Courses being run by Women In Technology

Women in Technology very kindly list my courses on their site, so I'm returning the favour.

Upcoming Training Courses – September to November 2009

Putting your Strengths to Work

Date: Friday 25th September 2009

Time: 10am to 4pm

Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH

Cost: £150 + VAT

Do you want to discover your strengths and find ways to put them to work for success at work? It is a fact that 8/10 people feel miscast in their roles and ONLY 20% feel they are able to do their best work everyday, despite the best efforts of companies and HR Teams - are you one of these people? Or, are you simply in a job that you enjoy but know that you could love it, if only...! We know that the most successful women are those who understand themselves and their strengths and because of this, they can develop strategies to meet the demands of their daily lives, their careers and their families.

The agenda will be designed to focus on you, your strengths and what you do best and will be highly interactive so you learn from each other and Helen and create an action plan for success in your current role as well as consider potential steps for securing your next role.

Once you have signed up to the workshop, you will be provided with a unique access code via email to complete the online StrengthsFinder assessment and find out what makes out stand out. Once you have completed the online assessment, you simply send your results to Helen (dogoodconsulting@hotmail.co.uk) to start your journey of discovery.

This experience may change the way you look at yourself and the world around you!

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/putting-your-strengths-to-work

Goal Setting in Times of Uncertainty

Date: Wednesday 7th October 2009

Time: 6pm to 9pm

Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH

Cost: £57 + VAT (£65.55)

This workshop is for both people who are struggling to set goals (life, career, business) in these uncertain times, and people who have clear goals but wonder if they have to adjust them or if they need to be strong and determined. We will also help everyone who is in survival mode and has stopped having goals and dreams (except having a job and paying the mortgage, that is).

We will look at

• WHAT kind of goals can survive uncertain and challenging times and what kind of goals have to be revisited and corrected

• HOW goals can be revisited and re-valued without being too much influenced by the current mood and how goals can be adapted or replaced with something better. We will also cover how set goals make us perceive the situation around us and behave accordingly.

• WHY goals have to be revisited and re-valued even during “normal” times and why goals can actually can hold us back to see new opportunities in times of change.

• WHEN these re-valuations work best and when not to ditch your goals. When determination is only stubbornness and when it is the only way forward. When do I need to change my goal and the correct way of achieving it.

• WHERE you can find help and inspirations of successful goal setting and when “going with the flow” works better.

Benefits

You will learn about your personal preference and strengths in setting successful goals and get hand-on tools to use in times like these as well when everything works to plan.

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/goal-setting-in-times-of-change-and-uncertainty

Beyond Conflict - What's your conflict colour?

Date: Friday 16th October 2009

Time: 10am to 4pm

Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH

Cost: £275 + VAT (£316.25)

There are ways to “have a nice conflict” conflict that improves interactions and gets results. Understanding how to manage and read the true motives behind conflict can be good for your IT career. Feel in control of your behaviour choices — both when things are going well and during conflict. This workshop will teach you to go beyond surface behaviour to identify the motivation behind behaviour. It becomes easier to accept a person’s actions when you understand what drives you from within.

Prior to attending the workshop you will be asked to fill in the SDI ®, Strength Deployment Inventory. The SDI ® is a powerful conflict management and relationship-building model and tool. In easy to remember vivid colours, you will learn how differences in relating styles represent individual strengths and how these differences might lead to conflict.

Workshop features include:

• Learning to resolve conflict early by understanding personal conflict style and that of others

• Gaining an understanding of your conflict style

• An opportunity to practice and develop your ability to prevent conflicts

• Understanding the dynamics in interpersonal relationships and what happens in conflict situations

• Practising ways of preventing conflict

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/beyond-conflict-whats-your-conflict-colour

Positive Politics for Powerful Female Leaders

Date: Thursday 22nd October 2009

Time: 6pm to 9pm

Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH

Cost: £57 + VAT (£65.55)

What do you think of when you hear 'politics'? Machiavellian? Self-Serving? Or 'behind the scenes influencing efforts? Studies reveal that women place greater value on building relationships with people they like (whom they share something in common) over those that will promote their careers (strategic alliances around business issues). They also tend to focus on getting things done rather than on the larger strategic vision. And finally, the research shows that women tend toward perfectionism more than men do. They expect everyone to follow the formal rules, the plan or the official path to getting work done rather than the informal, blinding them to others’ agendas. These are our blind spots when it comes to being ‘politically savvy’.

During this training session you will learn 'The Rules of the Game' and how to be positively political to enhance their career development and satisfaction.

Rule #1: Like the lottery... you have to play to win

Learn how to ‘re-frame’ the concepts around politics so that you feel comfortable ‘playing the game’

Rule #2: Don’t get upset, get even.

Learn how to defuse any denial or resistance you might experience related to organisational politic

Rule #3 Treat Stakeholders as they would like to be treated

Understand two political power styles and how to flex your style more effectively

Rule #4 Be Yourself, but Be the Best Self You Can Be

Learn how to leverage your natural style to ensure you are ‘heard’ and supported

Rule #5 A Good Idea Alone is not Enough

Learn how to ‘message’ appropriately

Rule #6 Don’t light a candle to place it under a bushel basket.

Learn how to promote yourself and your team with decent boldness

Rule #7 Past Performance Predicts Future Behaviour….For Women!

Learn how to use your track record to tell stories about credibility and trustworthiness.

Rule #8 The world isn’t fair and the sooner you realize this, the better!

Learn how to ‘level the playing field’ by spending time on ‘the right things’ instead of ‘doing things right’.

Rule #9 There are Friends and there are Allies

Build your network strategically.

