Meetup Roundup: London Scrum Usergroup (#LSUG) March 2012

The London Scrum Usergroup (LSUG) has had a bit of resurgence relatively recently. Most people who undergo some kind of Scrum Alliance training in London usually get encouraged top become part of the community, and often LSUG and the Scrum Alliance Google group are rolled out as options. I recently went along to the latest meetup.

LSUG was quite active a few years ago, but after their main venue was removed as an option, it kind of dwindled into a bit of obscurity. This was extremely disappointing for me as it was just around the time where I was becoming more interested in being part of a wider community. It was disappointing that in a city as large as London there was not an effective Scrum user group!

So I thanked my lucky stars when a few in the community decided to resurrect it. This was towards the end of last year, and the group is going from strength to strength: regularly having 50 people in attendance.

This month LSUG was fortunate to have Bob Marshall as a guest speaker on his experiences as a Scrum Master at News International, and generally using that experience to evaluate where that business was positioned relative to his “Rightshifting” model.

The talk was really good with a good amount of audience participation, and I think that a lot was learned by all there. I had seen Bob’s model online (you can find a lot about it on his blog) but it was great to see the “live” version and pose some of my own questions and observations. Rightshifting is an important topic in my opinion, as it really addresses organisational psychology and culture. I believe this (and underpinning both, mindset) is the most important thing to understand and address if you want your business to become more effective, let alone your team!

The great thing about LSUG is that it’s not just about Scrum – it’s about the wider Agile community – and how we can learn things and then perhaps apply them to our own teams whether we are using Scrum or not. I’d really recommend it to other Agilists who want to contribute to a growing community – there is a wide variation of experience there and all can benefit from shared experiences!

The next LSUG meetup is on April 4, and you can sign up to the event here.

This Friday evening & Saturday I am also attending the Agile Coaches Gathering 2012 in central London. I’m really looking forward to working and learning with other Agile Coaches. If you are interested I believe that there are still a few spots left. At a bargain £35 you would be silly not to! You can buy tickets to the event here. If you are going, then come and say hi – I’ll be pleased to meet you.

Dan W