KeyNote

Left flank is falling! Continuous communication in the heat of battle 

Veerle Verhagen

We don’t need continuous communication, we have our daily standup! What else could there be to discuss?

This talk will help you see how many things within a team are left unsaid, what opportunities there are for making these things explicit, and what a difference it can make. Many agile frameworks, due to their focus on ceremonies and workflows, seem to restrict communication to events. But communication should be alive flowing and omnipresent – not another thing to put on and tick off your to do list.

During the week, I’m a scrum master and team coach. At weekends, I’m a Viking-age battle reenactor. Imagine facing a horde of Viking men and women armed to the teeth. Next to you are your brothers and sisters in arms. Your captain shouts FORWARD, and you move forward as a single menacing line of fighters, to do battle. And part of you is thinking “this is similar to work… but with axes!”

There’s an interesting parallel between line fighting and software development: the teams that win consistently are not the teams with the strongest individual fighters, but those that communicate the most effectively.

This talk will be all about the practicalities of communication within and between teams. We’ll cover some antipatterns (like sitting on a problem for 2 weeks until it’s retro time), setting expectations with team members, practical ways to improve written communication, and the power of personal encouragement. That, and we’ll talk a little bit of battle tactics.

SPeaker Bio

Veerle Verhagen is a software tester and public speaking enthusiast from the Netherlands. She currently works for Dutch Railways, where she is happy to contribute to making railway travel more attractive to travellers. Veerle is particularly interested in how tech can improve the lives of actual humans, core skills for IT professionals, and ethics in tech. When she’s not testing, she likes to put her background in education to use by creating and facilitating workshops. Ask her about: minority languages, historical martial arts, her motorbike, her dream to sail to the Channel Islands in a 6,5, sailboat.