I spent most of the last few days on mine, and now have eight submissions awaiting assessment and judgment.  Of course, I’d love to receive comments on the conference web site from any readers of this blog.  You’ll need an Agile2009 id to log in, and if you don’t have one yet, get one!  They are free, and will allow you to submit your own session as well as commenting on other people’s.

Here is the list of my submissions.

• New Dance for New Product Development
• The Spirit of Scrum: Road to Joy
• The Agile Playground
• Scale Back: Small is Beautiful
• Solving the The HR Problem in 90 Minutes — with Xavier Quesada Allue
• Operating on the Creative Edge (Improv in Agile) — with Jim York
• Help me to see… corporate culture — with Alan Cyment
• Powerful Questions: Human-centric coaching — with Lyssa Adkins

And while you are here, please take a moment to take a look at my friend Xavier’s new Visual Management Blog.  It is very impressive, and a great resource to be building for this community.

I hope to see some of you in Chicago in August.  And if you are submitting yourself, I wish you acceptance

This was the second year at Agile that Jim York and I collaborated on an Improv-led session.  In our work as coaches and trainers we have found the improv mindset to be an essential tool for Scrum teams, moving them swiftly towards deep and productive collaboration, without fear.

The session has been written up for the Agile2008 site and is available to download as a PDF from here: Operating on the Creative Edge — PDF.  In the document we describe many (not all) of the exercises we ran, and describe briefly the purpose of the work.

Both Jim and I have trained with the Improv artist and actor Matt Smith.  Here is an extract from Matt’s web site, where the parallels with what we are asking from Scrum team members can clearly be seen.

“I studied improvisation so that I could become funny on stage in front of people. What I learned from the training was quite different. I learned to: listen, honor, be accountable, be positive, move things forward, stay present, reincorporate, empathize, reflect.  And I learned to surrender: my agenda, negativity, judgment, control, anticipation, pre-determinate listening.  More than readying me for the stage, it improved my life!”

If you live on the NW coast of the USA I highly recommend you attend one of Matt’s workshops.  They are mind-altering.

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A word of warning: although the PDF document may be of interest to many, it is highly advisable you do not attempt to run the exercises described unless you have yourself experienced them.  Words are too easy to misinterpret.  Only by being in these exercises can you truly comprehend them.  If you are interested in introducing these ideas to your organization contact Jim or me directly, or better yet contact Matt Smith.

This session, a mashup of Scrum, Artful Making and Project Runway was an attempt to see how people would work in a non-software environment given some vague, but hopefully enthusiastic requirements.  I believe that a Scrum approach to any new product development is natural, and even inevitable.  It is predefined process that prevents us following a natural, meandering path to an innovative and imaginative solution.  It is the urge to be in control and a fear of failure that forces us to demand answers up front rather than allowing a solution to unfold, organically.  Having software developers and project managers create fashion clothing was a way to avoid the old ways of thinking.  This was new territory.

To begin the session I described the four Artful Making principles of Release, Collaboration, Ensemble and Play and summarized these as big posters on the wall.   I then introduced the Stacey Diagram, focusing on the fact that the project we were about to embark on existed in the complex space, i.e. the requirements were sketchy and we were working with new technology (needles, thread, sewing machines, fabric…).  I briefly outlined the principles of an empirical process and stressed the importance of reflection to inspect and adapt.  We set an iteration time of thirty minutes and then began the projects.

There were two teams of 6/7 people.  Each team had two customers, Alan and Stacia with Team A and Samira and Kate with Team B.  Team A were to make two outfits, one for each customer, while Team B focused on a single outfit for Samira.  Kate’s role became that of an advisor and customer consultant on the empirical process, as Samira had limited experience of this way of working.

Each team was obliged to use the Agile2008 conference tee shirt as part of their outfit.  There were no other boundaries.

As much as possible I did not enforce any Scrum practices, but let the teams find their own way.  Naturally, this being Agile2008, most participants had some experience of this way of working, but even so it came to light that this was tough.  The empirical approach is natural, but it requires discipline to make it optimal.  Lyssa Adkins has written about her experience of being on one of the teams on her blog, cricketwing.

