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AYE 2004 Conference Schedule
Sunday Nov 7, 2004 - Wednesday Nov 10, 2004
This is the preliminary (rev 4) conference schedule for 2004, correct as of 10/26/04.. Questions? Please contact .
Day Time Events 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman6:00 PM - 9:00 PM Monday 7:00 AM - 8:15 AM 8:15 AM - 8:25 AM Organizational
Team Testing Personal Tools & Skills 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM S25. Hey, It’s 2004. Why is Risk Management Still Avant-Garde? S17. Improving the Communication of a Geographically Dispersed Team S21. Rapid Testing S07. How to Survive, Excel and Advance as an Introvert S13. Making Conscious Choices For Change Tim Lister Diane Gibson & Steve Smith James Bach Naomi Karten Don Gray & Becky Winant 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM Organizational Team * Personal Tools & Skllls 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM S02. Organizational Mapping S18. Decision Skills for Teams S28. Meeting Virginia and Making Connections
ContributedS10. Delivering Presentations with Confidence and Competence S23. Tools and Using Them Effectively Martine Devos & Jerry Weinberg Esther Derby Diana Newton and Jean McLendon Naomi Karten & Johanna Rothman Dwayne Phillips BOFs, Dinner on your own or with others.... Tuesday Buffet Breakfast with old and new friends 8:15 AM - 8:25 AM The Morning News Effectiveness Track Organizational Team * Personal Tools & Skllls 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM S05. Satir System Coaching S04. Sharpening Communication About Project Status and Dynamics S27 The Power of Positive Politics Contributed
S12. Increasing Your Effectiveness as a Change Agent S08. Interviewing With Ease Jean McLendon Dave Smith & Steve Smith Kay Wise & Naomi Karten Don Gray & Bob King Johanna Rothman 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM Effectiveness Track Organizational Team * Personal Tools & Skllls 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM S26. They Want Estimates? Overwhelm Them With Estimates! S15. Designing, Using and Benefiting from Non-Quantitative Metrics Reserved for participant contributed session S03. Using Your Yes/No Medallion S11. Creating and Sharing a Diagram of Effects Tim Lister Naomi Karten & Bob King * Michael Bolton & Jerry Weinberg Don Gray & Steve Smith BOFs, Dinner on your own or with others.... Wednesday 8:15 AM - 8:25 AM Effectiveness Track Organizational Team Testing Personal Tools & Skllls 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM S06. Satir System Coaching S22. It's Deja Vu All Over Again S19. Testing Teasers: Puzzles for Pursuers of Product Problems S09. Building Writing Skill and Confidence: A Writing Workshop S29. Iterative Incremental Development Jean McLendon Diane Gibson & Don Gray James Bach Naomi Karten & Johanna Rothman Esther Derby & Bob King 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM Effectiveness Track Organizational Team * Personal Tools & Skills 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM S20. No Best Practices: How To Think About Methodology S24. Systems Engineering: A Three-Year-Old's Perspective Reserved for participant contributed session S01. Transforming Rules into Guides S14. Reflection Leading to Action James Bach & Michael Bolton Dwayne Phillips * Johanna Rothman & Jerry Weinberg Esther Derby Thursday All day Thursday is a free, all-day session for all members of Jerry Weinberg's Shape Forum who are staying over S00. Warm Up Tutorial
Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman
At the first AYE conference, some people commented that a pre-conference tutorial, introducing some of this material, might be useful not only to those who had not encountered it before, but also to those who had. Consequently, in 2001, 2002, & 2003, we offered the "AYE Warm-Up" to make it easier for everyone to participate from a shared understanding of the basics. It was a big hit.
One thing that makes the AYE conference different is session design. At many conferences, the basic format is one or two presenters talking from the front of the room, to rows full of people seated in chairs. While there might be some of that at this conference, the emphasis is more on simulation and experience. We believe that this approach can be especially effective for this kind of learning, and we'll use it in this tutorial too. That means that you'll have a chance to participate in the session, determining what happens to a very great extent, and having a lot of fun doing it.
We'll introduce the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and several of the tools, techniques and concepts of Virginia Satir, possibly including items from this menu: triads, the five freedoms, the self-esteem tool kit, the communication stances, the change model, the interaction model, safety & feedback.
