Looking back at Agile 2018

This year is a personal and professional adventure for me.  I journeyed to the Scrum Alliance coaches retreat in London.  Last week, I was a presenter at the Agile 2018 conference.  Each of these experiences has made me a better scrum master and agile coach.  Now, that I am back home and have a more stable schedule; I will be blogging on a more regular basis.  This week a few take-a-ways from the #Agile2018 conference.

Data and Metrics-

The Wednesday keynote was Troy Magennis who spoke passionately about data and agile.  He proposed that agile professionals find a better way to present data to others and that data should inform decision making rather than reinforcing existing prejudices. 

He also provided data showing notions of teams being smaller than nine people may be counterproductive in larger projects.   He pointed to studies where groups of eleven to nineteen people are less efficient by a fraction compared to seven to nine-person teams.  He then argued that fewer handoffs between teams would make up for this difference.  It was provocative, and I look forward to people testing out his thesis. 

The conference featured numerous presentations on metrics and data in agile.  I believe the use of quantitive data rigor in project and business management is a good thing.  For the remainder of the conference, numerous sessions covered the use of data and metrics in Agile. 

Outcomes are better than output-

The Agile Alliance with its speakers unwittingly created a theme for this conference.  The idea was outcomes of real features and progress are more important than outputs of stories, unit tests or story points.  Countless presentations emphasized working code delivering real-world value.  My presentation about the Cobra Effect reflected this dynamic as well.  When we measure outputs, we get perverse incentives.  When we measure outcomes, we get a better perspective of performance. 

Facilitation and Radical Candor-

The life of an agile coach or scrum master is a life of responsibility without any authority.  It is paramount to successful organizational change coaches develop superhuman skills of persuasion and facilitation.  I attended several sessions on how to be more credible and persuasive.  Many of these sessions pull from the insights of Kim Scott, a former Google Executive, who authored the book, “Radical Candor."

I learned plenty of valuable lessons at #Agile2018, and I look forward to the next conference in 2019 in Washington D.C.  I better start working on my presentation outline. 

Until next time.