Abstract/Description

You get a call from a friend who wants to meet for coffee, she says she’s heard about this “agile-thing” and wonders if it can benefit her organization. You’re a ScrumMaster and you know a lot about agile, but she is in HR. You wonder how you can relate the concepts you know work for IT organizations, to HR.

You know how to talk about agile within IT, but with everything from the Manifesto to conference sessions focusing on software – it occurs to you that software might actually be constraining agile’s value. What would technical debt, demos, and velocity look like in HR? What about other departments like marketing or businesses that produce products that are not software based?

This session, through a series of conversations, explores how you might help your friend.
1. We will start by exploring the initial conversation you have with her when you meet for coffee. What will you tell your friend? Will she care about the Manifesto, demos, and velocity? Will 2 week iterations even make sense for an HR team (or any group outside of software)?
2. She liked what you had to say when you met for coffee, and asks if you can join her as well as her boss to talk more. We will explore what you might say in reply to questions that focus less on getting the work done and more on tracking and managing. How will that conversation be different?
3. They decide the ideas you explained are worth moving forward with and say “We are sold! How do we get started?” What might you refer them to? What are some straightforward steps you can recommend to help them get started with agile.

Agile is valuable and it can change the world – if we don’t let software constrain it. We will explore, through a series of interactive exercises and discussions, how you can help people understand agile and start applying the concepts in any industry.

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