Craig and Tony are at Agile Australia in Melbourne and with guest revolutionist Toby Thompson (who was sitting at the table and initially didn’t want to speak on the podcast but then we couldn’t keep him quiet!) catch up with Jessie Shternshus, CEO at The Improv Effect and author of “CTRLShift“:

• Agile 2015 keynote “Individuals, Interactions and Improvisation“
• CTRLShift – 50 games for different types of days you might be happening
• Agile Australia keynote “Unlearning: The Challenge of Change“
• When you are facilitating you need to know your audience and believe in what you are doing – to get people involved, do things in small groups in partners so nobody has the attention on them initially and then build them up to group activities
• Make people safe and get them to laugh – then you have them for the ride
• Tony imitates a dinosaur (which we keep telling him doesn’t work on a podcast)
• Introduction Tiebacks – introduce yourself as the facilitator and then when it comes to your turn tie your introduction back to the person who came before you
• Game ideas come from twists on old games or from things people say
• Last Letter Conversation – use the last letter from what someone just said to be the first letter of what you say
• Improv Encyclopedia and a bunch of books are good resources but are usually made for actors (so you need to amend for the workplace)
• “Improvisation For The Spirit” and “Improv Wisdom” are books more geared towards people and everyday life
• Agile Australia keynote from Martin Fowler “Agile in 2018” around faux agile
• Our brains have a hard job letting go, need to help people figure out what’s in it for them (the haveta versus the wanna)
• The Backwards Brain Bicycle
• Helping people change comes back to listening and empathy
• Walkshop – 4 day hike for leaders to help them unlearn and connect
• Unlearning – need to find experiential learning that helps people unlearn – backwards number game or name things around the room differently
• Mayor of Weirdsville – dealing with pushback, pretend you are the mayor, make a proclamation and then the rest of the town has to poke holes in your idea

TheAgileRevolution-167 (25 minutes)