Running Excellent Retrospectives: Talking with People

Tuesday, October 29, 2019 - 4:00 pm5:30 pm

Courtney Eckhardt

Abstract: 

How many awful meetings have you been to in your life, where people are talking forever and saying nothing, or where people are talking at cross purposes and not listening, or where they're saying things that make everyone feel bad? Have you been in retrospectives like that? (Did it make you never want to attend a retrospective again?)

Let's do better! Come learn practical techniques for facilitating pleasant, productive, welcoming retrospectives (which will improve any meeting you attend). We will talk about the structure of welcoming language and discuss when it's necessary to interrupt someone. We'll examine what it means for language to include blame and how to reframe blaming conversations. We'll practice the mental work of understanding things that seem contrafactual but are actually just confusing. When you leave, you'll be ready to make any meeting or retrospective you're in more comfortable and effective.

Courtney Eckhardt[node:field-speakers-institution]

Courtney comes from a background in customer support and internet anti-abuse policy. She combines this human-focused experience with the principle of Conway’s Law and the work of Kathy Sierra and Don Norman into a wide-reaching and humane concept of operational reliability. You can find her knitting in the audience of conference talks, and she's always interested in cat pictures.

Open Access Media

USENIX is committed to Open Access to the research presented at our events. Papers and proceedings are freely available to everyone once the event begins. Any video, audio, and/or slides that are posted after the event are also free and open to everyone. Support USENIX and our commitment to Open Access.

BibTeX
@conference {240818,
author = {Courtney Eckhardt},
title = {Running Excellent Retrospectives: Talking with People},
year = {2019},
address = {Portland, OR},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = oct
}