Flowcon SF 2014, September 3-4 San Francisco, California
Esther Derby, TweetAuthor of "Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great" and Program Committee Member
Biography: Esther Derby
I started my career as a programmer, and over the years I’ve worn many hats, including business owner, internal consultant and manager. From all these perspectives, one thing became clear: our level of individual, team and company success was deeply impacted by our work environment and organizational dynamics. As a result, I have spent the last twenty-five years helping companies design their environment, culture, and human dynamics for optimum success. I’ve written over 100 articles, and co-authored two books–Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. I write about management, leadership, collaboration, organizations and change (or another topic I’m currently exploring).
Twitter: @estherderby
Presentation: TweetConference Close
Workshop: Open Space Day Tweet
After Flowcon 2013, our participants told us they would like more opportunities to meet people and talk about the conference topics. This year we’ve added a second day for workshops and an open space event.
At an open space event, people discuss things they care about with other people who share similar interests. An open space event promotes agile values of collaboration, conversation and self-organization. Open space events are used to surface common concerns, brainstorm solutions to a problem or simply to exchange information. At the start of the open space event, participants generate a list of potential conversation topics, choose what to talk about, organize into small groups, engage in conversation and then present their conclusions back to the larger group. The outcome of an open space event is a view into the hot topics that exist among your professional community, a chance to share your thoughts with peers, and learn what other people think. It’s also an excellent way to network and make new professional connections.
For more information about open space technology, see this article from wikipedia.