S01. Transforming Rules into Guides
Johanna Rothman and Jerry Weinberg
Our survival rules and rules about commenting are central to the way we participate in interactions. Rules are not to be thought of as bad; on the contrary, we should honor our rules for helping us to survive this long in a difficult world. Then we can acknowledge that our rules may need to be updated to fit the changing world--what was good for us at age four may not fit perfectly at age forty.
By transforming a rule into a guide, we keep the old possibility and add a few new ones. For instance, take the common rule, I must always do a perfect job. Analytically, we can see that this is impossible, but emotionally we may keep trying to be perfect all the time. When the rule is transformed, we can try to be perfect some of the time, when it is appropriate, and be free to settle for good enough when that is more fitting.
In this session, we'll demonstrate the technique for transforming a rule into a guide, while giving each participant a chance to surface some rules to be transformed.
S02. Organizational Mapping
Martine Devos and Jerry Weinberg
Organizational mapping is an adaptation of Virginia Satir's approach to family system sculpting. It's a powerful technique that can be used in several situations:
- to help an organization understand and diagnose its own interpersonal or intergroup dynamics
- to help a group from similar organizations understand typical dynamics
- to help a group understand the dynamics of its relationship to outside groups
- to provide consultation in a training context to a consultant engaged in a change effort with a client system.
In this session, we'll learn the technique by giving each person a chance to map an organization of interest, with consulting from other participants.
S03. Using Your Yes/No Medallion
Jerry Weinberg and Michael Bolton
If you can't say NO, your YES has no meaning. In this session, we'll work on participants' problems of saying YES and NO where appropriate, how to say it so it sticks, and how to feel good about saying it and sticking with it.
S04. Sharpening Communication About Project Status and Dynamics
Dave Smith and Steve Smith
Are you fed up with projects that are disjointed and status meetings that go on forever, leaving all the open issues outstanding? Do you wish there was a better way to do and report on your project? Far too often, the members of a project team work in isolation and then silently suffer through weekly status meetings. Too often these meetings reflect the interests of the sponsor and glories unseen from the trenches. If you measured the new ideas gained versus time lost in these meetings, a vast number of people would rate the meetings as a waste of time.
But meeting planners have become "stuck" in a do-and-then-report paradigm, where the doing occupies a certain time and the reporting occupies a different time. Attendance is required; meetings are scheduled for fixed times and places. Perhaps the meeting sponsor basks in the glory of the sequential attentions of n persons and rates the meeting as excellent.
Steve has seen this pattern in company after company. He wants to help equip people with tools for changing how projects are built and statused. Join Dave and Steve to experience a traditional status meeting, discover alternate ways to meet and to affect project status.
S05. & S06. Satir System Coaching
Jean McLendon
All of us are learners seeking to be more effective. Sometimes we need help. It can and has come to us from various directions: parents, friends, partners, clergy, therapists, consultants, supervisors, teachers, mentors, managers, owners, coaches etc. The form and quality of help available is equally wide ranging.
Jean Mc Lendon, coach, friend, mentor, consultant, to many of the AYE community, has over 30 years of professional experience in helping people deal with change, conflict, and connection. Utilizing the methods and models of Virginia Satir, she explores both the inner and outer dynamics of her client's challenges. This session allows individuals, partnerships and teams an opportunity to seek Jean's guidance.
S07. How to Survive, Excel and Advance as an Introvert
Naomi Karten
Has your introversion posed challenges for you in succeeding in your current position or advancing in your career? Would you like to strengthen your effectiveness in communicating and working with your more extroverted teammates, colleagues, and customers?
This session will provide a safe, respectful setting in which we will:
- compare and share our experiences, challenges, frustrations — and successes — as introverts in an extroverted world
- discuss ways in which our introversion has been an impediment and ways in which it’s been an asset (and how to convert impediments into assets!)
- identify the skills that can help us survive and thrive without sacrificing our natural introverted preferences
- describe ideas and techniques that can help more introverted and extroverted people work together effectively
- hear from extroverts who attend (extroverts: please join us!) how they perceive our behavior — both the positives and negatives — and discuss whether and how we should modify our behavior to maximize positive perceptions
S08. Interviewing With Ease
Johanna Rothman
If you're like most technical people, you've never been trained to interview candidates. If you're lucky, you've learned a little about behavior-description questions, but not enough about auditions. In this session, Johanna will explain a variety of interview techniques -- including behavior-description questions and auditions -- applicable to phone screens and in-person interviews for technical staff and managers alike, and then we'll practice them.
