What most people do not realise is that the IT Sector as a whole is more polluting than the aviation sector. Results from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report from 2022 show that significant challenges are in front of us and that we all have a role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Two of our senior Agile coaches are leading the way in providing exercises and solutions for people to apply in their professional and personal lives. They are facilitating a workshop at the Lean Agile Scotland conference on Wednesday 13 September in Edinburgh. We caught up with Joanna Masraff and Clare Lynch on their focus to make our world a better place for future generations.
Shared Passion for Nature
Thank you for taking the time to speak with us! Can you tell us who you are and what has brought you together on this mission?
Clare: “We have been working in technology and more specifically, Agile development, for many years. Our careers in this discipline have resulted in both of us becoming Agile Coaches. We strive to help people, teams and companies succeed to the best of their abilities while creating inclusive spaces and efficient ways of working. While running workshops together at AND Digital, we realised our comparable ability to create safe spaces in the work environment, enabling people to ask all the so-called stupid questions (hint, there is no such thing!) while helping people understand how to improve flow in their techniques.”
Joanna adds: “My AND title is Eco Encourager and Clare’s is Gardener, so we quickly found our common passion in nature. We love to discuss ways to help the current ecological crisis affecting our planet. We soon realised during our conversations, that many of the tools and techniques we coach people to use in Agile, could easily be used to help the mindset shift needed for the world to become more sustainable. This is where our “Global Sustainable Pace” was born.”
Weaving sustainability into Agile
How do you bring attendees of your workshops along on the journey?
Clare: “We believe sustainability is wider than an environmental issue. One of the angles we like to explore is sustainability in IT. We have several exercises to think about what is currently unsustainable within IT, how this relates to Agile practices and how IT and Agile can help the world become a more sustainable version of itself. Agile already has a huge number of techniques that can easily be twisted to have a sustainability theme, enabling everyone to bring the planetary crisis into the conversation, and start changing the way we do things so they are more sustainable."
Joanna: “We use several techniques, like Value Stream mapping. Metrics gathered could be extended to include things like electricity used, greenhouse gases emitted, heat loss and so on to get a baseline to measure the current environmental state as well as the flow efficiency of the system. As with using this technique for flow, you can then run experiments to improve said metrics and measure if the changes you make have had the desired impact or not.
We show you how to include sustainability as a factor when prioritising initiatives, epics and features. Prioritise those that are climate positive over those that will only add to our current planetary problems. We have many more techniques that we share with the audience. The outcome will focus on everyone taking their first step in their own climate action plan.”
Lean Agile Scotland conference
Lastly, what can participants expect from the workshop at the annual Lean Agile Scotland conference?
Joanna: ”We will be encouraging everyone to use the power as an agent of change to help their companies, clients and the planet to adopt more sustainable practices. Agilists as agents of change are in a unique and blessed position to help the world change into a more sustainable and peaceful version of itself. We will investigate the current state of the world in relation to our planetary boundaries, and how digital can impact them, for better or worse.
In this interactive workshop, we will show the art of the possible from techniques born within the Agile movement, and invite participants to crowdsource and start their own journey, whether it be personal or within their workplace towards a more sustainable future.”
Clare adds: ”Participants will take away several key items and have fun along the way! We create an inclusive, safe environment where everyone can contribute in their own way. We expect people to finish the workshop with an understanding of the skills we already have to change our pace, be inspired by what’s already going on in sustainability and start on their own or group journey to achieve a Global Sustainable Pace. We are looking forward to it.”
Tickets for the workshop on Wednesday 13 September, hosted by Joanna & Clare are available here.
