Saturday 10 March 2018

Mentor #3: Katherine Kirk

Welcome back to Agile Tribe of Mentors

The 3rd installment of Agile Tribe of Mentors brings you insights from the excellent Katherine Kirk.

I first discovered Katherine and her work at the LeanAgile Scotland conference in 2014. In a high quality conference program, her talk "Navigating politics in Agile/ Lean teams" really stood out. (You can watch it here: https://vimeo.com/107165628)

Her focus on the human aspects of what we do coming from a rare, tribe influenced, point of view was particularly unique. It certainly provided those in the room with plenty of food for thought.
One strand of her presentation talked about roles and shared responsibilities when operating in a real life tribe. Hunters hunt, foragers forage, but sometimes a forager learns to hunt and is very proud of themselves when they catch something for the tribe! Relevant on so many levels.

Katherine is someone I highly recommend you follow on twitter (@kkirk) and if you ever get a chance to see her in action at a conference, don't miss it!


About Katherine

Katherine Kirk

Katherine Kirk is a highly experienced independent transformation Consultant, international conference speaker and co-founder of the not-for-profit Inclusive Collaboration movement in tech (www.inclusive-collaboration.org).

Katherine’s primary area of expertise lies in co-discovery and insight facilitation through exploring and combining eastern and tribal philosophy to find practical answers to tough, on-the-ground issues, specifically involving contextually driven edge-cases and the cultural interaction between hierarchical management and Agile/Lean teams.

After gaining a first class BSc (Hons) in computing she completed post graduate studies in software engineering at University of Oxford and currently enjoys being an active participant of a community of Lean and Agile practitioners in Europe who explore and challenge the status quo through experimenting and collaborating.

Here is Katherine's advice:

Name 1-5 books you regularly recommend, or that you think all agilists should read.

  • Lean Enterprise - Humble, Molesky, O' Reilly
  • Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams  - Alistair Cockburn
  • Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game - Alistair Cockburn

Name 1-5 people you recommend agilists should follow on twitter (or other social media)

Any that have spoken at LeanAgileScotland conferences up to 2017

If you could get one single message across to the entire agile community what would it be and why?

Everything is continually subject to change, inter-dependency and dissatisfaction. Your reaction to this determines your level of difficulty. Why: it’s the characteristics of our context.

What do you do when you get frustrated with the industry? Do you have any coping mechanisms?

Invent ways we can overcome the difficulties I see

What is your favourite failure you have experienced in your career that set you up for future success?

Thinking I had the answer

What advice would you give to folks who are just starting their agile journey? What bad advice have you heard given?

Stay in a state of humble learning and discovery.
Bad advice: you/I/they have THE answer

What direction would you like to see Agile go in in the next 5-10 years?

No borders. No boundaries. No meerkat wars. Community and support.


Thank you Katherine

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