On May 17th, Camille Smith, a Leadership Coach, who does Work in Progress Coaching, gave a very insightful and thought provoking presentation on data and dialogue to develop people.
Camille began the session soliciting the audience for the questions they would like to ask about the mysteries they encounter at work and find answers for. She listed the following questions raised by the audience on the white board: What makes them happy? Why are they angry? What’s going on between their ears? What motivates / excites them (to perform better)? Why do they react like they do? Why don’t they get it? How can they have so many ears? Why don’t they self-regulate? How could they think it was a good job? Why read between the lines – Just say it?
She highlighted the frequency and pace of changes occurring at work: (1) Economic Landscape (2) Technology (3) Leadership and workforce. The key for addressing these changes at work is in recognizing the following:
• People power the business. We have to work with people and solve their issues so they can solve the business problems / challenges
• We need to crunch numbers and mine information effectively in order to know what’s going on with the people doing the work
• Leadership needs different command and control structures that are aligned to face business challenges
Business leaders won’t really know what’s going on with the people within a company since numbers (from conventional tests, reviews) never represent the whole person or provide the whole answer.
She presented the contrast between Debate and Dialogue.
Debate has the following focus: Speak to be right, Express only certainty, Only my point of view is valid.
Dialogue has the focus: Speak to reveal, Express uncertainties, There are many points of view.
A video clip was shown from the movie Houston Rockets movie based on Michael Lewis' book ‘Moneyball’.
Camille highlighted the need to identify data that connected people’s talent directly to business performance in order to:
• Link talent to the required function roles
• Reveal friction points ahead of time
• Forecast how decisions would be embraced (or not)
Typically, businesses rely on objective analysis and intelligence derived from experience, intuition, etc. for making decisions. However, there is also a need to augment such decision making with Talent metrics derived from style (preferences) and ambitions of the people doing the work to produce the desired outcome.
Camille conducted an exercise with the audience for about 45 minutes with charts. She split the audience into 4 groups of about 12 people in each group. Everyone in the audience participated by marking on 4 vertical columns their individual preference styles. Each column is representative of a preference style when faced with the following:
C: How do you tend to deal with problems? The extremes range from Commanding to Collaborative
O: How you tend to relate to people without prior context? The range is from Outgoing to Objective
R: How you relate to pace of your work place? The range is from Routine to Rapid
E: How you relate to processes, procedures? The range is from Exacting to Easy-going
Unlike other personnel tests that bucket a person, the CORE scoring permits the flexibility of ratings in the mid-point, quartiles etc. of the range.
The individual scores (markings on the vertical column) were aggregated into a bigger chart for the 4 groups. Now the clustering of the CORE scores brought out the similarities and contrasts across the 4 groups. Camille highlighted that people tend to move up and down the range of each CORE score based on the context.
Camille then provided case studies of aggregated scores representing preference styles of different function roles in Marketing, Sales groups. Alignments and Misalignments of styles were quickly noticed by the audience.
The key message, as a take-away from this exercise for each of the audience:
• If you know your CORE scores, you know where you tend to come from (the preference style when you work in a context that is your comfort zone – for e.g. say, your ideal work situation)
• You become self-aware about yourself, and you become more aware of others around you.
• If you need to operate outside your preference style, You know that you need to negotiate, have a dialogue, engage with people and ask questions (e.g. Is this working for us?)
Camille then described the use of scores of 1 thru 7 for Role Profiles to identify Individual Ambitions for each of: Creative, Theoretical, Theoretical, Authoritative, Altruistic, Individualistic, Political (Competitive), Economic. A score of 1 is highly desired by the individual while 7 being the least desired score.
The above CORE scores designating individual preference styles and Role Profiles designating individual ambitions constitute Talent Metrics. Camille mentioned the availability of software that identifies individual Talent Metrics and aggregates them for a group of people (say within a department). The individual and aggregated metrics are displayed as Talent Meters. A new addition to the group is surveyed and this person’s scores are compared with those of the group.
When used improperly, Metrics can cause mistakes and result in humans being treated like interchangeable widgets. Examples include:
• Keeping a metric alive when it has no clear relevance to the business
• Assessing only simple measures likes grades, test scores which can fail to predict success
All of above mentioned skills, styles are required; they need to be applied when a business needs them. Periodic monitoring and Training are necessary to interpret the metrics effectively.
The Talent Metrics help a business to make effective predictions and forecast at different levels, across different departments to address its challenges in a rapidly changing environment.
Now Camille went back to the various questions listed by the audience at the start of the session. The audience acknowledged that the Talent Metrics would enhance self-awareness to engage, have a dialogue and find the answers. A key requirement is a commitment for the desired outcome across the board.
_____________________________________________________________
Ravi Ganesan has over 20 years of experience in Product and Engineering Management. As General Manager of TIBCO India, he was responsible for all fiscal and operations planning. He hired dozens of engineers, coordinated with external organizations and set up processes and procedures for development, facilities, finance, IT, release, support, and travel. Similarly, as a Senior Director in Adapter Engineering, TIBCO he was responsible for product management and engineering execution for over 25 adapter product lines (about 15% of company revenue). He has proven himself to be highly effective at Program and Process Management. He was responsible for the day-to-day management of two off-shore contracting companies in India, with a total of close to 100 employees. Among the areas for which he was responsible: setting product requirements and specifications; on-time delivery; budget management; designing SLAs and performance metrics; and coordinating and communicating with other organizations (marketing, sales, alliance contracts, legal, release, etc.).