S09. Building Writing Skill and Confidence: A Writing Workshop
Naomi Karten and Johanna Rothman
Do you ever get stuck trying to put words on paper? Would you like writing to be more fun and less drudgery? Could your writing benefit by becoming livelier? Would you like to know some of the tricks and techniques used by experienced writers? Have you thought about writing as a way to build credibility and create name recognition? Whether you're interested in becoming more skilled in writing memos, reports, articles, books -- or email messages -- you'll get lots of tips, coaching and practice in this workshop given by wordmeisters Naomi and Johanna.
This workshop will offer ideas on what constitutes good writing, how to get past writer's block, techniques for critiquing your own writing, traps to avoid, editing do's and don'ts, ways to get the ideas to flow, and more. Whether you have yet to write your first complete sentence, or you are an experienced writer who wants to become better at critiquing your own work, this writing workshop is for you. Writing activities will be included, so bring paper, pen -- and your questions. Come prepared to take your writing to the next level.
S10. Delivering Presentations with Confidence and Competence
Naomi Karten and Johanna Rothman
Does the thought of giving presentations leave you cringing in fear, with sweaty palms and a squeaky voice? Are you able to present, but concerned that you can't communicate your ideas in a way that holds people's interest? Do you lack confidence in your material? Whatever your concerns, it's clear that your ability to deliver high-quality presentations to management, clients, colleagues, and others will help you advance in your career.
In this session, Johanna and Naomi, who have presented seminars and keynotes internationally to audiences of all sizes, will offer tips, techniques, and proven methods for improving your confidence and competence as a speaker. Whether you're a novice or a long-time speaker, you'll gain ideas for improving your presentation skills.
S11. Creating and Sharing a Diagram of Effects
Don Gray and Steve Smith
Most of us tend to see the world in causal terms: gravity makes the apple fall, rain makes things grow. For simple systems, the model of Cause and Effect works pretty well. But for complex systems -- including all the systems we actually work with -- the results of causal models are often misleading or just plain wrong. When interventions are built on these models, they may fail.
To be more effective, we will supplement cause and effect thinking with systems thinking. You will work with other participants to analyze a problem within a complex system, create a diagram of effects, and design an intervention that solves the problem.
S12. Increasing Your Effectiveness as a Change Agent
Don Gray and Bob King
Methods and the Methodologies containing them exist to help us act profitably. Sometimes they take on a life of their own - perhaps over-shadowing their original purpose. In other cases, no thought is given to how to act profitably; any action will do.
In this session, we will explore methods for applying methods - a meta-method. What are some good rules of thumb to have handy to help us figure out an action makes sense and money? When should they be applied? Can we mix and match methods from disparate methodologies? What similarities exists from methodology to methodology?
S13. Making Conscious Choices For Change
Don Gray and Becky Winant
What one believes to be true either is true or becomes true within limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are beliefs to be transcended. - John Lilly, Mental model explorer
Imagine a disappointed child and harried parent at the grocery store. The child wails and screams. Perhaps this is just his way of expressing displeasure. However, the parent, unwilling to deal with what might become a "scene", acquiesces to the child. After a few events like this, a pattern forms, and eventually a model of "If I scream and yell, I get what I want." Now fast-forward 35 years, and imagine this child as the manager of a team whose project is late, buggy, and over budget. Any guesses how the manager might respond to the situation?
Mental models start being built when we're born, and are based on our personal experiences. These become our unconscious and virtually automatic behaviors. When an mental model is not "working", we might consider what changes might produce better outcomes.
In this session you will be examining your mental models, new opportunities for personal growth, healthier inter-personal relationships, and leverage for creating new realities.
S14. Reflection Leading to Action
Esther Derby
By the end of the AYE conference, your head may be bursting with new ideas and insights. But what will happen to these thoughts once you get home? How will they be integrated? Esther will facilitate a variation on a retrospective -- a personal introspection on your experiences and how you'll apply then when you get back home.
