Lean Coffee – gathering of minds

In this article I want to share my Lean Coffee experience. I describe what it is, what we talk about, how we have evolved it, our principles, but most importantly what I and other regular attendees get out of Lean Coffee. Have a read and then share a comment on how you stay connected and improve.

I have attended Melbourne Lean Coffee since we started it back in May 2012. The best parts of Lean Coffee are the rich casual conversations and meeting new friends. It has been the highlight of my Tuesday mornings for the past 7+ years. As a self-organized community, it has been a great place to bounce your ideas, learn from others, broaden your thinking and a community to support you through your challenges. I always walk away from Lean Coffee feeling rebooted. – Chris Chan, Co-Host of Lean Coffee, Transformation and Adaptive Leadership Coach.

I started going to Lean Coffee in Melbourne around Aug 2016, and I haven’t stopped going since. This particular Lean Coffee Meetup group has been running continuously since it first began in May 2012, when it was introduced at Agile Australia by Jason Yip.

After just having attended another early morning Lean Coffee I was walking to work and reflecting on how I felt more intelligent for the experience, something about collective intelligence was springing to mind. Later that day I had lunch with a friend, Dan Prager who attended the very first Melbourne Lean Coffee, and we were discussing the changes to Lean Coffee since he last attended, around 2 years ago. It was from that discussion that I was prompted to think about the changes and benefits using the integral model and consequently write this article – thanks Dan.

This Lean Coffee group is arguably the best professional development activity that I’ve undertaken. Access to a “brains trust” with 100+ collective years of real world Agile experience delivers value to me every time I attend. It’s also helped me to better articulate my ideas, which has helped my career, and grow my networks. That’s why I’m still a regular after almost four years. – Suzanne Nottage, Executive Manager.

What is Lean Coffee?

Very simply, it is a gathering of folks who help each other by discussing what is on their mind at the time of the gathering. We build the agenda together at the start and then time discussions into five minute blocks. The type of help given may be related to a specific problem, a theoretical problem, or simply a topic that someone wants to explore.

The original format was invented by Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith when they hosted the first Lean Coffee in Seattle in 2009.

Lean Coffee is the place where I try out ideas that stretch the boundary on Agile, Lean Startup and Systems Thinking. It's where my peeps say "hey that's crazy", or "hey that's crazy good!". Regardless, it's where I get support and always learn from the amazing people that come along. - Katrina Kolt, Enterprise Agile Coach.

The original format of Lean Coffee involves everyone writing down the topics they wish to discuss onto a sticky note. Then the group votes using dots on the sticky notes for which topics they wish to discuss. Each person gets two or three votes depending on the size of the group. In this way the agenda (or backlog of topics) is built by the group at the time of the meeting with the most popular topics going first. The sticky notes are then arranged onto a Kanban board with columns for Not Started, Doing and Done. A time keeper is appointed who duly starts a five minute timer and then the person who wrote the sticky note at the top of the Not Started column introduces the topic and the discussion begins and the topic is moved into the Doing column. There are no specific rules for the group discussion. Once the timer expires the group then votes whether to continue the discussion for another five minutes or not. The voting is performed by a simple gesture of the hand – thumb up to continue, thumb down to stop, or thumb sideways if you don’t mind either way. If a majority of folks want to continue then the timer is set for another five minutes and the discussion continues, otherwise the group moves to the next topic and the topic sticky note is moved to the Done column. Once all topics are completed or the meeting time expires the meeting ends.

Another usual thing for a Lean Coffee is to split the group once the group size gets above 6-8 people. This helps to get everyone more easily involved in the discussion and can lead to deeper discussions on each topic. When splitting the group the owners of each sticky note take their notes with them.

I learn something new from every Lean Coffee. Sometimes it’s about myself; sometimes it’s a perspective I have never considered but I always learn something. I started to attend Lean Coffee so that I could learn more about agile ways of working; I return each week for the people and the richness of their stories. - Michelle Prosser-Roberts, Transformation Lead.

What do we talk about?

While our focus is Lean and Agile, attendees bring their whole selves to Lean Coffee and the topics reflect the diversity of thought that makes the group engaging. The follow paragraph contains real example topics from the last few years...