Friday, May 25, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Announcing the Next EL SIG Meeting, May 17, 2012 [Robert Lasater]
The next meeting of the Engineering Leadership SIG will be held on May 17 in SAP Building 2 (3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA), in the Baltic/Caribbean rooms, starting at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM. The speaker is Camille Smith, Founder/President, Work In Progress Coaching, and her topic is "Take the Mystery out of People Issues with Analytics - Using Data & Dialogue to Develop People."
Leaders: Until you know what’s going on with your people, you won’t really know what’s going on with your team or company. Knowing how individuals make decisions, prefer to communicate and deal with change can make the difference between a team that’s awesome and one that’s awe-shucks. In this interactive session, we’ll use case studies (perhaps one from the EL SIG community!) and explore talent metrics that take the mystery out of people issues, focus developmental efforts and inform career path choices. If you’re interested in impacting performance, yours and those you manage, join us.
Speaker Mini-bio: Camille Smith combines her business experience in start-ups and Fortune 500 companies with her exceptional skills as a communicator and leadership consultant to help leaders and their teams be effective in a world of change. Work In Progress Coaching names her company and her philosophy: “Each of us is a ‘work in progress’, figuring out how to contribute, be satisfied and produce results worthy of who we are.” Her coaching produces business-critical results by building authentic relationships based on values, commitment, accountability and trust. She is a founding member of the Global Women's Leadership Network and has served as an executive coach for Warren Bennis’ Global Institute for Leadership Development. She lives with her family in Aptos.
ONGOING MANAGEMENT SPONSOR: ProjectConnections.com ProjectConnections.com supports EL SIG members with a wide range of resources for managing organizations, projects, and people. Members can access links to templates, checklists, articles, and more from the ProjectConnections.com Premium library. All this is available to ELSIG members at no charge, at the ELSIG page onProjectConnetions.com (Open Enrollment is offered twice a year for this benefit. It's that time of year! We'll be sending a notice shortly and you can sign up if you haven't already.)
SNACK SPONSOR: Ryzen Solutions has been finding high caliber individuals for our clients in high-tech industries since 1999. We have access to thousands of professionals; even those that are passive candidates and not actively looking, and whose resumes' are not posted on the public job boards. Our own internal database has over 51,000 candidates. Ryzen Solutions has been one of the best firms in Silicon Valley. Our recruiters have degrees in electrical, software and mechanical engineering. Our clients such as Apple, Cisco, eBay, PayPal, Samsung and many more have worked with us for many years because our team of 16+ recruiters work collaboratively to find the top talents for our clients.
Agenda: 6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin - Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Leaders: Until you know what’s going on with your people, you won’t really know what’s going on with your team or company. Knowing how individuals make decisions, prefer to communicate and deal with change can make the difference between a team that’s awesome and one that’s awe-shucks. In this interactive session, we’ll use case studies (perhaps one from the EL SIG community!) and explore talent metrics that take the mystery out of people issues, focus developmental efforts and inform career path choices. If you’re interested in impacting performance, yours and those you manage, join us.
Speaker Mini-bio: Camille Smith combines her business experience in start-ups and Fortune 500 companies with her exceptional skills as a communicator and leadership consultant to help leaders and their teams be effective in a world of change. Work In Progress Coaching names her company and her philosophy: “Each of us is a ‘work in progress’, figuring out how to contribute, be satisfied and produce results worthy of who we are.” Her coaching produces business-critical results by building authentic relationships based on values, commitment, accountability and trust. She is a founding member of the Global Women's Leadership Network and has served as an executive coach for Warren Bennis’ Global Institute for Leadership Development. She lives with her family in Aptos.
ONGOING MANAGEMENT SPONSOR: ProjectConnections.com ProjectConnections.com supports EL SIG members with a wide range of resources for managing organizations, projects, and people. Members can access links to templates, checklists, articles, and more from the ProjectConnections.com Premium library. All this is available to ELSIG members at no charge, at the ELSIG page onProjectConnetions.com (Open Enrollment is offered twice a year for this benefit. It's that time of year! We'll be sending a notice shortly and you can sign up if you haven't already.)
SNACK SPONSOR: Ryzen Solutions has been finding high caliber individuals for our clients in high-tech industries since 1999. We have access to thousands of professionals; even those that are passive candidates and not actively looking, and whose resumes' are not posted on the public job boards. Our own internal database has over 51,000 candidates. Ryzen Solutions has been one of the best firms in Silicon Valley. Our recruiters have degrees in electrical, software and mechanical engineering. Our clients such as Apple, Cisco, eBay, PayPal, Samsung and many more have worked with us for many years because our team of 16+ recruiters work collaboratively to find the top talents for our clients.
Agenda: 6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin - Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Announcing the Next EL SIG Meeting, April 19
The next meeting of the Engineering Leadership SIG will be held on April 19 in SAP Building 2 (3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA), in the Baltic/Caribbean rooms, starting at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM. The speaker, Bruce Pittman, is truly inspiring in his enthusiasm for the space industry. He's brilliant, has great depth of experience, and a lively presentation style that will make you glad you made time to attend.
Title:
Balancing Innovation and Risk in the Development of Large Aerospace Systems
Speaker:
Bruce Pittman, Director, Flight Projects & Chief System Engineer at NASA Space Portal
Description:
This talk with focus on the development history of NASA over the last 4 decades; the good, the bad, and the really ugly. One key question that needs to be addressed is why after the investment of billions of dollars and thousands of man years of effort, why are the systems we produce today pretty much like those produced decades ago in terms of reliability and $/performance. The history of NASA projects will be contrasted against the new emerging commercial space companies such as Space X, Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and Sierra Nevada and the different approaches to innovation and risk that they have developed. Recent data indicates that these companies are able to develop systems quicker and at a cost that is an order of magnitude cheaper but at what risk? These two system development approaches will be compared and contrasted and a path forward that takes advantage of the best of both will be proposed.