S15. Designing, Using and Benefiting from Non-Quantitative Metrics
Naomi Karten and Bob King
Gathering metrics is generally viewed as a quantitatively-oriented task. You put an automated or manual measuring device up to a process or activity, gather some data, and periodically analyze and interpret that data to draw conclusions you can act on.
But there's another type of metrics that can be equally valuable, a qualitative type that relies not on numerical data, but on observations, perceptions, intuitions, and inklings. These metrics focus on things that catch your attention, sometimes because you explicitly looked for them, and sometimes because you were alert enough to notice them when they emerged. By being sensitive to these non-qualitative indicators, you can gain important information about pressing issues and looming problems -- as well as things that are working well - that you might miss if you limited yourself strictly to quantitative metrics.
This session will help you develop your awareness of qualitative metrics. We'll share some that we've found useful in our own work, such as the Anxiety Metric, the Conflict Metric, the "Really?" Metric, and the Blaming Metric. Through playful simulations and group activities, you'll have the opportunity to fine tune your observation skills so as to recognize useful qualitative information in your environment. And we'll put our heads together and come up with a long list of qualitative metrics that might help in recognizing signs of trouble or indicators of success.
S17. Improving the Communication of a Geographically Dispersed Team
Diane Gibson and Steve Smith
Is the effectiveness of the communication of your geographically distributed team measured by the frequency of its conference calls? Too many distributed teams suffer from ineffective communication and conference calls only exacerbate the problem. In Steve's experience, the biggest value of the typical conference call is the opportunity to do email and surf the web.
Join a group of people who want to experience and explore the communication problems that a member of a geographically distributed team encounter everyday. Discover how you can help your team communicate and collaborate better.
S18. Decision Skills for Teams
Esther Derby
Most teams need to make decisions of some sort. This session will cover 4 essential skills for arriving at decisions the group will support:
- generating alternatives
- getting unstuck
- evaluating alternatives
- converging on a choice
S19. Testing Teasers: Puzzles for Pursuers of Product Problems
James Bach
To test something well is to think critically and creatively about it. In this session we will play with some puzzles designed to exercise and illustrate the thinking of really good testers. Each puzzle relates directly to the challenges of testing a complex software product in the a world of confusion and limitations.
You'll like this session if any of the following is true:
- you think of yourself as a clever tester
- you want to become a cleverer tester
- you like to solve puzzles
- you collect puzzles to try on other people
S20. No Best Practices: How To Think About Methodology
James Bach and Michael Bolton
There are no best practices. No person in one context can claim their practices are "best" for everyone in all contexts. Most practices we hear proposed as "best" are arguably not even best in their original context, and in some cases, may not even be practices, but just rumors of practice. The phrase "best practice" is part of an understandable wish that somebody somewhere knows the "one right way". But this wish cannot be fulfilled. Bestness, goodness, even usefulness, are not attributes of any practice, but lie instead in the relationship between practice and context.
We think a better approach is for you to become your own methodologist. Learn to think through contextual factors and consider the relative value of different practices. Invent or adapt practices to fit the context.
To investigate and illustrate this process, we will examine the role of repeatability in testing and how it is sometimes valuable and sometimes harmful. James and Michael will demonstrate a game they developed to practice context-driven thinking. The spirit of "best practices", we think, is that of continuously looking for problems and solving them. This can be a powerful idea, but the phrase itself undermines the idea. Let's dump the phrase and keep the spirit.
S21. Rapid Testing
James Bach
Let's say you have to test something right now, you want to test it well, and you need to be accountable for what you do? Well, you need the skill of rapid testing.
In this session, we will test software. For best results, bring a laptop with a CD-ROM drive or Floppy Drive. I'll bring a little product to test.
S22. It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Diane Gibson and Don Gray
"What goes around, comes around, if you stick around long enough."
Ever have the feeling that you're "experiencing deja vu" in your projects? This happens when external events, interactions and our feelings are similar to situations in which we've been before. Why do we find ourselves in these repeating situations? What can we do to prevent these recurring events?
Systems archetypes are common patterns of behavior -- mostly, of problems or failures -- which are seen repeatedly in projects. The archetypes have been developed using systems tools: graphs of behavior over time and causal loop diagrams. They can be useful in identifying sources of common problems and sometimes counterintuitive ways to resolve them. There are examples in many different areas and types of projects.