Predicting the future. How do you deal with passive aggressives? How do we get teams to dialogue? Appraisals for agile teams - what measures and tools? Agile in Africa. The myth of the "frozen middle". Punk. Success Measures for mindset change? The power and value of DISSENT. What is STATIK? Value Stream Mapping Tips. Latest on the royal commission. Impact of quotas. Cohesion over same-ness. Long term larger initiatives. Echo chambers. What does "personal mastery" mean to you? What is your ikigai (reason for getting up in the morning)? The role of governance? Design thinking approach to recruitment. SQ - Spiritual intelligence. Liberating Structures. We are all in tech support! Scrum master as a role that moves between team members. Love and intelligence. Creative abrasion. How best to collaborate with overseas teams. Facing redundancy - optimistic v pessimistic. What happens when an agile process fails. What are you prepared to let go of? Leadership in the chaotic space. How to properly apply agile methodologies in a non-technical workplace? Is it really apathy? Unlearning. Good advice on talking to executives. Gamification. How to scale improvement. Climate change, organisations, global politics. Retirement options. Learned helplessness. Innovation day - format, structure. Who is the customer? Where do you values come from? Estimation. Capacity versus velocity. Cross tribe sync. What stories have NOT been told? What are good patterns to slice work?

Lean Coffee is an innovative way to have valuable discussions among practitioners. It supports idea generation, hypothesis creation, experimentation and the ability to either create valuable outcomes or valuable alternatives - all in a matter of minutes. Lean Coffee creates a safe place to test ideas, before rolling out in the real world environment. - Pete Omotosho, Agile Coach.

How has it evolved from the original format?

While discussing the changes the group had made to the original Lean Coffee format with my friend Dan Prager, he commented that we had evolved in a very agile way. The group had experimented and nudged the format to suit the needs of the group.

Here are the specific changes we have made and why I think they are helpful:

• We no longer vote of the backlog of ideas. We simply leave the agenda items in the order that they are placed into the backlog. This speeds up the start of the meeting and most folks still feel they get value from the meeting.
• Often times the backlog starts quite small. Backlog items are often added as the meeting continues. Occasionally we run out of backlog items and the meeting finishes early. I have only experienced this once or twice in the three years I have been attending.
• We often have left over items that we bring back the following week. Recently we added a zombie cards column for sticky notes that are brought back from a previous week for the author to reintroduce if they feel it is still relevant. After 1 or 2 weeks of not being claimed we simply discard them.
• While not a big problem, I noticed that newcomers were sometimes shy about putting items into the agenda. So we added a newcomers “queue jump” column, so that anyone who identifies as a newcomer can have their agenda item expedited to the front of the queue. This helped newcomers feel very welcome and insured they get some immediate benefit for turning up at 7:30am in the morning.
• Item owners are free to move their item down the list if they feel there are more important items on the agenda.
• We have an introductions agenda item that gets recycled and played most weeks. It has evolved to a quick introduction (name and role) and saying something positive that happened to you in the last week. This creates a powerful positive energy in the group and gets everyone involved in the discussion early. It often creates moments of celebration, esp. for significant achievements of longer term attendees, e.g. getting a new role/job, family events. Applause and cheers are often heard.
• Sometimes we use the last slot for general business, such as advertising upcoming meetups, talks, conferences or polling the group. Though this is usually done by placing a sticky note into the agenda rather than reserving the last slot.
• We no longer split the table if the group gets too large. Instead we have some principles and guidance to help the group include all the voices in the conversation. We often have 10-16 people at a large table that normally seats 12.
• When voting to continue, if there are a few folks who want to continue, then we often do a shorter 2 minute time box to allow those folks to finish what they wanted to say.
• When the timer goes off, we generally let whomever is talking finish what they were saying. The speaker is usually mindful of the time box having completed, so they usually try and wrap up there point. However it has been seen that if someone is quite passionate then they need to be reminded that the time went off, by setting it off again, or by showing your vote down again to the group, esp. the speaker.
• Just for fun, we sometime change the headings on the Kanban board. For the not started column we have had titles such as “Mystery” and “What the…?”. For doing we have used “In the moment”. For done we have used “History” and “Let it go”. Sometimes we have pictures instead of words for the column titles.
• We have added an action or sometimes called “Go away and think about it” column to remind folks to post a reference on the meetup site to something that was discussed, often a book, blog, video or other reference.
• We post a photo of the Kanban board on the meetup site each week as a record of what was discussed and any actions that were suggested. 