Of course, the customers changed their minds frequently, rejected ideas, came up with new ones and in collaboration with the teams ultimately came up with solutions that were both practical and satisfying.  By the end of the session we did indeed have three outfits.  Stacia’s one was a little rushed at the end and probably lacked some quality, but the other two were entirely satisfactory.  Samira’s off-the-shoulder dress and accessories, made from four conference and corporate tee-shirts was probably the most successful outfit.  Samira wore it to the banquet on the final day, to many a complimentary comment.

Enjoy the pictures — and click to view the full size versions.

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Scale Back: Small is Beautiful.  The full description/original submission can be seen on the Agile2008 submissions board, here.  The intent of this session was to have an antidote to all the “let’s scale agile up to the enterprise” submissions (there were many).  In all the bigger-is-better discussions an essential question was not being asked: Why?  If Agile is about simplifying software process, maybe making it bigger is the wrong approach.  How about we make it smaller?  This is our starting point for this session.

I chose the 30-minute time slot for this session, as it was the shortest available session slot.  If small really is beautiful, let’s put out money where our mouth is.  My intention for this session was to come up with The Proclamation of Small Ideas, a statement created collaboratively by all those present.  I expected maybe a dozen people to show.

In actuality we had about 30-35 people attend this session.  Can consensus work with such a large group in such a small space of time?  Well, surprisingly, yes.  And this is how.

Session Mechanics

1. Introduction   We are trying to scale Agile up, without first optimizing it at the single-team level.  This is a big mistake.  We end up with watered down, half-hearted Agile.  It would seem that our desire to complicate things and define futures that show how smart we are, overrides the common sense, keep-it-simple principles required by this new paradigm.  Let’s focus back on making one team the absolute best it can be, and then let scaling happen by itself, through emergence rather than by upfront design.  I wrote a blog post about this a few months previously:  Scaling Scrum: The Alcoholic Perspective.

2. Discovery — The Game “35”  Each person has an index card.  On the card they write down a single statement to express why keeping Agile small is important to them.  Once all have written we get on our feet (getting on our feet is a magical part of any workshop… it is an awakening).  Mill around the room, swapping cards as fast as you can until all the cards are effectively mixed up.  Then at the command of the facilitator, stop.  Find a partner (note: this exercise requires an even number of people; if you are the facilitator either join in or ask someone to drop out to make the number an even one).  In your pairs read the two cards you have and come to an agreement about which best expresses your own values.  Score the cards using a total of 7 points.  In other words, divide seven between the two cards, with the higher number going to the card that best expresses your values.  The division will either be 7/0, 6/1, 5/2 or 4/3.  There are no half values.  Write the appropriate number on the back of each card.  Once all pairs have done this, mill around again, swapping cards and on the “stop” command find a new partner.  Repeat this five times.  The highest score any card could receive is 35.  Hence the name.  After five rounds, have people add up the total  of the numbers on the back of the cards.  Then count down from 35.  We selected the top four cards and shared the contents with everyone.  This leads us into the next phase.

Writing The Proclamation  The room was naturally divided into five tables of around 6-7 persons at each.  In these groups, take the top four statements (which I have now transcribed to a whiteboard for visibility) and create a single statement that expresses these values.  Write this on an index card.  After 3 minutes, stop.  Pass your card to the next table (rotate all cards).  New table: rewrite the statement, fine-tuning and eliminating waste.  I’d have liked to have done this four times, but we were running out of time.  Instead we stopped after one pass, and a spokesperson read out the edited statement.  Then we voted.  Each table read the statement and each person (with eyes closed) raised their hand if it expressed their values.  Each person could vote multiple times.  I tallied the votes, and one of the five statements was a clear winner.  The Proclamation of Small Ideas: this was it…

keep agile small
because passionate
collaborative individuals
produce simple results

Everyone in the room agreed that this statement captured the intent of their own feelings.  There was consensus.  Each person copied the statement out twice, on separate index cards and committed to giving one away to a conference attendee who was not present.  Spread the passion.  The session took 30 minutes and 37 seconds.  James Lyndsay graciously gave us those 37 seconds from his part of the session.

It was encouraging to me how many people showed up to the workshop… how many had a genuine concern that Agile was becoming bloated.  I had a number of interesting conversations following this session, and I hope some of the participants will read this and add their thoughts.

Next up… Fashion Cycle: Agile 2008 meets Project Runway.