The keynote
Bjarte Bogsnes gave, in my opinion, the best keynote out of the three speakers, where he discussed his experiences applying the concepts discussed in Beyond Budgeting in Statoil. He talks about why do you want a system that is based on assuming you cannot trust everyone? Instead you want a system where the default position is that you trust everyone, and that you manage those that you can’t by exception (and not the other way around).
He talked about how the trigger for Statoil was two fold – internal and external. External pressures included the fluctuating nature of the sale price for barrels of oil, and internally it was the social pressures of actually having systems that encouraged all the good things that they said they did, yet didn’t neccessarily encourage, where policies were largely authority based (sign off) compared to those of trust and respect.
The key question they asked was, “How do we create the conditions that let people make good decisions and execute them well?” Compare this to, “How do we make people make good decisions and execute them well?”.
Interesting their solution laid in removing the “traditional” budgeting scheme, asking people to “do the right thing”. Resources were available but not yet preallocated. I remembered most his metaphor, describing most businesses operating like a bank that is open for four weeks out of the week. Customers need to predict exactly what their year is going to be like, and ask exactly for the right amount.
They identified that budgets typically have three overloaded (and often opposing goals), representing performance targets, forecasts and resource allocation. They implemented a system splitting each of these different aspects into different systems to achieve better visibilty and improve the quality of conversations around each of these topics. They created a system to ensure there was alignment at all different levels, directly creating KPIs out of the strategy, generating actions out of the KPIs and then individual goals out of the actions.
Industrial Logic’s eLearning Tool
I had a great chat with Joshua Kerievsky, founder of Industrial Logic and he asked if I wanted to see their “eLearning” tool. I’m glad I did as well because I think it’s an amazing environment for all developers who want to be professional. I don’t think calling it an “eLearning” tool does it justice. In a nutshell:
Imagine gathering some of the world’s best experts in different programming disciplines such as refactoring, automated testing, design patterns and imagine working with them on the same team. You get to watch over their shoulder as they explain what they’re thinking as they execute, you get to practise an exercise with them and receive immediate feedback, and you get to interact with the most engaging pieces of training I’ve ever seen (including many of the hands on training classes). All of this just happens to be online.
They’ve put a tremendous amount of effort responding to student’s feedback and its narrow focus on (currently) developer related material means they can give some surprisingly detailed feedback including comparisions and alternatives as a result. The tool itself only happens to help deliver the message and, more importantly, he’s managed to capture so much knowledge in the “albums” they’ve already put together.
Go check it out. Take the tour and then have a look at some of the albums.
Telling Your Stories: Why Stories Are Important for Your Team
Fellow retrospective facilitators Diana Larsen and Johanna Hunt ran a fun session that was particularly engaging considering, managing to have the busiest session on the last slot of the last day. The title of the workshop didn’t describe the session as accurately as it panned out as it was extremely creative workshop where we looked a number of a card games often used for story telling in other areas, and then brainstormed ways in which we could create cards and a process to help use stories in an agile environment. The group had some fantastic ideas and even heard a few people walk away saying, “I need to get some of those cards made!” to take back to their teams.
Conclusion
I’m pleased that this year’s conference seemed to have returned to what roots it was for me four years ago. I appreciate the fact that there are still so many people passionate about “doing the right thing”, about helping each other out, and that the main motivator is still to “grow, learn and get better” first, instead of “making money” prioritised as number one. Thanks to all the wonderful people I met at this conference (for the first time and again), and the great memories I took away.