On the surface Lean Coffee is about people getting together and learning in a format that ensures everyone gets an opportunity. Go a bit deeper and it’s a collective of some pretty awesome people who are crazy enough to get up early and trudge into the city in the dark one morning a week because of a shared passion for sharing knowledge. – Terry Corbett, Senior Agile Project Manager 

The retrospective

This year we decided to abandon the normal Lean Coffee format for one meeting and to instead run the meeting as a retrospective on our Lean Coffee format. The inspiration came from World Retrospective Day that was occurring that same week.

Here are the results of the retrospective:

What we liked

• Introductions at the start of each meeting. They are usually short, name and role, but there are no rules so sometimes people like to share more.
• The express queue for newcomers.
• People freely share information and opinions.
• People sharing their worries and problems.
• Making newcomers feel welcome and included.
• Chatting to folks before and after the meeting.
• Always something to learn.
• Comfortable zone (feels safe and inviting).
• Making new friends.
• Building a support network.
• Supported by fellow humans.
• Finding out that you are not alone and others can help.
• Good Company.
• Helping others.

What we didn’t like so much

• Early morning starts, though for most it works as allows them to fit in with other commitments to family and work. That’s why they were here, for others that don’t like the early starts they don’t come!
• With a large table it can sometimes be hard to get a word in. Can also cause a popular topic to go for a longer period as more people want to talk about it.
• Background noise can be an issue, esp. for the more softly spoken and for those at the end of the table near the café’s coffee machine.

What we wanted to change

While splitting the table may solve some issues, the group decided that they would rather address the issues that the larger group presents by writing our purpose, principles and some simple etiquette guidance to ensure everyone gets a chance to contribute. We thought that we should remind the group of these at the start of each meeting to help bed them in and to introduce them to newcomers.

I have been attending Tuesday Morning Lean Coffee for just over two years now, and consider it my professional home. The group is welcoming and friendly, and the conversation intelligent and diverse. More topics are covered within an hour at Lean Coffee than I come across in the rest of the week. Here I have the opportunity to test my ideas in a safe space as well as learn from my peers. I would recommend it to anyone that works in the Agile/Lean space. –John Carey, Agile Coach.

Our purpose, principles and guidance

Our Purpose is to network, share, support and collaborate with one another.

Our Principles are

• we create a dynamic agenda
• we use time boxes and voting to democratically keep the conversation flowing
• we strive for inclusion and a voice for all

Our Guidance

• try to allow a pause after someone finishes talking to ensure they have really finished
• put your hand up if you are having trouble getting a turn to talk
• be mindful of letting others have a turn to talk

When I moved to Australia one year ago looking for exciting challenges—new country, new career and new language—I discovered Lean Coffee and found a home with these lovely people. Everyone is keen to learn and collaborate together. I really appreciate that the group always supported and believed in me when I sought out advice on challenges I faced. Thanks to all of you I got it! (new job)- Sergio Herreros Carballo, Business Agility Associate Consultant.

What I get out of Lean Coffee?

Using the following integral model I thought about what I get out of Learn Coffee through the lenses of the four quadrants

I have learned so much from the group over the last few months. The experience and knowledge shared by the members are invaluable and practical to both our professional and personal lives – KJ Wong, Sales Coach.

INTENTIONAL – Mindset, Beliefs, Values, Emotions,

• A sense of belonging to a caring and supportive community.
• Happiness and Joy from the positive stories during the introductions.
• I feel safe to express my ideas.

I’ve attended Lean Coffee sessions since the early days when it first started in Melbourne - in those early days I learned a lot, but over time I’ve found other value from the sessions. The value of the network of people who attend is one of the key things. Nowadays, I also find value from helping others and how others can challenge my thinking in a particular area. For these reasons, I keep coming back. - Daniel Ploeg, Kanban and Agile Coach/Trainer.

