Joseph Pelrine

Are you interested in learning how to make your team become smarter and work better together?
The concepts of intelligent teams and psychological safety are currently hot topics in the agile world, with numerous blog posts and conference presentations about them appearing. Like most psychological topics, though, they go much deeper than most blog posts and conference presentations would suggest.
In this talk, we’ll take a look behind the scenes at the psychological research on team intelligence and psychological safety, exploring not only how they are tested, but also discussing how they can be trained. You’ll learn some simple and fun techniques that you can use to help your team improve. Along the way, we’ll also do some myth-busting on things like 7 plus/minus 2 and the Tuckman model.

One positive aspect of Agile methods is that they place people at the centre of the development process. One negative aspect of this is that there is little to no serious training available to Agile enthusiasts on working with people and teams. As a result, pop psychology myths are passed around and followed, leading many ScrumMasters, Agile coaches, and others, to do more harm than good, despite their best intentions.

This workshop is a first step to counter this lack of knowledge and training. Under the tutelage of two trained psychologists, you will learn how teams are formed, why they behave the way they do, and how you can help them perform better. You will also learn about the social and cognitive psychological research supporting these theories. You will experience this knowledge in a series of exercises, and you will be able to start using it as soon as you get back to the office.