About the Speaker:
Bruce Pittman - Bruce has over 30 years of experience in aerospace and other high technology industries. He spent the first 11 years of his career with NASA and after that helped found several entrepreneurial space companies including SpaceHab and Kistler Aerospace. He has also been involved in the project management and system engineering of complex systems. he has taught and consulted for a wide variety of companies both large and small and government agencies including NASA and the Department of Energy. Now he's back working at NASA Ames as a contractor as part of the Space Portal to open up the space frontier for entrepreneurs and and the American public.
Snacks and Beverage Sponsor:
Ryzen Solutions has been finding high caliber individuals for our clients in high-tech industries since 1999. We have access to thousands of professionals; even those that are passive candidates and not actively looking, and whose resumes' are not posted on the public job boards. Our own internal database has over 51,000 candidates. Ryzen Solutions has been one of the best firms in Silicon Valley. Our recruiters have degrees in electrical, software and mechanical engineering. Our clients such as Apple, Cisco, eBay, PayPal, Samsung and many more have worked with us for many years because our team of 16+ recruiters work collaboratively to find the top talents for our clients.
Ongoing Management Sponsor:
Project Connections is our EL SIG Management Sponsor.
ProjectConnections.com supports EL SIG members with a wide range of resouhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrces for managing organizations, projects, and people. Members can access links to templates, checklists, articles, and more from the ProjectConnections.com Premium library. All this is available to ELSIG members at no charge, at the ELSIG page onProjectConnetions.com (Open Enrollment is offered twice a year for this benefit. It's that time of year! We'll be sending a notice shortly and you can sign up if you haven't already.)
Attendance Verification Available :
Please ask an SDForum registration personnel at the event if you need an attendance verification form for professional development and certification purpose.
Agenda:
6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin
6:30 - 7:00 Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP - Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP - Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap/
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable - Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Title:
Balancing Innovation and Risk in the Development of Large Aerospace Systems
Speaker:
Bruce Pittman, Director, Flight Projects & Chief System Engineer at NASA Space Portal
Description:
This talk with focus on the development history of NASA over the last 4 decades; the good, the bad, and the really ugly. One key question that needs to be addressed is why after the investment of billions of dollars and thousands of man years of effort, why are the systems we produce today pretty much like those produced decades ago in terms of reliability and $/performance. The history of NASA projects will be contrasted against the new emerging commercial space companies such as Space X, Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and Sierra Nevada and the different approaches to innovation and risk that they have developed. Recent data indicates that these companies are able to develop systems quicker and at a cost that is an order of magnitude cheaper but at what risk? These two system development approaches will be compared and contrasted and a path forward that takes advantage of the best of both will be proposed.
About the Speaker:
Bruce Pittman - Bruce has over 30 years of experience in aerospace and other high technology industries. He spent the first 11 years of his career with NASA and after that helped found several entrepreneurial space companies including SpaceHab and Kistler Aerospace. He has also been involved in the project management and system engineering of complex systems. he has taught and consulted for a wide variety of companies both large and small and government agencies including NASA and the Department of Energy. Now he's back working at NASA Ames as a contractor as part of the Space Portal to open up the space frontier for entrepreneurs and and the American public.
Snacks and Beverage Sponsor:
Ryzen Solutions has been finding high caliber individuals for our clients in high-tech industries since 1999. We have access to thousands of professionals; even those that are passive candidates and not actively looking, and whose resumes' are not posted on the public job boards. Our own internal database has over 51,000 candidates. Ryzen Solutions has been one of the best firms in Silicon Valley. Our recruiters have degrees in electrical, software and mechanical engineering. Our clients such as Apple, Cisco, eBay, PayPal, Samsung and many more have worked with us for many years because our team of 16+ recruiters work collaboratively to find the top talents for our clients.
Ongoing Management Sponsor:
Project Connections is our EL SIG Management Sponsor.
ProjectConnections.com supports EL SIG members with a wide range of resouhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrces for managing organizations, projects, and people. Members can access links to templates, checklists, articles, and more from the ProjectConnections.com Premium library. All this is available to ELSIG members at no charge, at the ELSIG page onProjectConnetions.com (Open Enrollment is offered twice a year for this benefit. It's that time of year! We'll be sending a notice shortly and you can sign up if you haven't already.)
Attendance Verification Available :
Please ask an SDForum registration personnel at the event if you need an attendance verification form for professional development and certification purpose.
Agenda:
6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin
6:30 - 7:00 Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP - Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP - Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap/
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable - Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Announcing the Next EL SIG Meeting, March 15 [Robert Lasater]
The next meeting of the Engineering Leadership SIG will be held on March 15 in SAP Building 2 (3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA), in the SAP - Baltic/Caribbean rooms in Building 2, starting at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM. The main presentation will be a talk by Jeff McKenna on Agile, including XP, Scrum and Kanban
Title:
Jeff McKenna - State of Agile: XP, Scrum and now Kanban - What is up?
Talk Details:
Over the last 20 years we have seen the increased adoption of non-waterfall software
development methods. In 2001 many of these new methods emerged under the term
‘agile’ with the publication of the Agile Manifesto (www.agilemanifesto.org).
For many the start of Agile in software development was in 2000 with the publication of
Kent Beck’s extreme Programming explained followed in 2002 by Ken Schwaber and
Mike Beedle’s Agile Software Development with Scrum. At this time the word agile has
become common with many organizations with supporting reading, training and
coaching available from many sources.
