Agile Dinner Helsinki 20090303

Table of Contents

Agile Dinner in Helsinki, March 3rd 2009

Time: Tuesday 3.3.2009 18:00

Place: Restaurant Baker's, Helsinki

Theme: How to get management and business people interested on agile and involved in Agile Finland

Organiser: Ari Tanninen at iki dot fi

Most participants in these dinners are techies. How could we involve business and management types? Let's face it, they often have more power to change things.

Specifically:

  1. How to involve management and business people in agile dinners?
  2. How to bridge the good ol' gap between management and techies and bring them on board agile?
  3. If we cannot do the previous, what's the point? Drinking beer and bullshitting?

You can see that my angle here is the techie angle for two reasons: I am one, and I think most Agile Finlanders are, too. That is an issue if we want to make a difference.

Registration

Participants who registered before the new Wiki with it's nice RSVP plug-in were in use:

  • Juan Carlos Borrás

RSVP

14 people attending
Name Company
Atzlqmsy   Uhlgxoafj  
Ibagyouw   Gbjarimnd  
jonas lindstrom   paf  
Lasse Ziegler   Houston Inc.  
Lgzskqty   Ekqwsunpf  
Marko Taipale    
Markus Hjort    
Mika Viljanen   Siili  
Roberto Fasciolo   Huitale  
Sebastian Vuorinen   Houston Inc.  
stephen sykes   Switchstep  
Tnhmglpv   Zwniduvap  
Vounjmrd   Qsvrxmfhw  
Wpicagzo   Xujfyrkds  

The Outcome

A few identified ways of involving non-techies

  • Success stories, described at their level from their point of view
  • Make the pain of inefficient software manufacturing visible (there is abundant evidecne, and the concept of a software crisis)
  • Recession
  • Discuss contracts, especially from the consulting point of view (for example the "money for nothing, change for free" model)
  • Good project managers should know how to bridge the gap between techies and business people, use them
  • Find the organization for project managers that corresponds with Agile Finland
  • Contacts - "bring a friend" dinner

Other items discussed

  • Possible themes for future dinners
    • "The life of a Product Owner" - Jonas
    • "What does it mean to be a consultant" from the mouth of a strategy consultant - Ari
    • Why do companies have such low standards and expectations?
    • Lightning talks
      • Disruptive technology
  • Arrange a whiskey tasting session for Agile Finland people
  • Arrange a golf course for Agile Finland
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Comments (1)

 

  1. Mar 30, 2009

    Sampo Pasanen says:

    The topic is extremely important and I wanted to share my thoughts on this one. ...

    The topic is extremely important and I wanted to share my thoughts on this one.

    What I would do to get business people's attention on agility is the following:

    1. Identify the people you want to address. Who are the "Business people" that should have an interest? Business people itself is too broad. I would select product management directors, R&D directors and CIOs, as they are the ones usually having R&D in their organization.
    2. List the common problems that these people have IN THEIR DAILY LIFE. This is very important! No business people is going to be interested if you can't really help their life.
    3. Create an event with following content:
      1. Find a business person that is an advocate to agility that is not too technical and that can be respected by others. This person should be seen as an inviter to the event.
      2. Plan the topics so that they address the problems defined in number two.
      3. Make the event easy to access and incorporate something that should be directly valuable to the business person.
      4. Then arrange that event and make sure that these people will stay in tune later on as well.

    The point is:

    • Business people are busy. This is why you really need to sell this to them. I am personally invited to about 30-50 events, webinars, seminars etc. every month. That is over 1/day. And every single one promises me a better life. I'm just wondering how good my life would be if I attended all of these .
    • People trust people in a similar position much more than people in different position. Because they share the same issues! That's why having a real business advocate is crucial
    • The topics must address business people's needs. How many software developers would be interested in agility, if the topics would be about: "Improve your innovation process outcomes by 30%", "CEO doesn't understand product management - how to change this?" etc. Again, how many business people are interested in topics like: "Distributed Scrum" and "I release my software every day"

    And short comments on outcomes:

    • Success stories are very important material to convince that the change is possible. And again, they need to be from business people to business people.
    • Pain needs to be visible, but it needs to be HIS/HER pain. And be careful about manifestation. Not everybody wants to solve the software crisis. But it would be nice if their life would be easier.
    • Recession. A very good angle and if you can find points that really support helping the company to avoid major problems related to recession (and on a very short timeframe) then you have a strong message.
    • Contracts seem to me like very important details, but details anyway. First you need to get people interested, then it's nice that you have prepared stuff for the more detailed issues that you need to address in the agile world.
    • Project and product managers need a proper forum. If someone finds a good one, please let me know .
    • "Bring a friend" - dinner sounds like a very good idea. As long as people have real business friends that actually care about R&D.

    Very important topic and it's great that there is willingness in getting more perspectives into the discussion.

    Sampo Pasanen