Agile Event Session

3 years of Feedback Using Tribal Leadership Techniques from the Amazon Rainforest

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Abstract/Description

After spending a year on a social project with Yanomami tribes in the Amazon rain-forest in Brazil, I was surprised by their peculiar leadership practices. Nightly circle gathering rounds of discussions, regular visits to neighboring villages with ritualized discussions and intriguing common practices among others.

When moving back to Europe, I returned to my regular job, which I had been doing for the past 15 years, leading XP/agile digital teams on complex projects.

This time the project grew much bigger, and I had to quickly lead over 10 teams developing micro-services, balancing autonomy and alignment.

I decided to experiment preserving the simplicity of XP by adapting some practices I saw during my year with Amazonian tribes. This is a first feedback of three years of experiments.

See the Experience Report for this talk here.

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Speaker(s) may be willing to present this session at local group meetings and other events.

XP 2021
Talk

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