Category: Uncategorized

The top topic – Will AI be nice to people?

Another great Lean Coffee in CBR! Here were the topics proposed, actually discussed topics in bold:

  1. Will A.I. be nice to people?
  2. What does it take to be at the cutting edge?
  3. When do you say no to bugs?
  4. Best book on Scrum
  5. Aside from EWAY… what other private companies are doing agile right in CBR?
  6. Who’s going to LAST conference in Sydney? Who’s worth seeing?
  7. ITIL – whys is it still being used?

See you at the next Lean Coffee!

#noprojects

The topics proposed this week were:

  • #noprojects
  • #AIC
  • Agile organization/process design
  • Roles in Agile and what do they do (which is best)?
  • What can agilists learn from the Trump experience? Macron?
  • Do the clothes make the man?
  • Should PO’s care about dates and delivery?
  • Product Owner is a role, not a profession
  • Agile technical architecture
  • How to transparently allocate time and tasks for career transition
  • Effective remote office sync meetings
  • What is “Business Agility”?

The topics in bold were actually discussed. See you next time!

Top topic – What’s the difference between Lean and Agile?

OK, time to catch up on Lean Coffee posts. The topics in June were:

  • What’s the difference between Lean and Agile?
  • A pitch on “Build Your Own Canvas”
  • How to achieve 5 star Agile teams in our company
  • Are there any Agile blindspots?
  • Setting up high performing Agile teams
  • What questions should I expect in an interview for a Scrum Master job?
  • How to properly propose things to authority – clubs and the like
  • How to transcend perceived standing
  • A SAFe release train to replace our release management
  • Common knowledge – why is it not common?
  • New Facebook technologies for skin stuffs

As always, the bold topics above were actually discussed. See you at the next Lean Coffee!

Come to LAST in Canberra! Because Canberra is not ALL bad.

I have had the pleasure of attending and speaking at both Lean Agile Systems Thinking (AKA LAST) conferences in Australia this year. The event in Melbourne was a jam-packed journey of discovery over 2 days. The event in Sydney was a group of hardcore agilists keepin’ it real for a laser-focused day.

Mad props to everyone involved – I had a spectacular time.

And now we have LAST in Canberra! I want to personally invite all my Agile peeps to both submit sessions and to attend.

To submit a session and to give back to the agile community, go to https://confengine.com/last-conference-canberra and submit your sweet session ideas!

LAST

To attend and join the fun, go to https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/last-conference-canberra-2017-registration-35451347936 and sign up!

LAST

The event is September 14 and is sure to be a stellar conference.

Now I know some Aussies will be all like “Canberra, yuck.” As a Yank living in Canberra, I like it. In fact, I am asking you to reconsider your opinion of Canberra. And what better way than to attend LAST in Canberra and explore the Canberra I know and love.

In the spirit of this, I am offering the following reasons why you will like Canberra:

  • There is NO traffic. I mean, seriously. I look forward to my daily commute driving. Come visit and enjoy driving again!
  • The Australian War Memorial is dope. The conflict of WWI profoundly affected the culture of Australia, and this is the place to learn about it. Full stop. And all of the other museums are world-class and wonderful to visit.
  • The 2015 World Barista Champion, Saša Šestić, is from Canberra and runs 3 coffee shops here. That’s right, Melbourne.
  • Canberra has the lowest crime and murder rate in the country, and the highest safety index. You can walk around at night with impunity!
  • The average temperature in September is 10 ℃, which is wonderful. Not too hot, not too cold.
  • The restaurant and bar/pub scene is growing and getting better every day.
  • Most of you city-type-Aussies have probably never seen a kangaroo outside of a zoo. Well, you can see them in town here! It’s like an Aussie safari, you can see all types of cool wildlife in many of the parks.

Well, I hope this means you will consider attending LAST in Canberra and taking advantage of what this lovely city has to offer. It’s not ALL bad.

Alex and the Canberra Lean Coffee crew

Lean Coffee Canberra

CBD April 10 2017

A very good session was had, new members are always coming into the team and spicing things up. The topics proposed below, actually discussed topics are in bold:

  1. Crazy agile success / not success stories
  2. How can you tell if someone is “agile”
  3. Best drink ever tasted
  4. Scrum is immutable… according to the Scrum Guide. At what point is Scrum not Scrum?
  5. How do agile teams rejuvenate?
  6. What do you look for in an employer?
  7. Pitfalls of working on parallel projects
  8. Project scoping with new teams

Once again, thanks to eWAY for sponsoring our event. They take care of us agilists!

FullSizeRender

Belco Lean Coffee #2, April 2017

OK folks, here comes Belco Lean Coffee post #2. That group has some momentum and they are talking about cool stuff. Here were the topics:

  1. How to develop coaching capabilities?
  2. BA’s in Agile – what role do they play?
  3. Agile conferences in Canberra?
  4. Peer coaching
  5. Is “prescriptive agile” such a bad thing? … to start with?
  6. Visualizing work on wall versus JIRA (tools)
  7. Agile past its “use by” date
  8. Biggest misunderstanding of Agile

belco2

We are expecting more great topics to come out of Belco

A new Lean Coffee era has begun!

Shoaib is now leading a Lean Coffee in Belconnen that alternates with the CBD session! Mad props to Shoaib for leading the charge and dedicating his time to make Lean Coffee a success in Canberra. So now we have the Belco topics to summarize below:

  1. Agile workspaces and dispersed team remediation
  2. What are the most important Agile values in todays organizations?
  3. Why the opposition to Scrum?
  4. Agile delivery governance versus Waterfall governance, what’s the difference?
  5. Do you need a PM, DM, and SM in one project?
  6. Becoming an agile coach
  7. Is this a suitable time for Lean Coffee?
  8. What are the leading agile organizations in Australia?
  9. What is Crystal method and should I use it?

So regarding point #9, I am assuming thats “method” and not “meth” 🙂

We look forward to seeing more interesting topics discussed in Belco!

belco1

 

Mar 27 session – top hit = “Agile” versus “Scrum”

We have returned to our usual haunt of King O’s. eWAY provided more swag this week and covered the bar tab. Many thanks to out sponsor! OK, topics are below, the topics we actually discussed in bold:

  1. “Agile” versus “Scrum”
  2. Agile games
  3. Agile certification – what’s worth getting?
  4. What book should I read next?
  5. What, if any, agile techniques or concepts can be used for employee engagement or motivation?
  6. Amazon impact zone
  7. Store 2.0
  8. Agile testing/CD – what happens when there are unacceptable faults in a product, but a delivery to a customer is imminent?
  9. SAFe? At any speed?

LCMar

Our new Belconnen meetup is also doing well, Shoaib is leading that charge, and doing a great job.

See you all next time!

Tuesday Mar 14 session – topic topic = Innovating in large organizations

This was a special Lean Coffee Monday! Because it was Canberra Day on Monday, we held this session on Tuesday. And because it was on Tuesday, our usual haunt was booked and we moved venues to Highball Express. So right after Lean Coffee we got to take Salsa dancing lessons in a Cuban speakeasy!

As always, topics in order below and discussed topics bolded.

  1. Innovating in large organizations
  2. What agile metrics resonate with leadership?
  3. Best advice for starting Lean in Australia. With an existing product.
  4. Agile culture
  5. What are the “must haves” for Product Managers?
  6. HCD + Agile
  7. (Just listening today!)

BTW – thanks to our awesome sponsor eWAY! They had some nice gifts waiting for us…

LCMar142017