Gus Power
Gus Power (real surname) enjoys trying to make sense of things and connecting them together—especially if it involves storytelling. He’s an old-skool XP guy and co-founder of Energized Work, based in London. He enjoys helping out, good discussion, boats, cats and beer.
From big to small and back again: a few tools for making sense of the big picture, survival and (maybe) sanity
Visible work is a foundational discipline of most, if not all, of the various agile schools of software engineering. “Transparency” is a sought-after quality, supported by practices like same-time same-place “stand-up” meetings, physical work boards and demonstration environments. “The business” can rock up at will and hopefully understand how things are going after a couple of minutes’ inspection. But what’s happening out there in the rest of the organisation? Often we’re just as much in the dark about what’s happening elsewhere as others were about what we’re doing and why.
We play a part in this network of individuals, relationships, stakeholders, departments, divisions, partners, suppliers, clients and customers and because we shape information flow our decisions can have wide-ranging impact on the world around us. How would we know if what we are working on really is relevant and useful to the business at large?
This session explores a few tricks and tools to map and make sense of the world outside our teams with a view to using this information to deepen our understanding, increase our empathy for others and enable us to make better decisions.
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