I spoke with Business Agility Conference organizer Evan Leybourn on some of the inner workings and the future of the conference. 

The people are the best part of the conference. 40% of attendees were from over seas and 95% of all attendees flew in just for this event - which is incredible! Truly a global audience. 

We really approached our topics differently this year. It was designed specifically to have "ah-ha!" moments constantly where everyone tells us a story. We weren't looking for theory, we wanted them to tell us their "why," - to leave us inspired. 

In the coming years, we really don't want to grow too big - 350-400 might be the max. Primarily because the intimacy of the conversations is important, but we want to go broader. We want small, focused events all of the world to give people opportunities and the chance to join the conversation. 

4 Pillars in the Business Agility Institute:

• Community
• Outreach
• Guidance
• Leadership

And LitheSpeed, as one of our first Institute Partners, has been doing and will continue to live out and uphold these pillars. 

This is my "try to take over the world" moment. What we're doing will influence and touch every business in the world in the coming years. 

The next conferences will take place in Fall 2018 in Australia. Learn more at businessagilityconf.com

Need help implementing these tips into your own organizations? Give us a shout at lithespeed.com or reach out at info@lithespeed.com

I sat down with Ellen Grove and Sue John to talk all things facilitation. See more below and subscribe now. 

Facilitation essentially is holding people safely in a space to express themselves is critical. It isn't just about the fun thing - it isn't just about playing with Lego's. It's about the debrief and helping the participants reflect and think about "what did we just learn here." And that helps them to get better at reflecting. It let's them ask "how are we going to do this thing," and "how are we going to be better at doing that thing." 

Lego Serious Play, and other similar techniques, allows everyone to get their ideas on the table and that's how you get people talking, collaborating, and making decisions as a team. It's easier to talk about this Lego on the table than that department is run poorly or I don't work well with that person. 

Facilitation for Decision Making Exercise:

• Set up a meeting for the entire morning -
• We'll be exploring until maybe lunchtime
• THEN we see the impact
• Make a decision in a separate meeting. This exercise is for "thinking" about it and the next meeting is for "doing" it.

Questions to think about during the exercise:

• Are we getting the right discussions?
• Have we analyzed the impact?
• Are we making the right decisions?

A facilitator's job is to hold you back for a little while. Learn to say just enough, hand the control to the team, and be silent until someone else to initiate the conversation. 

Need help implementing these tips into your own organizations? Give us a shout at lithespeed.com or reach out at info@lithespeed.com

People make agile seem pretty complicated when they first hear about it. There are clear successes when you implement agile if you are able to incorporate a few things. If you don't understand the underlying philosophies of scrum, you may have a harder time being successful. Listen with Bob and George Dinwiddie as they give advice and tips on how to organize your work, do it, and work as a team. 

1. Organizing the work

Goes hand in hand with the body of scrum.Have a clear goal, work in iterations, don't plan too far in advance. For some, that's enough, but it might not be enough by itself to deliver regularly and reliably. Here are some tips on organizing your work:

• Break the work down into chunks to complete in short iterations.  
• Measure progress by the end result's value, rather than the time spent on the work

2. Doing the work

Teams already know the work that they're doing to some degree. Sometimes they aren't doing it well, sometimes they are. 

• Having deadlines might shine a light on some fundamental issues your team might have. They might be signing on for too much, not know how to test, find discrepancies in what to build, or a host of other underlying problems. 
• Integrate testing into the work - don't wait until you need to deploy!
• Have "not started", "in progress", and "done" as your columns on a visual management system

3. Working as a team

A lot of companies expect to throw people into a room and exter them to magically work well together. We know that doesn't actually happen, so here are some tips to have your team work better together.

• Collaborate! Have your testers and developers talk throughout the entire sprint, instead of waiting until a testing phase to work out bugs. 
• Make sure your team supports each other. Respect opinions, have dialogue instead of arguments, and adjust to the personalities in your team.
• Have ongoing organizational support. perhaps try integrating team level performance and individual level performance together 

Need help implementing these tips into your own organizations? Give us a shout at lithespeed.com or reach out at info@lithespeed.com

I talked all things Lean Startup with Teague Hopkins of the Teague Hopkins Group at the Agile DC Executive Summit. 

Enjoy

Bob Payne

I speak with Sevatec's Josh Seckel, formerly at USCIS, at the Agile DC Executive Summit. 

Enjoy

Bob Payne

John Hughes from Sevatec keeps popping up at virtually every conference, so I think I'd snag him for some podcasting. 

Enjoy

Bob Payne

I sat down with Amber King from CapitalOne Innovation Labs at the Agile DC Executive Conference. 

Enjoy

Bob Payne

This podcast brought to you by LitheSpeed. 

I sat down with Lymari Castro from DoD and Warren Smith with Rein LLC to chat about their talk, Infusing an Agile Requirements Backlog in a Large DoD Program. 

Enjoy

Bob Payne

Since SAFe 4.5 was just recently released, I decided to ask the creator what's new. Listen to us talk new configurations, better integration of DevOps, and continuous improvement with SAFe creator Dean Leffingwell.

Enjoy

Bob Payne

Josh and I chat about his key note talk regarding Modern Agile.  Possibly the most influential sticker driven development project ever.  

Always a pleasure chatting wth Josh and I have changed my practice to be a bit more modern.

What will you do?

Follow him at @JoshuaKerievsky

Enjoy

Bob Payne