GOTO Night with Katherine Kirk & Arne Roock

Host: Katherine Kirk and Dr. Arne Roock

When: 20. Jan 2014 at 19:00 - 22:00

Where: Kosmos, Karl-Marx-Allee 131a, 10243 Berlin

Abstract

We invite you to an interesting GOTO Night with

Katherine Kirk and Dr. Arne Roock

on behalf of GOTO Berlin.

Date January 20, 2014

Time 19:00 / 7PM

Venue Kosmos Berlin

Address Karl-Marx-Allee 131a, 10243 Berlin

Cost Free of charge

Snacks & refreshments included

Speaker Katherine Kirk and Dr. Arne Roock

"Continuous Improvement: Hell On Earth?" by Katherine Kirk

Abstract:

We all seem to love the term 'continuous improvement' - which is an honorable intention. But in reality 'continuous improvement' can be hell on earth - e.g. to always be 'not good enough'. In fact, some corporations, managers and teams have been known to use this phrase as an excuse for behaving badly.

So, how can an honorable intention like continuous improvement create a negative impact, i.e. apathy? If so - how do we avoid it? Are Agile/Lean teams vulnerable to these problems too? What are other ways of handling this need to consistently overcome challenges in an ever-changing industry? And does 'continuous improvement' have a limit or is it an endless source of success?

Using case study examples this talk reflects on what continuous improvement really feels like on the ground and explores how we might want to approach 'getting better' by looking at and drawing from other industries, research, ideas and real-life experiences.

You can download the presentation here.

Bio:

Now an independent consultant and researcher, Katherine has solid experience contracting and freelancing in a variety of roles within the IT and Media industries: from blue chip investment banking to media conglomerates. Most recently she spent time as an Agile Coach at Rally after a period consulting as Delivery Improvement Specialist, Project Manager and Agile Coach at the BBC in the Future Media division in London. Katherine often finds herself specifically tasked with working with really "troubled" projects, where simplistic solutions don't quite cut it.

She is an active participant of a community of Lean and Agile practitioners in Europe who explore and challenge the status quo through experimenting and collaborating and is particularly interested in contextually driven edge-cases and the cultural interaction between hierarchical management and Agile teams. She supports this interest by studying an MSc in Software Engineering at University of Oxford, specializing in Process Improvement, Managing Quality and Risk, and Software Systems Security. Katherine also holds a first class BSc (Hons) Multimedia Computing.

"Retrospectives as if you meant it - an Experience Report" by Dr. Arne Roock and Sebastian Eichner

Abstract:

Retrospectives are deeply rooted in Agile Methods and more and more companies do retrospectives - or at least they claim to do. In practice, however, the promise of creating a learning organization and a culture of continuous improvement by simply doing retrospectives very rarely comes true.

This talk demonstrates the critical success factors for effective retrospectives as well as some very common pitfalls. Real-life examples from a pool of >50 retrospectives will illustrate the key points.

The presentation can be downloaded here and the pictures of the flipcharts you find here.

Bio Dr. Arne Roock:

Dr. Arne Roock works with Jimdo in Germany - a company that provides a really easy-to-use construction kit for websites. Arne has a great deal experience with Lean and Kanban in different contexts like start-ups, medium sized companies and international corporations. He is very interested in establishing a culture of continuous improvement (Kaizen), fascinated by Systems Thinking and loves to experiment with ideas from Ackoff, Drucker, Deming etc..

Back in 2012, Arne has been rewarded with the Bzickell Key Award for his engagement in the Lean/Kanban community.

Bio Sebastian Eichner:

Sebastian Eichner has been working with start-ups and agile software development since 2001. He takes special interest in the boundaries and context dependency of agile methods. This also includes learning about sociology and how an organisation’s culture evolves. The start-up environment allows him to quickly try out and validate new ideas. At Jimdo he focuses on team collaboration and software quality.

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