AgileTour 2022 – Lausanne

The AgileTour 2022 conference in Lausanne once again brought together a large number of professionals with a passion for agility.

We were lucky enough to attend and took the opportunity to learn new techniques and exchange ideas with the other participants. We're looking forward to putting what we learnt at the conference into practice at our agency.

Among the many talks on the programme, we particularly enjoyed the following:

Thomas Gibot's talk on becoming aware of your choice of posture was particularly instructive and thought-provoking.

Having attended many conferences, I tend to choose the presentations that speak least to me in order to get out of my comfort zone and discover new perspectives. So it was with some trepidation that I attended Thomas' talk, thinking that it would probably be a presentation on communication and how to improve one's 'manipulative paraphernalia'.

I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised right from the introduction, when Thomas proposed three different versions of the introduction to prove his point about the importance of choosing the right posture.

He explained that our range of postures is very limited and that this range is constructed by our experiences, our traumas and our victories.

He emphasised that all the postures we adopt inevitably have an impact on our message and on the way it is perceived and received. All postures are either Violating, Hurtful, Frustrating, Enervating, Helpful, Supportive or Relevant.

Thomas proposed a method for becoming aware of and containing your message through the way you express yourself. He stressed the importance of being honest and transparent about our conscious choice of posture, by making it clear to the other person that we have chosen this posture and why from the outset. He also stressed the importance of being aware of the posture you have adopted after an interaction, asking yourself whether it worked, how you could have done better and what posture you will adopt for your next meeting.

To sum up, Thomas Gibot's talk on becoming aware of your choice of posture was very interesting and gave me a lot to think about. I highly recommend this presentation to anyone interested in the impact of their posture on their communication and on the way their messages are perceived by others.

As a project manager, we often find ourselves faced with a problem that seems important to us, but which is not perceived in the same way by our colleagues. This can create dysfunction within the team and make it difficult to resolve the problem.

Fortunately, at this conference, we learned how to solve this kind of communication problem thanks to three keys.

The first key is to dissect the problem by putting the problem situation into factual terms.

To do this, it's important to ask yourself the following questions: What is the flaw? What is the level of risk? How common is the problem? Who is affected by the problem? If the person affected by the problem can testify to it, this can help to give a concrete example to others.

The second key is to work with the team to find a solution by listening to the opinions and feelings of others. As a project manager, it's important not to try to convince the team of our point of view, but rather to state the problem factually and sincerely question the team about their opinion on the subject. This changes the dynamic of the discussion within the team and provides an opportunity to better understand the opinion of each of the people involved.

If the first two keys are not enough to solve the problem of understanding, there is a third key: working on the problem with yourself. It can be useful to take a step back from the situation and ask yourself what the real impact of this problem is on your working environment and your mental workload.

It's important not to be more of a client than a customer and to ask yourself how you felt before this problem arose. It's also important to ask yourself what would happen if you didn't deal with the problem. Would disaster strike or would nothing happen at all?

To conclude, this conference has given us some tips on how to better manage communication problems within the team. By taking a factual look at the problem, working with all the people involved to find a solution by listening to everyone's feelings, and, if necessary, working on ourselves by taking a step back from the situation, it is possible to better understand the opinion of each person in the project, avoid unnecessary conflicts and gain serenity.

At this conference, Jérémie Roudaut focused on the importance of learning to receive and give feedback. We're talking about 'learning' here, because this exercise is not so simple and often hides a great deal of emotion behind it.

Too often reduced to pointing out the mistakes of others, feedback should not be limited to annual appraisal interviews, but should be part of the corporate culture to help each member of the team evolve and develop!

At Antistatique we're already convinced of the benefits of feedback, but thanks to this conference we're going to be able to go one step further and innovate!

But let's start by laying the foundations for this talk…

Most of the time, we tend to be resistant to this feedback culture. Not least because we don't always see the point of it, or we lack knowledge on the subject or even practice.

So it begs the question: what does the feedback culture bring?

⚠️ The feedback trap - If given incorrectly, feedback is in fact judgmental, which prevents it from being constructive and adds a great deal of emotion.

Thanks to this talk, we'll even be leaving with some practical exercises to put into practice, which we're looking forward to trying out at Antistatique!

In conclusion, we'd like to thank all the organisers of this conference for their hard work and commitment.

This conference was a very rewarding opportunity to discover new techniques and discuss with professionals who are passionate about agility. It also allowed us to meet up with some familiar faces and to get together with other enthusiasts.

We're already looking forward to the 2024 edition of the conference and hope to attend again.