Posts Tagged ‘conference’

Feedback at LESS 2011

February 1st, 2012

I’ve been to quite a few conferences in the past few years and one thing that is always a contention point is how to gather feedback from presentations. Solutions that I’ve seen go from feedback forms and putting votes in a ballot to high tech iPhone apps where you can register your impressions.

At LESS 2011, the organizers ditched the standard forms and went with simple post-its for feedback.

Instead of answering multiple questions, all you had to do is to grab a post it (available in all chairs) and stick it on the right place on the door when leaving (picture below). If you had anything more to say, you could write it in the actual post it, which were then delivered as they were written to the presenters.

   That’s it! Simple and effective.

 

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Graphical Recording, the Cheap Way

January 25th, 2012

A couple of months ago I did a graphical facilitation training with fellow Thoughtworkers in Sydney. The training itself was excellent and gave us a much better understanding on how to use graphics to facilitate a meeting/workshop. Unfortunately I haven’t been in many situations that would allow me to use those skills lately, but wanting to somehow exercise them, I’ve decided to use graphical recording on my notebook to try to follow the presentations I attended at LESS 2011.

Here are some examples of the results. I’m sure I could get better at it but the fact that I’m able to look a t it 2 months later and still remember what was presented says to me I’m on the right track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apart from that, the act of recording and try to create an explanation of what is being said makes me pay much more attention on the content. And it also helps me perceive when Im actually not understanding what is being said (or it is actually too hard to understand..), which happened a couple of times during the conference, as you can see from this example.

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Kaizen Lego Game @ Agile 2011

October 2nd, 2011

Everytime me and Danilo presented the Lean Lego Game, the common phrase we heard from the participants was

 We want to make this process better!

so for some time we had thought it creating a similar game focused only in continuous improvement, which would allow attendees to learn about improvement principles and practices while having some fun with Lego bricks : )

 

This idea has turned into reality in the format of the Kaizen Lego Game, which was presented for the first time at Agile 2011 in SaltLake City, earlier this year. Unfortunately Danilo couldn’t make it, but I was lucky enough to have Pat Kua as the substitute, helping me a lot with all the work involved in it.

 

Keeping the same format as the original one, the idea behind this workshop was to create an immersive environment where we could introduce continuous improvement principles and practices while improving a small Lego production line. Amongst the topics we focused during the workshop were:

  •  Kaizen
  • Value Stream Mapping
  • Inventory
  • Waste
  • Standards & Improvement
  • Cycle Time
  • 5 Whys
  • Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)

I was quite pleased with the result for the first time we presented it. The attendance was very good and we had great positive feedback (and also suggestions for improvements, which were great!).

Kaizen Lego Game

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Want to run it yourself ?

As with the Lean Lego Game, all the material to run the workshop is available through a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial license. If you are interested, feel free to run and adapt it, as long as we get given the appropriate credit and that you don’t use it for commercial purposes. We also would appreciate receiving some feedback on how it worked out for you.

We have created a package containing all you need to try it out in your environment, including:

  •  Facilitator’s Guide: instructions on how to run the workshop
  • Print material: instructions for participants and worksheets using during the activity
  • Slides

Just get in touch via email to request it!

Kaizen Lego Game by Francisco Trindade & Danilo Sato is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0 Unported License.

 

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Thoughts on Agile 2011

October 2nd, 2011

In August this year (I know, a long time ago…) I had the opportunity to be in Salt Lake City for the Agile 2011 conference. It  was the  second Agile conference in the US I’ve attended, and I have to say Im quite pleased with the results.

The venue itself was very appropriate for the event, using two hotels just across the street from each other. Despite having session rooms spread in a large area, it was easy to move between them and there was lots of options of place for sitting down between sessions and talk with other participants, which is always one of my favourite parts in a conference. The Open Jam space was one of the great points for me, with lots of people hanging out there at any given time.

As the biggest conference I’ve ever been, the number of sessions was quite overwhelming. Having to choose one between 18 tracks is always hard, giving you a constant feeling of missing out. It’s one of the good problems to have though, and the quality of the sessions was very good, including two great keynotes. I will be writing up about the sessions I’ve attended soon and also about the one I’ve presented (watch this space).

In general, besides listening to great new ideas, going to conferences like this always works as a refresher for me. It’s good to have some of the old ideas repeated to you, it definitely makes me realise a lot of things I could be doing better but had just gone out of my radar for one reason or another.


			


			

        

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Lean Lego Game at Agile Australia – Full House

			June 20th, 2011 

			

				
Last week I’ve presented the Lean Lego Game with Fabio Pereira at Agile Australia 2011. It was the first time it was run in a conference here in Australia, and I’m pretty happy that it was very successful. There were no spots left for the workshop with one day in advance, and we had quite a few people there to observe it.


If you were one of the participants, thanks a lot for coming!


It was also the first time we’ve tried a new format for the game, giving the possibility to each team to come up with their own process in the third round. It was quite interesting to see different ways that people approached the problem and I definitely think it was an improvement from the old way we did it.  