We are now seeing the promotion of Lean techniques in software development with an
focus on Kanban. In this talk Jeff will discuss what lean thinking adds to the agile
mindset, how Kanban embodies lean concepts, what are the basics of Kanban and how
Kanban supplements existing agile methods. Jeff will also discuss when Kanban might
be appropriate and will provide further references.
Speaker:
Jeff McKenna has been active in software development for nearly 50 years taking on at
one time or another developer, tester, manager, business owner, trainer, coach.
consultant, blogger and mentor. He has an special interested in testing. domain
modeling and the larger question of how successful software lives in time. He was a
coach on the very first Scrum project in 1993 and has been practicing agile in various forms since 1987. Currently he is coaching and training on Scrum and moving into Lean.
Snacks and Beverage Sponsor:
Agile Learning Labs: Agile training and coaching is all we do, and we do it well. Whether you’re spinning up a new scrum team, contemplating an enterprise-scale agile adoption, or looking to add scrum certification to your resume, we have the experience and expertise to help you succeed.
There are as many ways to be agile as there are high-performing teams. Agile Learning Labs follows the Agile Manifesto’s people-centered approach, finding pathways to success within a company’s own culture, history and circumstances. A rapidly growing startup is coming from a very different place than a mature company with a 30 year-old product line that has undergone a recent merger, and the path to agility is different for each.
The happiest, most productive teams inspect-and-adapt in pursuit of continuous improvement, discovering new and better ways to work together, and enhancing product quality and customer satisfaction along the way. If this is where you want to go, we want to help you get there.
Ongoing Management Sponsor:
Project Connections is our EL SIG Management Sponsor.
ProjectConnections.com supports EL SIG members with a wide range of resouhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrces for managing organizations, projects, and people. Members can access links to templates, checklists, articles, and more from the ProjectConnections.com Premium library. All this is available to ELSIG members at no charge, at the ELSIG page onProjectConnetions.com (Open Enrollment is offered twice a year for this benefit. It's that time of year! We'll be sending a notice shortly and you can sign up if you haven't already.)
Attendance Verification Available :
Please ask an SDForum registration personnel at the event if you need an attendance verification form for professional development and certification purpose.
Agenda:
6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin
6:30 - 7:00 Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP - Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP - Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap/
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable - Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Title:
Jeff McKenna - State of Agile: XP, Scrum and now Kanban - What is up?
Talk Details:
Over the last 20 years we have seen the increased adoption of non-waterfall software
development methods. In 2001 many of these new methods emerged under the term
‘agile’ with the publication of the Agile Manifesto (www.agilemanifesto.org).
For many the start of Agile in software development was in 2000 with the publication of
Kent Beck’s extreme Programming explained followed in 2002 by Ken Schwaber and
Mike Beedle’s Agile Software Development with Scrum. At this time the word agile has
become common with many organizations with supporting reading, training and
coaching available from many sources.
We are now seeing the promotion of Lean techniques in software development with an
focus on Kanban. In this talk Jeff will discuss what lean thinking adds to the agile
mindset, how Kanban embodies lean concepts, what are the basics of Kanban and how
Kanban supplements existing agile methods. Jeff will also discuss when Kanban might
be appropriate and will provide further references.
Speaker:
Jeff McKenna has been active in software development for nearly 50 years taking on at
one time or another developer, tester, manager, business owner, trainer, coach.
consultant, blogger and mentor. He has an special interested in testing. domain
modeling and the larger question of how successful software lives in time. He was a
coach on the very first Scrum project in 1993 and has been practicing agile in various forms since 1987. Currently he is coaching and training on Scrum and moving into Lean.
Snacks and Beverage Sponsor:
Agile Learning Labs: Agile training and coaching is all we do, and we do it well. Whether you’re spinning up a new scrum team, contemplating an enterprise-scale agile adoption, or looking to add scrum certification to your resume, we have the experience and expertise to help you succeed.
There are as many ways to be agile as there are high-performing teams. Agile Learning Labs follows the Agile Manifesto’s people-centered approach, finding pathways to success within a company’s own culture, history and circumstances. A rapidly growing startup is coming from a very different place than a mature company with a 30 year-old product line that has undergone a recent merger, and the path to agility is different for each.
The happiest, most productive teams inspect-and-adapt in pursuit of continuous improvement, discovering new and better ways to work together, and enhancing product quality and customer satisfaction along the way. If this is where you want to go, we want to help you get there.
Ongoing Management Sponsor:
Project Connections is our EL SIG Management Sponsor.
ProjectConnections.com supports EL SIG members with a wide range of resouhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrces for managing organizations, projects, and people. Members can access links to templates, checklists, articles, and more from the ProjectConnections.com Premium library. All this is available to ELSIG members at no charge, at the ELSIG page onProjectConnetions.com (Open Enrollment is offered twice a year for this benefit. It's that time of year! We'll be sending a notice shortly and you can sign up if you haven't already.)
Attendance Verification Available :
Please ask an SDForum registration personnel at the event if you need an attendance verification form for professional development and certification purpose.
Agenda:
6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin
6:30 - 7:00 Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP - Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP - Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap/
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable - Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Creativity in Business - It's Gonna Get Weird! [Kimberly Wiefling]
"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." - Howard Aiken
Lately I’ve been fascinated by a book, Creativity in Business, based on the famous course in the Stanford University MBA program by that name. In fact I’ve been carrying it with me non-stop for the past couple of months and practicing the numerous creativity exercises recommended at every opportunity.
While I find most business books repetitive, every chapter of this book is full of fascinating stories, examples, useful insights and exercises to help the reader master each important concept. But the reason I’m particularly fascinated by this book is because it makes me feel less weird about the crazy stuff I do in workshops with my clients.
