Enter the Dojo - Effectively Upskilling Your Teams in the Flow of Work

We've been approaching learning backwards. Traditional training assumes knowledge transfer leads to behavior changes, but decades of failed transformation initiatives proves otherwise. The problem isn't that people can't learn, nor is it motivation or content - it's context; it's that learning is divorced from doing. The dojo is a return to how we naturally master complex skills: through immersion, repetition, and guided struggle with real challenges. Teams bring their real world work and constraints into the dojo and learning shifts from theoretical to tangible.

Teams face immediate pressures - delivering faster, improving quality, and managing technical debt, to name a few. Creating environments where teams can slow down to focus on understanding concepts, find clear direction in complexity, and build capabilities through guided repetition and practice gives teams the ability to navigate these and other challenges. Learning doesn't happen when we step away from our work; it happens when we learn to see our work differently.

Software Teaming - Why Would We Work This Way?

In this introduction to Software Teaming, we will talk about Software Teaming, collaboration, flow, turning up the good, and why a team would decide to work this way.

Then we will do a mini software teaming hands-on experience with a coding kata with some volunteers. There will also be time for Q&A and open discussion.

The overall concept of Software Teaming [Mob Programming]:Collaboration is essential in companies and organizations. We usually need to work with others through various forms of communication and coordination like meetings, emails, messaging, and documents. However, in complex work, this can lead to inefficiencies like queueing and inventory, which are considered wasteful.

The concept of Software Teaming (Mob Programming) focuses on enhancing collaboration rather than just communication. By improving teamwork, many communication problems simply disappear.

In Software Teaming, the whole team works together on their work, moving directly from idea to finished and delivered software. It's helpful to have all the necessary skills and knowledge within the team. Occasionally, team members may work individually or in pairs, but they also work together as needed.

The main idea is to focus on improving the flow of work instead of maximizing individual contributions. We have found that this approach results in increased productivity, higher quality, and happier users. It also provides a more enjoyable, engaging, and less stressful work environment.

The Whole Way Down: Following Business Events from Sticky Notes to Infrastructure

Organizations can often tell you what they do. Engineers can often tell you how their services are built. Very few people can connect the two. When something goes wrong for a customer, the distance between the "buyer registered" and "the pod in a cluster" is where nobody has the whole picture, and where the problems wait.

What we will do and what you will get:
We will explore taking one event, not the whole system, and follow it from the business down to the machines.
A few plain questions to ask along the way from business domain through the tech stack and in the infrastructure.
A new way to see gaps. "We don't know where this runs" is finding to act on.
Understanding of why the conversation mattered more than the pictures you produced.
A question to take back with you to your context of your work.

The Quiet Work

Be present. Notice things. Don't worry so much about the how, or even the why.

This talk is an invitation to slow down. To pay attention to the work and to each other and to what's already there and to what's emerging.

Possible things you'll get:
I don't know, that's part of the experience. That's part of the point.

Meaningful Outcomes in Software Products

This workshop is all about achieving meaningful outcomes in the world of software products.

Let's look at how we get a better understanding of our customers, products and features so we can achieve meaningful outcomes. We will take time to learn and practice framing products and features, creating goals and measures, understanding our customers, alternative ways to plan delivery, and how we can measure success with more than metrics alone.

At the end of this session you will learn and be able to:
Frame products and features
Understand customers and create pragmatic personas
Explore options with Story Mapping
Discover pathways for better planning and outcomes
Tools for measuring success