BEHAVIOURAL – Behaviours, Skills, Knowledge

• I have often brought a problem that I am experiencing to the group. The group will either coach me to help me find a solution or offer suggestions from the own experience and knowledge to give me options that I can try.
• Listening to the problems that others have and thinking about the options that I would consider and then listening to what the group offers expands my knowledge and awareness of the possible approaches.
• Directly offering help to others from my own experiences allows me to practice my mentoring skills.
• Asking powerful questions allows me to practice my coaching skills.
• Others often mention ideas and approaches that I was not aware of. Being aware of other approaches allows me to read up on these to expand my toolkit. One problem with this is that my reading backlog is always growing faster than I can read.
• Demonstrating the agile mindset – experimenting and adapting the process to suit our current group’s needs.
• Lean about new techniques all the time.
• Review of Books, Articles, Conferences
• Alerting us to upcoming meetups, events and conferences.
• Advice and suggestions to your problems from the brains trust. The most common response to every question or problem posed is why? I.e. what is the purpose behind the problem posed, or another way of asking, what is the context of the problem?
• A place to practice my thinking through verbalising thoughts and getting into dialogue with others in the group. It’s a great way of accelerating your learning.

I get inspired. I always walk away learning something and inspired to learn more - Adrian Selley, Head of Managed Innovation and African Drummer.

CULTURAL – Relationships, Culture, Org values, Org Purpose

• Great friendships that endure outside of the group.
• The group is very accepting of everyone that comes along.
• Growing my career network, both physically and virtually (e.g. LinkedIn).
• Job introductions, directly or indirectly via networking.
• Networking for research.
• Watching the dynamics of the group as they discuss an issue provides insights into group dynamics
• It’s a diverse group of male, female, older, younger, different roles such as Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, Innovation Leads, Project Managers, Change Consultants, Lean Consultants, Developers, Sales Coach. This diversity promotes more interesting and often useful perspectives. It also helps to challenge my own thinking and biases.

I enjoy and get great value for putting a particular lean or agile coaching situation I have with a client onto the table, and draw on the brain power and experince of all those there in a time boxed way. You are bound to get additional views or alternatives to consider. Priceless. I have learnt that we don’t know it all, and the access to this experienced group knowledge base in the Lean Coffee helps a lot. - John Farrow, Business Agility Coach.

SYSTEMS – Processes, Tools, Org Structure, Environment

• Actual space has heavy wooden table. Background noise is OK, though worse at one end near the coffee machines. Location is very accessible – on top of a train station in central business district. Coffee/Tea/Breakfast and snacks are available at the café in the same area. They sometimes provide free toasted banana bread cut up into small pieces to the group.
• We have moved the location around depending as café owners have changed or closed or a better venue (acoustically) has been found.
• There is minimal org structure, we self-organise, mostly. The host arrange the venue and timing and advertise this on meetup.com

Energised for the week by the discussion from those with similar values but different experiences. It is an injection of new/different ideas and ways of thinking on diverse agile related subjects. – Geoff Rushworth, Agile Coach.

Why do people keep turning up?

One of our regulars for the last year or so offered the following reasons for why he keeps turning up:

• Friendship
• Conversation
• A sense of belonging
• The group is very accepting of everyone
• Learning something new, something to follow up and learn more about. Something to try.
• Ways to improve myself, reflect on ones self on how to be better. How to try to make my team better. (I reflect on the conversations on the way to the office after Lean Coffee)
• Sometimes feel out of my depth, but I still learn from the conversation.
• A sense of hope - that there is better out there. Especially hearing success stories.
• A sense of not being alone in the troubles that are encountered by agile practitioners.
• Advice on any problems that I may have Agile related.

I get friendship and good conversation with various people in the Melbourne agile community who are willing to share and learn from each other. I always learn something new and interesting whenever I attend a Lean Coffee session and feel privileged whenever I can contribute. – Holger Paffrath, Integration Specialist

The Future

Most weeks there are a few newcomers to the group and thus the group is always changing. There is also many veterans of the group that regularly attend for the sorts of reasons given in the various quotes in this article. The needs of the group will evolve over time so we will continue to inspect and adapt our format over time.

So whether you’re a local, a newcomer to our city or just visiting from out of town or overseas, we would love you to come along and join in. You can be assured of a warm welcome and we hope that we can help and support you with any issues or topics that you want to bring along. You will make new friends, gain new knowledge, feel more positive, and it might lead you to a new job! 

You can find us on meetup.com.

Lean Coffee is the best reason to get up a bit earlier on a Tuesday morning. People are generous with their time, experience and questions which really get me thinking, pondering and reflecting. A great weekly habit for continuous improvement, personally, professionally and for how we do things at work. – Kim Ballestrin, Co-Host of Lean Coffee, Principal Consultant