The topics and exercises in Creativity in Business aren’t the sort of thing that most people expect to find in a corporate environment. Included are discussions of quantum mechanics, Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenic fields, Nobel prize winner Ilya Prigogine’s dissipative structures theory, as well as topics like visualization, drawing mandalas, and even the use of tarot cards. I’m a physicist by education, so I was delighted to run across references to some of my favorite modern physics theories. I’ve used many of these approaches in my own work – I am a big fan of self-organizing systems (see previous article on ProjectConnections.com), I make a collage as part of my annual business planning process, and I once found a missing piece of equipment using tarot cards. But I’d feel a bit sheepish about admitting this in a crowd of engineers or senior executives. And I certainly never expected to find a collection of such edgy new age thinking in a business book from a Stanford University professor! In fact, if it hadn’t been written by professors of a prestigious university like Stanford I think most people would regard this book with a great deal of skepticism. Many probably still will. But I strongly believe that Creativity in Business, written over 20 years ago by Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers, contains many valuable tools for project leaders.
The core message in this book is that there is a “creative force” or “essence” available to each and every individual that can dramatically improve business results. But that force can only be unleashed when we dare to trust our intuition and risk the derision of the obsessively left-brained, analytical thinkers among us, including our own inner critic.
Every company I consult with considers innovation an essential ingredient in success. Creativity is the root of innovation, and this book is a very practical guide to increasing creativity in ourselves and others. But it requires a suspension of disbelief, and a willingness to venture beyond what can be explained by deductive reasoning alone – a belief in the possibility that you can know something without knowing how you know it.
The Nine Creativity Heuristics
The book is structured around nine “heuristics” - experiential strategies intended to awaken the reader to their “creative source”. Here are a few of my favorites. I hope you’ll read the whole book to explore all nine.
#1 - Surrender
This is the first – and my favorite – of the strategies. It is summarized as “If at first you don’t succeed . . . surrender.” Now, I’m a control freak, and the last person people who know me well would expect to advocate surrendering. It sounds like giving up, and I hate even the thought of that. Me, I’ll wrestle a crocodile to the ground if it’s gonna increase the chances of project success, but surrender?
In this case “surrender” means to trust in the creative process and continue on the journey without knowing how every detail will unfold or how it will turn out. It’s the opposite of precise planning and strong-willed determination. After years of project management discipline, including consciously forcing events down a particular path and to a particular outcome, surrender doesn’t come easily to me. But as a result of this book I’ve been experimenting with this approach in my business leadership workshops. Naturally I create elaborate plans for each workshop, and clients frequently demand a detailed timeline. But I am totally prepared to depart from those plans to respond to serendipity, opportunities, and even mistakes. If actual events depart from my plan I ask “What does this make possible?” Rather than trying to push the river, I notice where it wants to flow and then go there instead.
I can imagine the howling of those responsible for delivering a specific set of requirements by a fixed date. Don’t worry, this tool isn’t necessarily for those situations (although I’m open to the possibility it could help). It’s for when you need creative breakthroughs, new ideas, and the wisdom to tackle seemingly impossible challenges.
Fear kills creativity. Learning to trust your creative essence, and the creative process itself, will give you the confidence to begin a task that initially seems very difficult, or even impossible. Of course as I stand in the midst of 45 people from 16 different countries ready to surrender to what’s possible beyond my detailed plans I most definitely feel fear. My inner critic goes on loudspeaker, jabbering away about the likelihood of making a complete fool of myself, and how the entire workshop could very well end up a complete disaster. Rather than yielding to that, I imagine that I’m leaping off a cliff and learning to fly on the way down. There’s no turning back, and I just have to trust that I’ll grow wings. Once I commit 100% to the creative process – once I surrender - I am free to do my best work, and invite others to contribute their very best as well. Somehow magic happens. It just works.
It’s difficult to put this into a Gantt chart! It’s the old “and then a miracle occurs” task in project scheduling jokes. It’s scary, but it works. Every time. Weird, huh?
#2 - Replace the “Voice of Judgment” (VOJ) with Curiosity
Plenty of research has proven that negative people seem smarter. And don’t we all feel pressure to appear smarter to assure our position in the cosmic pecking order? Well, bad news – negativity is the enemy of creativity! I was consulting with an engineering group at a Fortune 500 company a while back when one director told this story: “My first month here I had lots of creative ideas and I shared them openly. People discouraged me. My second month here I had a few new ideas and shared them with a couple of colleagues. They told me why they weren’t feasible. My third month here I had no ideas.”
If you are in a typical work environment you’ll be able to relate very well to this story. How many ideas would you suggest if you knew that the first response would be discouragement from your peers? And it’s not just discouraging comments that diminish creativity. In her article “How to Kill Creativity”, Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile has said that working towards perfectly legitimate business imperatives such as productivity and control is also systematically crushing creativity. In short, she recommends that the first step toward increased creativity is to stop killing ideas.
Sadly we don’t even need discouraging colleagues to kill our creativity – our own VOJ will happily oblige. Creativity in Business recommends an all-out attack on the barriers to our own creativity, including our own inner critic, judgment from others, and the collective judgment of social norms of our organizations. I’ve found that simply becoming aware of the stream of negative judgment emanating from others, my environment and myself has given me more courage to persist in my creativity. Creativity is messy. The creative process is risky, and we’re all naturally hesitant to risk failure, or appearing silly. But being uncomfortable is simply part of the process of being creative. Focus instead on being intensely curious about what will unfold once the volume of the VOJ is turned way down.
