LAST Conference 2022
In this blog post we’ve collated our notes and thoughts on some of the talks and workshops we attended at this years LAST conference, on its 10th anniversary!
As sponsors we also ran a stand this year, with an activity to delve into the question “what’s blocking the delivery of value at your organisation?”- we will share some more detail on what we learnt in a future blog post.
Reflection on 10 years!
To kick off the day, our very own Alex Stokes was up first with Mark Barber and Martin Kearns reflecting on 10 years of LAST conf. Mark invited us to inspect when a process has gone wrong and ask what could we have done differently. Martin asked us to look in the mirror, and ask where are our bad habits, how could we be better and accept we are not as agile as we think we are.
Alex reflected on the talk delivered in 2015 about scaling Agile ways of working:
3 things recommended we reflect on were:
What should we do when we are faced with a massive challenge of massive scale, if we believe that these ways of working are superior. What tools should we reach for?
Some things can be custom but some MUST be standardised, agree/disagree? If so what?
3. How Might we start the conversation about uninstalling these trappings of industrialised Agile that aren’t helping us? If not in quarterly Retro’s then HOW to start this conversation, and can we even have this conversation?
Ceola, Dan, Michelle, Rick- The top 3 things that leaders need to help their Tech Teams
An insightful discussion about Tech Leadership, featuring some top tech leaders in our community. This lead into the workshop about Career Growth with Michell, Gretchen and Susan in the same space straight after.
They discussed the different time horizon leaders look at than the team, and the different metrics they use. Ceola talked about getting pulse checks but also more valuable ways to get info is to go and observe and get close to the work. Rick looks at pull requests and buddies with new starters to understand what it’s like to join a bigger company. Michelle likes to thinly slice the 18 month strategic changes to get a closer read. Dan made the point to invest work in people knowing you’re someone who can be approached.
Michelle reflected on her inclusion and diversity first approach to building a team. Proactively “creating culture” Rick agreed “Work on how you create the culture that’s human centric. We’re building the software for people. For every part people are involved” Rick Giner
“I thought leadership meant you were the most technically capable”
“You need to listen a lot more than you need to speak” Michelle Gleeson
(Then the sound system went berserk and we were all deafened.)
Hannah Browne asked a question on how to stop grads and protégés from feeling the pressure of delivering. All leaders had great ideas on making it clear and distinct that they had more to contribute than shipping features.
Peter Omotosho- Lessons from my dad’s mechanic.
Drawing from his experience growing up, Peter told a personal story of lessons learnt.
Key themes:
1. Uncle Mayors toolbox, messy. Quickly pivoting to the right tool.
As agile practitioners don’t be fanatical about perfect tool
2. Delight customers
3. Context matters
4. Choose is good
5. Optimise flow (and the whole).
Sally Sloley- Uncovering the AIC conspiracy.
Sally (acting as agile whistleblower) shared thoughts on the Agile Industrial Complex and how some large consulting firms carbon copy approaches without taking time to discover the context of the organisation they are working with, with lacklustre results.
Sally shared examples of “scaled” conformity, where slide decks and vanity metrics are king valuable outcomes are sidelined.
What about us- our stand!
ReBoot Co, Booth fun
What did we do?
At the RebootCo. stand we ran an activity to map out “what is blocking the delivery of value” in your organisation, with wool.
This was a great way to gather insights, focussing on different sizes of organisation to help us understand common themes and divergencies.
You can read about what we learnt in a future blog post.
Kmart Exec Panel
It was great to see senior leaders talk about the success of their agile transformation Erik du Plessis , Brad Blyth, Tristram Gray, facilitated by Anthony Christensen.
As we’ve been working with Kmart and Target technology teams since 2019 it felt buoying to hear the understanding and literacy from the highest levels of the organisation.
Tech Diversity Lab
This new tech talent filled startup ran a Career Growth Planning workshop which included this fantastic planning tool (who doesn’t love a take away tool?) which I found incredibly useful.
Watch the growth of this company I believe they have the ingredients to be a new rising tech star in the Australian tech landscape. The only tech specific career growth framework built to develop high performing tech teams. https://www.techdiversitylab.com/
Tony Fifoot - How much planning is right?
How much planning is right? Our co-founder led a workshop to help us find the sweet spot around planning and value delivery. A little education and then a workshop to distil some planning problems and possibly better approaches to dealing with it.
Planning is such a critical activity for valuable delivery so we should constantly try better approaches and refine how much time we want to invest in this activity.
Alex Sloley / Roslyn Martin - Agile Cheer - Bring It On!
This was a well timed session- at the end of the day when many people start to feel a bit weary, Alex and Roslyn brought back some energy in an active session taking lessons from cheerleading and applying them in an agile team context.
The session focussed on the 3 pillars of cheerleading- dance, chants and emotions to give people some approaches to use with their own teams.
This was a really fun session and a great way to close out the day.
That’s it for now- hope to see you next year!
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