As a last point if you don’t know yet, the game is distributed under the Creative Commons Licence. Get in touch with me or Danilo if you are interested in running it.

			


			

        

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Lean Lego Game at Agile Australia

			June 13th, 2011 

			

				
This week I will be participating for the first time at Agile Australia. Have heard lots of good things about it, so I am quite interested in presenting and also looking around what’s being presented. Besides meeting lots of interesting people, which is a given in conferences : )


We will be presenting the Lean Lego Game, which introduces Lean concepts using a fun and entertaining activity. This game was already presented at Agile US and XP Europe, but it’s the first time we are doing it in Australia.


Since Danilo couldn’t come (Australia is still far away from everything…), this time I will be presenting with Fabio Pereira, who has kindly agreed to help me. Everything is quite exciting since we made some changes to it based on feedback we’ve got, so we’re quite keen to see how it goes!


If you are around, please come join us on Thursday morning, and hopefully you will get something out of it. If you do, don’t forget to let us know your opinions.


And in case you don’t know it already, the game is distributed under the Creative Commons license. In case you want to run it in your company or some other group, we have all the material ready to help you, and are happy to distribute it.

			


			

        

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Lean Lego Game @XP 2009

			April 20th, 2009 

			

				
Next month, Me and Danilo Sato will be presenting the Lego Lean Game ate XP 2009, which will be held in Sardinia.


So, what is it?


The Lego Lean Game is an activity developed to teach people about the basic concepts of Lean thinking in a dynamic and fun way, demonstrating Lean practices in an imaginary production line to build Lego houses.


Why?


The idea came from the fact that Lean is becoming a common term in software development, but many people haven’t been introduced to the concepts that made it successful. This workshop aims at introducing this concepts to the participants, making them understand where Lean comes from, and why apply them in the software world.


Should I Come?


If you are interested in Lean, but haven’t had time to study about it, this is the perfect place for you. More experienced people are also welcome, since the hands-on activity makes you discover many aspects that might have been missed before.


If you want to have a better idea of how it is, you can check this video (sorry for the shaky camera : ) ), from the presentation we made at Agiles 2008.


Hope to see you there!

			


			

        

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Porto Alegre Agile Weekend 2009

			April 6th, 2009 

			

				
For the Brazilian crowd (or anyone who wants to be part of it), between the 25th and 26th of April will take place in Porto Alegre (my home town : ) ), the 2009 Agile Weekend, which has my friend Daniel Wildt as part of the organizing team.


This will be hopefully the first of many Agile conferences happening in South Brazil, and will serve to boost even more Agile adoption in the region.


portoalegreagileweekend2009_banner_468x60


Needless to say, I really wanted to go, but London is not close enough to Brazil yet…

			


			

        

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Lean Workshop at Agiles 2008

			November 3rd, 2008 

			

				
Last October me and Danilo were in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to present a Lean Workshop at Agiles 2008.


The idea came from our perception that despite being one of the main buzzwords in the agile community, Lean and its origins are still a mistery to a lot of people, specially now in the current tool age , where kanban means a card wall with some numbers on it.


The workshop aimed at introducing Lean concepts through a hands-on activity, where the participants had to build a simple lego house in this 4 step process.


    

  • Step 1: “Buy” the Lego(TM) pieces and sort them by color
    • 

  • Step 2: Sort them again by size
    • 

  • Step 3: Separate the pieces required to build one house
    • 

  • Step 4: Build the house and sell it
    • 



If you are wondering how that turned out in practice, you can check the video here.


In order to go through all the Lean main concepts, the activity was divided in three phases, being the process executed differently in each one: a push system in the first, pull in the second and a single person workcell in the last.


Before every phase, we introduced the concepts that were going to be applied, and after the production, a “retrospective” was held to discuss good and bad points of the process according to the participants.


This way, we could stop and explain the needed concepts between each phase, and were able to go through push vs. pull systems, waste, kanban, kaizen, and work cells, among others.


The feedback we got was very good. All the participants we spoke to later said it was easier to understand what we were talking about when they actually implemented the ideas in practice, and felt the problems that each solution had.  What also helped is that most of the participants we’re being introduced to Lean, and this was the exact kind of public we had in mind when we prepared the workshop.


After the activity, a link with software development was made, but always making clear that creating software is not producing cars, so it is much more important to understand the principles then to apply the practices.


Cheers,


Francisco

			


			

        

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South American Tour

			September 30th, 2008 

			

				
To the brazilian and south-american audience, and also to whoever might be around there in October, I’m participating in two very interesting agile events that are happening in this month.


The first one will be “Talking About Agile” (Falando em Agile), which happens in the 23rd and 24th of October, where I and Danilo Sato, also from ThoughtWorks, will be speaking about problems with agile adoption in real world projects.


We will also be presenting in Agiles 2008, which will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and will have a keynote with Mary Poppendieck, as many other great speakers. In this conference we will present the Lego Lean Game, introducing Lean concepts in a hands-on experience.


Cheers,


Francisco

			


			

        

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