#3 - Pay Attention
In my experience the one word that characterizes much of human behavior in the workplace is “unconscious”. Human beings easily fall into routines that our powerful brains efficiently relegate to our unconscious mind. Unfortunately being efficient isn’t the only - or most important - goal of work. Being effective is far more desirable. “Pay Attention” is about noticing what is happening on a conscious level so that we can become aware of the ocean of opportunities in which we’re swimming. It’s also about listening deeply to others for other perspectives that we lack.
“Listening generously” has been an important part of every workshop I teach since I first learned of the importance of listening from Barbara Fittipaldi, president of the Center for New Futures, in 1995. Barbara helped me realize that, smart as I was, I knew only a fraction of what could be known about the universe. If I want access to the 99.9999999% that I don’t know I have to listen with an intensity most people use only when speaking. That kind of listening has been transformative for my projects. I personally feel it has been the secret to success in my most challenging projects.
Creativity in Business suggests a number of intriguing exercises to develop our ability to “pay attention”, including gazing into the eyes of a colleague for 2 minutes without blinking, making up imaginary translations to Egyptian hieroglyphics, and visualizing your head as the world. Yes, really.
Yes, There’s More!
If you haven’t given up on all of this creativity mumbo jumbo after reading about the first three heuristics, there are six more you can explore, which I paraphrase as:
· Ask “Stupid” Questions
· Do Only What’s Easy, Effortless, and Enjoyable
· Don’t Think About It
· Yes or No - Make a Decision
· Be Who You Are
· Practice Detachment
I do hope that you’ll be curious enough to not only read this book, but also do as I have and practice each of the exercises it contains. Personally I’ve found it useful to have the paperback with me when I run into someone who shrinks from some creative experience. For example, in the middle of one of the many crazy workshop exercises I wave it about and shout “I know you might feel a little silly doing this, but the exercises in THIS book from Stanford University are even weirder!” Although difficult to explain, the impact of this book on my work has been profound. I would even say “magical” . . . but that would be so weird! Let me know what you experience.
Lately I’ve been fascinated by a book, Creativity in Business, based on the famous course in the Stanford University MBA program by that name. In fact I’ve been carrying it with me non-stop for the past couple of months and practicing the numerous creativity exercises recommended at every opportunity.
While I find most business books repetitive, every chapter of this book is full of fascinating stories, examples, useful insights and exercises to help the reader master each important concept. But the reason I’m particularly fascinated by this book is because it makes me feel less weird about the crazy stuff I do in workshops with my clients.
The topics and exercises in Creativity in Business aren’t the sort of thing that most people expect to find in a corporate environment. Included are discussions of quantum mechanics, Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenic fields, Nobel prize winner Ilya Prigogine’s dissipative structures theory, as well as topics like visualization, drawing mandalas, and even the use of tarot cards. I’m a physicist by education, so I was delighted to run across references to some of my favorite modern physics theories. I’ve used many of these approaches in my own work – I am a big fan of self-organizing systems (see previous article on ProjectConnections.com), I make a collage as part of my annual business planning process, and I once found a missing piece of equipment using tarot cards. But I’d feel a bit sheepish about admitting this in a crowd of engineers or senior executives. And I certainly never expected to find a collection of such edgy new age thinking in a business book from a Stanford University professor! In fact, if it hadn’t been written by professors of a prestigious university like Stanford I think most people would regard this book with a great deal of skepticism. Many probably still will. But I strongly believe that Creativity in Business, written over 20 years ago by Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers, contains many valuable tools for project leaders.
The core message in this book is that there is a “creative force” or “essence” available to each and every individual that can dramatically improve business results. But that force can only be unleashed when we dare to trust our intuition and risk the derision of the obsessively left-brained, analytical thinkers among us, including our own inner critic.
Every company I consult with considers innovation an essential ingredient in success. Creativity is the root of innovation, and this book is a very practical guide to increasing creativity in ourselves and others. But it requires a suspension of disbelief, and a willingness to venture beyond what can be explained by deductive reasoning alone – a belief in the possibility that you can know something without knowing how you know it.
The Nine Creativity Heuristics
The book is structured around nine “heuristics” - experiential strategies intended to awaken the reader to their “creative source”. Here are a few of my favorites. I hope you’ll read the whole book to explore all nine.
#1 - Surrender
This is the first – and my favorite – of the strategies. It is summarized as “If at first you don’t succeed . . . surrender.” Now, I’m a control freak, and the last person people who know me well would expect to advocate surrendering. It sounds like giving up, and I hate even the thought of that. Me, I’ll wrestle a crocodile to the ground if it’s gonna increase the chances of project success, but surrender?
In this case “surrender” means to trust in the creative process and continue on the journey without knowing how every detail will unfold or how it will turn out. It’s the opposite of precise planning and strong-willed determination. After years of project management discipline, including consciously forcing events down a particular path and to a particular outcome, surrender doesn’t come easily to me. But as a result of this book I’ve been experimenting with this approach in my business leadership workshops. Naturally I create elaborate plans for each workshop, and clients frequently demand a detailed timeline. But I am totally prepared to depart from those plans to respond to serendipity, opportunities, and even mistakes. If actual events depart from my plan I ask “What does this make possible?” Rather than trying to push the river, I notice where it wants to flow and then go there instead.
I can imagine the howling of those responsible for delivering a specific set of requirements by a fixed date. Don’t worry, this tool isn’t necessarily for those situations (although I’m open to the possibility it could help). It’s for when you need creative breakthroughs, new ideas, and the wisdom to tackle seemingly impossible challenges.
