On Fearless Change – Tutorial @ QCon London 2008

This year’s qcon I decided to attend no technical tutorials but more development process oriented ones – i.e. Agile.

On Monday I was delighted to attend Lindas tutorial. It had a very personal touch, was very interactive. She presented the patterns for introducing new ideas into organizations using a play with us participants as actors. Actually this was the story of herself introducing Design Patterns back in 1996. During the discussion many of the subtleties of the patterns (i.e context and forces) were addressed. Having us contributing by playing and asking lots of questions helped a lot to really absorb the essence of the patterns. It was a lot of fun.

The introduction of the pattern concept (reference to Christopher Alexander and his great book which i recently finished rereading was also very engaging).

One of the most important points she made during the tutorial was, that these patterns for changing the attitude of people can be used and misused to introduce ideas regardless of their moral value. So they are very powerful.

And the tutorial helped to solve real problems. In the First Aid Clinic part we used the stuff just learned to give three of us advice how to approach difficult situations they currently have at work.

Most of the patterns of change are deeply rooted in human behaviour. So all the knowledge that was gathered by brain scientists back all the patterns rediscovered. After the tutorial we stayed for a while to further discuss some of these things.

Linda is a great speaker with deep understanding and lots of wisdom to share. Thanks a lot for the tutorial.

Books recommended at the tutorial:
Fearless Change
A Timeless Way of Building
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
The Tipping Point
Gang of Four – Design Patterns
Patterns of Software Architecture (1,4,5)