Agile and Beyond - The power of aspirational teams!
Agile is now on most CV’s, so beyond the hype what is the future? This session explores a journey of agile techniques, unusually mixing appreciative inquiry to show examples of thinking beyond simple agile. Far from being dictatorial, frameworks like XP are misunderstood – they are aspirational. Combining true stories, audience participation (project pictures and natural appreciation) I also cover: Mock Objects, Role Play, Gold Cards, Practicing Happiness, Retrospectives and Appreciation. While the range is varied, it’s a common journey encountered by many teams as they grapple with achieving optimal results.
This session has a rich set of examples that form a basis for describing experiences from working with many agile teams. The audience will be asked to try out some of the exercises described, like project pictures and giving natural appreciation (it won’t just be about sitting and listening). Topics visited in the journey of related and unfolding topcs are: Testing, Mock Objects, CRC Cards, Role Play, The Power of Groups and socializing ideas, Gold Cards, Story Cards, Happiness, Retrospectives and Appreciation. While the range is quite varied, this is a common journey encountered by many agile teams as they grapple with how to achieve results in an optimal manner. The topics demonstrate practicing reactions to varied problems and treating them as opportunities to find new solutions that can lead to what is possible. The ideas in this journey might be known (some published) however the session also provides a unique incite into what the presenter and teams were thinking when they encountered them and how they turned challenges into incremental achievements. Attendees will definitely leave this session with some concrete ideas they can try on their projects too.
Tim Mackinnon is an early pioneer of agile development. His contributions include many well recognized techniques: Mock Objects, Gold Cards, Heartbeat retrospectives and Futurespectives as well as starting the Extreme Tuesday Club. He has worked with numerous organisations, developing, teaching and mentoring teams in effective agile methods. Tim is also the founder of Iterex Ltd, a company specialising in team excellence and the creator of the Iterex Planning Cards software (http://www.iterex.co.uk).