Fear kills creativity. Learning to trust your creative essence, and the creative process itself, will give you the confidence to begin a task that initially seems very difficult, or even impossible. Of course as I stand in the midst of 45 people from 16 different countries ready to surrender to what’s possible beyond my detailed plans I most definitely feel fear. My inner critic goes on loudspeaker, jabbering away about the likelihood of making a complete fool of myself, and how the entire workshop could very well end up a complete disaster. Rather than yielding to that, I imagine that I’m leaping off a cliff and learning to fly on the way down. There’s no turning back, and I just have to trust that I’ll grow wings. Once I commit 100% to the creative process – once I surrender - I am free to do my best work, and invite others to contribute their very best as well. Somehow magic happens. It just works.
It’s difficult to put this into a Gantt chart! It’s the old “and then a miracle occurs” task in project scheduling jokes. It’s scary, but it works. Every time. Weird, huh?
#2 - Replace the “Voice of Judgment” (VOJ) with Curiosity
Plenty of research has proven that negative people seem smarter. And don’t we all feel pressure to appear smarter to assure our position in the cosmic pecking order? Well, bad news – negativity is the enemy of creativity! I was consulting with an engineering group at a Fortune 500 company a while back when one director told this story: “My first month here I had lots of creative ideas and I shared them openly. People discouraged me. My second month here I had a few new ideas and shared them with a couple of colleagues. They told me why they weren’t feasible. My third month here I had no ideas.”
If you are in a typical work environment you’ll be able to relate very well to this story. How many ideas would you suggest if you knew that the first response would be discouragement from your peers? And it’s not just discouraging comments that diminish creativity. In her article “How to Kill Creativity”, Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile has said that working towards perfectly legitimate business imperatives such as productivity and control is also systematically crushing creativity. In short, she recommends that the first step toward increased creativity is to stop killing ideas.
Sadly we don’t even need discouraging colleagues to kill our creativity – our own VOJ will happily oblige. Creativity in Business recommends an all-out attack on the barriers to our own creativity, including our own inner critic, judgment from others, and the collective judgment of social norms of our organizations. I’ve found that simply becoming aware of the stream of negative judgment emanating from others, my environment and myself has given me more courage to persist in my creativity. Creativity is messy. The creative process is risky, and we’re all naturally hesitant to risk failure, or appearing silly. But being uncomfortable is simply part of the process of being creative. Focus instead on being intensely curious about what will unfold once the volume of the VOJ is turned way down.
#3 - Pay Attention
In my experience the one word that characterizes much of human behavior in the workplace is “unconscious”. Human beings easily fall into routines that our powerful brains efficiently relegate to our unconscious mind. Unfortunately being efficient isn’t the only - or most important - goal of work. Being effective is far more desirable. “Pay Attention” is about noticing what is happening on a conscious level so that we can become aware of the ocean of opportunities in which we’re swimming. It’s also about listening deeply to others for other perspectives that we lack.
“Listening generously” has been an important part of every workshop I teach since I first learned of the importance of listening from Barbara Fittipaldi, president of the Center for New Futures, in 1995. Barbara helped me realize that, smart as I was, I knew only a fraction of what could be known about the universe. If I want access to the 99.9999999% that I don’t know I have to listen with an intensity most people use only when speaking. That kind of listening has been transformative for my projects. I personally feel it has been the secret to success in my most challenging projects.
Creativity in Business suggests a number of intriguing exercises to develop our ability to “pay attention”, including gazing into the eyes of a colleague for 2 minutes without blinking, making up imaginary translations to Egyptian hieroglyphics, and visualizing your head as the world. Yes, really.
Yes, There’s More!
If you haven’t given up on all of this creativity mumbo jumbo after reading about the first three heuristics, there are six more you can explore, which I paraphrase as:
· Ask “Stupid” Questions
· Do Only What’s Easy, Effortless, and Enjoyable
· Don’t Think About It
· Yes or No - Make a Decision
· Be Who You Are
· Practice Detachment
I do hope that you’ll be curious enough to not only read this book, but also do as I have and practice each of the exercises it contains. Personally I’ve found it useful to have the paperback with me when I run into someone who shrinks from some creative experience. For example, in the middle of one of the many crazy workshop exercises I wave it about and shout “I know you might feel a little silly doing this, but the exercises in THIS book from Stanford University are even weirder!” Although difficult to explain, the impact of this book on my work has been profound. I would even say “magical” . . . but that would be so weird! Let me know what you experience.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Announcing the Next EL SIG Meeting,February 16 [Robert Lasater]
The next meeting of the Engineering Leadership SIG will be held on February 16 in SAP Building 2 (3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA), starting at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM. The main presentation will be a talk by EL SIG co-chair Sam Hahn on Collaborative Interactions
Title:
The Atomic Structure of Collaborative Interactions
WIIFM:
Please come with some (1-3) instances of when a delegation or collaboration went sour, or didn't turn out as expected. What pain was experienced? What could've prevented that pain?
Speaker:
During the day, Sam is mild-mannered VP of Engineering at eGain Communications Corporation (since late 1997). His path to eGain traces back to Purisma, Siebel, Sales.com, DocuMagix, ESL, and TRW.
For the rest of his active life, Sam is an aficionado and disciple of Doug Engelbart's vision of scalable collaboration for planetary sustainability, and is a self-admitted collaborapologist - someone who studies collaboration (blog site: collaborapologist.com). Since meeting Doug and his team in the early 90's, Sam has been studying why teams work well, why teams don't work well, applying those ideas, and has been attempting to create a framework of collaboration that can eventually replace Robert's Rules of Order. The "ASCI" ideas are a key component of this new framework.
