My supplies for my workshop!
On Saturday, May 19, 2018 at SQL Saturday Atlanta, I won’t just be an organizer; I’m a presenter! My session, “All (Data) Things Considered: The Lean Coffee Workshop” is something I’m very excited to “present”. I use that term loosely, because the whole point of a lean coffee workshop is that it’s a structured, but agenda-less discussion. I participated in one of these at the DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2017, and it was a fun, and inspiring way to engage with other people who were facing very similar problems as I was.
The way it works is that there will be a brief introduction at the beginning of the session, but people are expected to form several small groups. A seed topic will be presented, but each small group will have a moderator (and thanks to my volunteers) who will make sure that their group stays on track. Every group will:
- Set up a personal Kanban board.
- Identify topics
- Vote & discuss.
That’s it. Easiest presentation I’ve ever done, but the goals are really deep. I want to encourage people to engage with each other; that’s one of the original goals of SQLSaturday, and I think traditional classroom settings don’t do enough of that (conversations are usually instructor -> audience, or audience -> instructor). This puts people around a table in a small, safe environment, and that leads to long term possibilities for relationships.
Second, I’m more interested in conversations about improving work, rather than just how to do work. I think coffee talks foster that because you’re not looking at a tool or a piece of code; you’re talking to a person, and hearing what they think. That sharing of perspective can spark new ideas, and new ways of looking at the forest, rather than individual trees.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
