As a Project Manager relatively new to Studio 24, I was delighted to accompany our Head of Delivery, Claire McDermott to the Agile Cambridge 2024 conference, hosted at Churchill College.
Arriving in time for essential morning coffee and mini-pastries, our brains were instantly engaged in a collaborative attempt to solve a several-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle laid out in the registration area.
Our first talk was ‘Beyond Transparency: next-gen communication strategies’ enthusiastically delivered by the day’s keynote speaker, Elizabeth Ayer. This covered the pros and cons of transparency and how differing definitions, pre-existing biases, one’s level of involvement, and general process interpretations can contribute towards unexpected outcomes.
The use of project management reporting features such as the RAG status can naturally be open to varying interpretations (green means all good, right..?), and the talk highlighted the potential importance of tailoring the flow of information to suit objectives and the target audience.
Workshops
We then went to separate workshops. Claire attended ‘Influence without power: why empathy is your best friend’ delivered by Suzanna Lagerweij. Principal takeaways here included:
- How we can analyse the reasons for resistance to change.
- Practice how to improve our conversation style and be more in control and effective in the way we communicate.
- Reflect on how we can apply the 4R model in our work situation to better connect to the needs of people with resistance to change.
I attended the workshop entitled ‘The play way: harnessing your leadership through the power of play’ facilitated by Portia Tung. One of the outcomes for me was greater awareness of the length of time we remain stationary at our desks and the power of ‘resetting’ ourselves, by momentarily switching from what we perceive as ‘work-mode’ to a more playful state.
This of course will mean entirely different things to different people, but the concept is interesting. Themes covered in this workshop included:
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Systems thinking
- Transformation
- Creativity
After lunch, Claire and I attended additional, informative sessions which covered risk management and Agile processes.
Case Study
To finish the day, we attended a talk entitled ‘From project chaos to product nirvana’ delivered by Ricardo Tomé. Ricardo is a Product Delivery Lead working within HSBC and provided an insightful session, discussing how to break down departmental silos to foster collaboration and empowering product ownership to drive innovation.
Summary
Agile Cambridge offered something for both of us. There was a healthy balance of informative talks and interactive workshops; with plenty of takeaways to absorb and apply over the coming weeks and months to our day-to-day working life. I somehow suspect that the jigsaw puzzle remained unfinished, but I’m happy to be proved wrong!
