  I had a brief chat with Don afterwards and talked about my experience at AYE and he provided more insights that gave me a great deal to think about (and a free book!) to take back with me.

Since I finished early I wanted to see if there were open slots for Johanna’s or Esther’s 1-on-1 sessions.  I felt terrible for interrupting  them both to ask how I could sign up but Esther was gracious enough to find me when her other session was done.

I was initially speechless.  I’ve read her Retrospectives book and blog posts so I will admit it was quite intimidating at first but I do realize it was all due to my insecurity.   I explained my conference experience and asked some specific questions about challenges I’m facing and she was more than happy to answer those questions and provide me with some ideas that would help.

The single greatest piece of advice was about an approach to take when I get back.  Ask the team about their week, don’t make my returning to work after a week off about me.  Absolutely share information when they ask but make sure that the organization and team know it’s about them, not me.   Once I’m presented with a situation that requires it, I have a new set of tools to help them with their problems.

To wrap up the conference all I could muster was wow.  I have never experienced a social interaction such as this before.  I would absolutely like to thank Jerry Weinberg, Steve Smith, Don Gray, Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman for their dedication not only to improvement of the Agile community but simply for being wonderful people.  Their willingness to dedicate time between sessions, after sessions, at lunch, dinner and being so approachable was truly inspiring and I am grateful for the new set of tools and knowledge they all shared.

When is registration open for AYE 2010?