Talk Details:
Sam will introduce a model for collaborative interactions and propose that it be a basis upon which you deepen appreciation for the components of interaction among people and team members. The state model suggests insights that can be leveraged for how to conduct teamwork more smoothly, with fewer speed bumps, less pain, and more celebration
Snacks and Beverage Sponsor:
Nearsoft
Ongoing Management Sponsor:
Project Connections is our EL SIG Management Sponsor.
ProjectConnections.com is dedicated to practically and affordably supporting individuals as they do their jobs day-to-day and helping them grow their management abilities and careers. We also provide management development and support resources to organizations, through group subscriptions, methodology content licenses, on-demand virtual training programs, virtual coaching, and more - all to help managers improve how critical project work gets done, and to help grow the capabilities of everyone on their staffs and teams.
Attendance Verification Available :
Please ask an SDForum registration personnel at the event if you need an attendance verification form for professional development and certification purpose.
Agenda:
6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin
6:30 - 7:00 Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP - Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP - Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap/
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable - Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Title:
The Atomic Structure of Collaborative Interactions
WIIFM:
Please come with some (1-3) instances of when a delegation or collaboration went sour, or didn't turn out as expected. What pain was experienced? What could've prevented that pain?
Speaker:
During the day, Sam is mild-mannered VP of Engineering at eGain Communications Corporation (since late 1997). His path to eGain traces back to Purisma, Siebel, Sales.com, DocuMagix, ESL, and TRW.
For the rest of his active life, Sam is an aficionado and disciple of Doug Engelbart's vision of scalable collaboration for planetary sustainability, and is a self-admitted collaborapologist - someone who studies collaboration (blog site: collaborapologist.com). Since meeting Doug and his team in the early 90's, Sam has been studying why teams work well, why teams don't work well, applying those ideas, and has been attempting to create a framework of collaboration that can eventually replace Robert's Rules of Order. The "ASCI" ideas are a key component of this new framework.
Talk Details:
Sam will introduce a model for collaborative interactions and propose that it be a basis upon which you deepen appreciation for the components of interaction among people and team members. The state model suggests insights that can be leveraged for how to conduct teamwork more smoothly, with fewer speed bumps, less pain, and more celebration
Snacks and Beverage Sponsor:
Nearsoft
Ongoing Management Sponsor:
Project Connections is our EL SIG Management Sponsor.
ProjectConnections.com is dedicated to practically and affordably supporting individuals as they do their jobs day-to-day and helping them grow their management abilities and careers. We also provide management development and support resources to organizations, through group subscriptions, methodology content licenses, on-demand virtual training programs, virtual coaching, and more - all to help managers improve how critical project work gets done, and to help grow the capabilities of everyone on their staffs and teams.
Attendance Verification Available :
Please ask an SDForum registration personnel at the event if you need an attendance verification form for professional development and certification purpose.
Agenda:
6:15 - 6:30 Early arrival recommended!
6:30 - 7:00 Registration / Checkin
6:30 - 7:00 Enjoy cheese, fruit, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Peer-2-Peer Roundtable
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and opening announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Closing announcements
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking and followup Q&A
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up
8:50 - 9:00 Clear the room & have a safe trip home!
Cost: $20 at the door for non-SDForum members, No charge for SDForum members
BOOK SWAP - Every month! Bring books to share.
JOB SWAP - Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap/
PEER-to-PEER Roundtable - Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
No EL SIG Event This Month (January 2012)
SVForum has scheduled an open house to celebrate multiple achievements:
* new CEO - Chris Gill
* joining with SVASE (Silicon Valley Academy of Startup Entrepreneurs)
* Welcome party for SVASE members
This event will occur on January 19, which is normally our "3rd Thursday" night for ELSIG. Since this is an event that is important to SVForum (and therefore ELSIG), we recommend that our membership attend this Open House in force, rather than diluting the ELSIG community across 2 separate events on the same night. This would also allow ELSIG chairs and core team to attend the open house and meet and welcome our new SVASE partners and members, rather than be conspicuously absent - we want SVASE members to join ELSIG! We want to support these SVForum developments.
Please therefore note that we will NOT hold our regular monthly meeting on January 19 at SAP, and we encourage all ELSIG attendees (and potential attendees) to attend this SVForum open house.
Location:
SVForum
Sobrato Center for Nonprofits-Redwood Shores
350 Twin Dolphin Drive, Large Conference Room
Redwood City, CA 94065
Please register (members of SVForum and SVASE, only): http://www.svforum.org/welcome-party
Space is limited to 250 people, so I recommend you register early!
See you there! We're back in February with the regular program!
* new CEO - Chris Gill
* joining with SVASE (Silicon Valley Academy of Startup Entrepreneurs)
* Welcome party for SVASE members
This event will occur on January 19, which is normally our "3rd Thursday" night for ELSIG. Since this is an event that is important to SVForum (and therefore ELSIG), we recommend that our membership attend this Open House in force, rather than diluting the ELSIG community across 2 separate events on the same night. This would also allow ELSIG chairs and core team to attend the open house and meet and welcome our new SVASE partners and members, rather than be conspicuously absent - we want SVASE members to join ELSIG! We want to support these SVForum developments.
Please therefore note that we will NOT hold our regular monthly meeting on January 19 at SAP, and we encourage all ELSIG attendees (and potential attendees) to attend this SVForum open house.
Location:
SVForum
Sobrato Center for Nonprofits-Redwood Shores
350 Twin Dolphin Drive, Large Conference Room
Redwood City, CA 94065
Please register (members of SVForum and SVASE, only): http://www.svforum.org/welcome-party
Space is limited to 250 people, so I recommend you register early!
See you there! We're back in February with the regular program!
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