September’s AgileTO meetup was once again a runaway success, with an attendance of over 120 people.
The breakout activity for September was Lean Coffee, the purpose of which is to democratize the traditional meeting format and make sure the team is discussing the topics that matter most to them.
My takeaways:
- Having a good facilitator is key to making sure everyone has a chance to speak (if they want to) by drawing out less outgoing members of the team
- Using the decider protocol to gauge interest in the current topic is a good way to ensure things stay on track. Deep dive into the current topic, or have multiple shorter conversations? You decide!
For the second half of the event, Todd Charron ran an improv session around Status and Power.
Apart from being engaging, fun, and completely hilarious, the session provided insights into identifying the ‘power-levels’ of those around us, as well as how to raise and lower our own status to relate.
My takeaways:
- Personal status and job title status are not interdependent
- Being aware of how we present ourselves is a good way to gain insight into why other people react to us the way they do
- Although we change our status naturally depending on who we’re interacting with, it’s difficult to actively change the natural status we assume
- There’s a fine line between changing status to be more relatable and putting up an obvious facade
Todd also has a full course of ways to make your standup meetings more fun and interactive through improv.
Hope to see you in November!
AgileTO 