Planning for Global Scrum Gathering London 2018 took a huge leap forward in April when the European Gathering Team (EUGT) met in the host city to form the first draft of the speaker programme.
After an early start, breakfast, and a good dose of hot caffeinated beverages, the team settling into their meeting room and ScrumMaster Mark Summers led us through the agenda of the day.
We started with a simple check-in protocol with we thanked members of the team whose contribution we were grateful for over the last sprint – a sprint fraught with session reviews and data gathering. All that hard work led to this planning day, where we would be compiling a schedule for the three-day Gathering.
We started by refreshing ourselves on the event space itself – by visualising how the sessions and rooms could be divided in line with the conference suite at the venue, Excel London. We posted three separate laminates to the walls of the meeting rooms. Blue masking tape was used to indicate which rooms were available at which times during each day. Once the sessions and rooms were identified, we started the selection process.
Any submitted sessions within our four simple tracks: Creating Better Leaders; Creating Better Scrum Masters; Creating Better Product Owners; and Creating Better Teams were written on four different colour Post-it® notes.
We realised at this point how grateful we were for the hard work of our volunteer session reviewers who spent hours of their valuable time assessing each session based on our track goals and learning objectives. This allowed us to focus on the top 20 sessions in each track based on average scores from at least three independent reviews.
Then came the fun part. Each of the track POs selected a Post-it from the wall and stuck it onto an available slot. There was usually some justification required or some clarification on the learning objectives, but once the sessions started to fill, we gathered momentum quite quickly. Some were good enough that we decided to record the speaker so they could be replayed to anyone who might miss the session. We successfully placed 52 sessions over the three-day programme and took a well-deserved lunch break.
After lunch, the team thought about how to maximise value to conference attendees at the beginning of each day, before the smaller sessions start. Some great speakers from outside the Scrum community were discussed; we hope that many of them will kick off each day differently to help people think about their situations from an alternative perspective.
The remainder of our day was spent discussing some of the more interesting “sideshows” we hope to bring to the London Gathering. We want attendees to learn and feel part the London scene – without resorting to cringeworthy costumes and stereotypes. We hope these extras will create a vibrant, multi-dimensional learning experience for those who attend, whilst having plenty of space to detach and recharge in dedicated quieter spaces.
Given the great sessions and speakers we have selected, coupled with an incredibly flexible venue in a capital city, our hope is that #SGLON18 will be one you can’t afford to miss!
Paul Goddard
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