In this session we will explore systems archetypes as they apply to common and recurrent problems in software development projects.
S23. Tools and Using Them Effectively
Dwayne Phillips
One way we can amplify our effectiveness is by using tools. We use tools in almost everything we do. Tools are so common that we often use them without knowing it. This session will examine tools and how we use them. The goal is to notice things about tools and their utility that we may have overlooked. Such awareness of tools may help us be more effective in our endeavors.
S24. Systems Engineering: A Three-Year-Old's Perspective
Dwayne Phillips
Taking a systems perspective can help amplify our effectiveness. This is the art of systems engineering, but what is systems engineering? Years of practice have helped me reduce systems engineering to one question. When I told this question to a colleague recently, he replied, "I have a three-year-old at home who can do that." He was right.
The goal of systems engineering is to have a satisfied customer. There are some fundamentals to systems engineering, but they can reduce to one question often asked by inquisitive three-year-olds.
S25. Hey, It’s 2004. Why is Risk Management Still Avant-Garde?
Tim Lister
Software projects today are full of risk; it is in the nature of the business, yet most projects running in 2004 don’t practice any real risk management. (No, worrying about your project is not RM.) Many projects that claim to be doing RM are really just admiring their risks…still not doing RM.
Tim Lister will lead this session trying to discover what is real risk management, why it is practiced by adults around the world, why it is so hard to practice it in the office, and, most importantly, how can we change all of this.
S26. They Want Estimates? Overwhelm Them With Estimates!
Tim Lister
Estimating has been a bugaboo* for most of us all our careers. After working up an estimate, have you ever been asked to “re-work the numbers?” What’s that all about?
- We need to bring back real estimating, but how? In this session Tim Lister will lead the group through the questions:
- Why is estimating so skewed?
- Why do we do this over and over, year after year?
- Is there a way out?
- Is there a way to get better at estimating?
- If both estimates and goals matter, how can we get away from them being overwhelmed by deadline?
* There are two definitions for "bugaboo," and both apply here:
- an imaginary monster used to frighten children
- a source of concern
S27. The Power of Positive Politics
Kay Wise and Naomi Karten
Did you ever want to just outlaw office politics? Do you worry about sneaky political maneuvers you fear could hurt you? Wish you had the power to get what you want? Would you like to better understand organizational politics?
This session, adapted from Kay and Ken Wise's book-to-be, The Power of Positive Politics, offers ways you can use politics as a potent force for change. This session will introduce a few Wise Power Principles, analyze common political binds and define the true meaning of power. We'll look at defensive measures for when you're on the receiving end of negative tactics and discuss how you can advance politically without offending your moral sensibilities. You'll also get an update on our friend, Machiavelli, advisor to princes and project managers.
S28. Meeting Virginia and Making Connections
Diana Newton and Jean McLendon
Many of you have learned some of Virginia Satir's tools and concepts at AYE, such as the interaction model, change process, and coping stances. But have you met Virginia-the woman, the innovator, the risk-taker, the "detective on adults"? Are you aware that Satir methods are used fields as diverse as medicine, social justice, and violence prevention?
In this session you will be introduced to Virginia Satir through a short film trailer (14 mins.) that is part of a larger documentary film about her life and legacy being produced by an Emmy-award winning filmmaker.
The film will act as a springboard to small and large group discussions in which you will make connections to the many dimensions of Satir's life and work-from being a change agent to the many uses of sculpting, and more! S28. Meeting Virginia and Making ConnectionsS29. Iterative Incremental Development
Esther Derby and Bob King
Iterative Incremental Development Lifecycles help to manage schedule and requirements risk in situations where either requirements or the market is changing. But what is it like to develop software this way? We'll use simulations and exercises to explore the differences between traditional "big design up front" and iterative incremental development. We'll explore what it feels like to use an iterative incremental lifecycle.
____
Johanna Rothman, Esther Derby
Hopefully, our three days together have been marked not just by the ideas we've exchanged and the experiences we've shared, but also by the friendships we've made, the relationships we've begun, and the opportunities we've had to reconnect with those we already knew.
Let us join together to enjoy and appreciate our final moments together in this wonderful community that we - all of us - have created.
We'll connect with friends and colleagues, reflect on our conference experience, have a few laughs, and say our au revoirs.