Summary: Improve Skills for Agile Teams 

Just like an Agile Team a group of Improv comedy actors need to work creatively and collaboratively under pressure to deliver a product to an audience in the form of a story. They need to be very adaptive to input from the audience and fellow players, have brilliant communication skills and share control to create an environment where self organization and innovation can thrive. The practice of improv exercises in agile teams can help develop meta skills to increase the team’s collaboration, communication and climate for innovation.

What you will learn in this session:

• The parallels between improvisational theatre and agile development.

• How to bring more fun, energy and interaction into your facilitation.

• 4 Improv exercises to use with your team the next day.

Please note we are at a new venue: Jumo, The Tap. Corner of Wesley Street and McKenzie Street (Venue is unmarked but lookout for the SUGSA banners).

Speaker Biography:

Burgert Kirsten is a team coach and experienced improvisation theatre actor with a masters degree in Organisational Psychology. He based his Master’s thesis on the use of improvisation theatre techniques to create a climate for team innovation.

He has facilitated workshops using his unique techniques for business schools such as the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) and the University of the Witwatersrand, as well as companies like Siemens and SAB Miller among others. He has also worked with technology start ups to help them develop company cultures that foster innovation. In 2015 one of the start-ups Burgert worked with, Ikubu, was acquired by Garmin for their development of an innovative product for cyclists. Franz Struwig, one of the founders of Ikubu, will join Burgert for this session to share the role that Improv has played in their success and how they apply it daily in practical ways to help their team develop an Agile mindset.

Event Sponsor: Ipreo

Ipreo is a leading global provider of financial services technology, data and analytics. We support all participants in the capital-raising process including banks, public and private companies, institutional and individual investors, as well as research, asset management and wealth management firms. Our unique, cross-asset class solutions equip our clients with the information and tools they need for more effective decision-making and a more efficient workflow.

Venue Sponsor: Jumo

JUMO is the largest scale, lowest cost financial services platform for emerging markets. We use only behavioural data from mobile usage to create financial identities for SMME’s. Our customers can then access a world of choice where Banks compete to provide the best savings product or working capital to grow their business.

Our platform is creating a step-change in the dimensions of choice, reach, product, experience and unit economics to fit the financial needs of the mass market. For 80{6b0d2667ce3e862a710371ddcad071d42f80ce355f6c975cf5f5e426d041b86a} of our customers it is the first time that they are interacting with a Bank.

Space is limited based on the venue so please RSVP if you know that you are able to attend