All Together Now: How Teams Decide
Have you had the experience of watching smart people argue endlessly over which technology to use? Have you walked out of a meeting believing the group had agreed, only to find out that five different people thought they’d agreed to five different things?
People in our industry pride themselves on their brain power and ability to make good decisions. And most of us are good at thinking, learning, and deciding—on our own. When we work collaboratively on interdependent work, though, we need to think and decide as a group if we want to realize the benefits of the team effect.
In this session, we’ll experience a group decision. Then, we’ll look at the pieces and parts of the process to see what we can learn about how groups think and decide togther. We’ll tease out the techniques that will help you help groups take advantage of all their expertise, see other points of view, and arrive at high-quality decisions.
In this session, we’ll experience a group decision. Then, we’ll look at the pieces and parts of the process to see what we can learn about how groups think and decide togther. We’ll tease out the techniques that will help you help groups take advantage of all their expertise, see other points of view, and arrive at high-quality decisions.
About Esther Derby
Esther works with individuals, teams, and managers to improve their ability to deliver valuable software. Esther is recognized as a leader in the human-side of software development, including management, systems-thinking, organizational change, collaboration, team building, facilitation and retrospectives.
She’s been a programmer, system manager, manager and internal consultant. Since 1997, she’s run her own consulting firm, esther derby associates, inc., in Minneapolis, MN. Her clients include small niche firms, mid-size companies and Fortune 500 companies. She’s worked in financial services, insurance, health care and manufacturing as well as in product and software-as-a-service companies.
Esther is the author of over 100 articles, and co-author of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. She’s written widely on the topic of management, leadership, collaboration and change as they relate to companies adopting (or considering) Agile Methods, including Three Pillars of Executive Support for Agile Adoption (Agile Journal), Achieving Agility: Means to an End or End in Itself? (insights), and What’s a Manager to Do? (Better Software Magazine).
Esther is a sought after teacher and speaker. She’s given talks and workshops in the US, Europe, China, India, and New Zealand.
She’s a founder of the AYE Conference, and is serving her second term as a member of the Board of Directors for the Agile Alliance. She also was one of the three original founders of the Scrum Alliance.
Esther has an MA in Organizational Leadership and a certificate in Human System Dynamics.
Esther can be reached at (612) 724-8114, or by email.
Take a look at www.estherderby.com for more of Esther’s writing, or follow her on Twitter @estherderby
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