Leveling Up Transformations through Lean Coffees
Photo by ella novak
In my experience, bringing people from different teams together is invaluable in large organizations. Connections are made for people to learn from one another, and organizational challenges become clearer as individual team experiences are shared. We can create cross-pollination of ideas across these pockets of agile teams.
The idea of hosting lean coffees to bring people together during organizational change is not new—Jason Little wrote about it in his book Lean Change Management. That said, my experience has taught me a few things:
People may show up expecting to get information primarily from the agile coaching group that is hosting the event. Part of the beauty of lean coffee format is that every participant can contribute equally. If the hosts feel that they need to address every topic with the “right answer,” they might reflect on why that is and consider using a different format.
Relying on organic marketing like posters and word-of-mouth in a highly calendar-driven environment will likely result in a small attendance. Look at what typically works in your organization to disseminate information and attract participation in an event. I’ve seen one-off calendar invites or event registration forms lead to more attendance in these environments.
In a group of people with similar roles (e.g., Scrum Masters), the biggest takeaways come from the diversity of experience and thought the participants bring. Setting a tone of openness and encouraging differing opinions are key behaviors for the host(s) to model. I remind myself to focus on facilitation and listening intently more than adding my own two cents in discussions.
Lean coffees can be a way to build bridges between parts of an organization that normally don’t talk to one another. Teams at different zones of agility can interact and inspire change from one another. People who are normally quiet may participate more in this format because they were first invited to contribute topics and then involved in voting on them.
Running a virtual lean coffee event is relatively easy. I’ve been using Lean Coffee Table to run a weekly Community of Practice event for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, and it’s been great for staying on top of timeboxing discussions and roman voting to extend or end conversation. Other online whiteboarding or brainstorming tools can be used, including Google Jamboard or a shared spreadsheet.
If you need a little more inspiration in running a lean coffee, you might listen to the Agile Coffee podcast for an example of how it works.