Rule #10 Only Powerful people Can Effect Powerful Change

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/Positive-Politics-for-Powerful-Female-Leaders

Proactively Polishing Your Profile to move Beyond the Boys’ Club

Date: Friday 30th October 2009

Time: 10am to 4.30pm

Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH

Cost: £213 + VAT (This price includes a copy of the book 'Beyond the Boys Club').

The most successful women working in male-dominated fields know that you can't win the game if you're not willing to play the game. These same women understand that the best way to change the game - and make it work for them - is as a key player - not as an outsider. In this evening workshop, Beyond the Boys’ Club author and executive coach, Dr. Suzanne Doyle-Morris will take a interactive approach to look at how career progression, especially in male dominated fields, is a blend of aptitude and attitude, manoeuvrability, understanding office politics, coupled with self awareness and confidence. Women who get ahead are those who make key decision makers aware of their wins. When you work with men you have to learn how to play the game and get comfortable raising your profile the way they do. We need to learn how to play with the boys in order to move beyond the boys club. We should take the best of what they can teach us whilst maintaining a sense of our own integrity, individuality and independence.

This course will help you:

• Develop self-promotion skills to increase professional visibility.

• Identify strategies for career enhancement according to your values and current options.

• Improve ability to influence others and develop effective relationships.

• Increase visibility for achievements in ways that are individually authentic

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/proactively-polishing-your-profile

Style DNA for Women in IT

Date: (TBC)

Time: 6pm to 9pm

Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH

Cost: £57 + VAT (£65.55)

Research has proved that “People do buy from people”. Enhance your career prospects by improving one of your strongest assets: the way you look, dress, hold yourself in the office.

This workshop will offer you a step-by-step guide to:

Making the right impact: communicating gravitas, confidence and reflecting your desired level of professionalism

Building awareness of subtle and subconscious influencing tools: gain understanding of the psychology of colour and how you can use it to complement your influencing objectives

Understanding your own, unique Style DNA: unlocking your personality, identifying your strong points and conveying those to clients, employees and other stakeholders.

This interactive workshop will help you avoid common styling slip-ups and ensure maximum influencing opportunities for you.

You will leave with:

• An understanding of your own personal Style DNA, and ultimately, your Personal Brand
• Insight into your own personal colour characteristics and how to utilise colour psychology to influence
• Tips for successful corporate attire
• Tricks to facilitate the casual dress dilemma from Business wear to Business Casual wear
• Confidence in implementing tricks to enable you to create memorable impact with clients and stakeholders

Please bring with you to the session:

• Your preferred item of office-wear (or the one that you get the most compliments
• when you wear it)
• Your favourite accessory (e.g. a scarf, a piece of jewellery, a handbag, pair of shoes,
• a belt etc.) that you wear to the office

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/style-dna-for-women-in-it

Building a Confident Brand

Date: Wednesday 25th November 2009

Time: 6pm to 9pm

Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH

Cost: £57 + VAT (£65.55)

We all know people who think positively and act confidently even when the cards seem well and truly stacked against them. The individual personalities of these people will vary enormously – some will be quietly spoken and others the life and soul of every occasion. What characteristics do confident people share?

Are you intimated by senior or overly confident people?

Do you find yourself say ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no’?

Do you avoid putting yourself forward and miss out on opportunities?

The session will help you define your personal brand and build confidence in yourself. Tips and hints on how to take deliberate control of your behaviour, thoughts and emotions – your brand! The goal is to show you how this could have a huge impact on your self confidence and your reputation both in and out of work.

What are the workshop objectives?

• Building a personal image and confident brand
• Developing a personal brand plan.

Topics to be covered:

• Why you need a brand
• Big brand lessons
• What’s changing for you?
• Building your image
• Identifying your brand values
• Personal brand inventory
• What makes you different?
• Confidently marketing yourself
• Connecting with other
• CEO of Me Inc
• Personal brand plan

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/building-a-confident-brand

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)

Four great ways to Learn...

(...and one you might not like)

Learn from Somebody Dumber than You

"Every man I meet is in some way my superior." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

We were in Athens (ah the joy of European Union Research Projects) and I was talking to some Polish guys. I was suggesting that before we start writing any software, we should go and do some "low-tech" activities with the school kids who were going to be the final users of our fantastic new technology. I'd say this guy was in his late forties - lets call him Marek. He was director of a medium-sized software company with maybe 50 employees. "What can a 10 year old teach me!" he snorted.

I told you there was going to be one that you didn't like, you can skip down the page if you want, but this is the interesting one. Hear me out. As you get older, you get smarter and smarter, and wiser and wiser. You get more and more skilled in whatever it is that you do. You get fancier and fancier titles - hey aren't you Chief Head General Technical Development Officer of Grand Vizier High Poo Bah right now? You're really important right? So, here's the problem. The higher up this mountain of achievement you get, the harder it is to find anybody "smarter" than you to teach you anything in your own field. All the books are for beginners, and the gurus? You went to college with the gurus, that guy stole your girlfriend, that woman's CTO of your chief competitor, she's not going to teach you anything. Do you see where this is leading? You're climbing a mountain of enlightenment, but you're also digging yourself a hole. The more and more senior you get, the fewer and fewer people can teach you anything in your direct field of expertise. But as if that isn't bad enough, the more and more senior you get the more and more danger there is of what Roger Fisher calls "status spillover" and I call "status creep."

Status creep is the insidious assumption that because you are very important you know everything there is to know about everything. And the more important you get in your organisation, the more the junior people around you will collude with you in this deluded opinion. In my opinion someone like Richard Dawkins is a status creep but that's a rant for another blog. In short it's the "What can a ten year old teach me?" attitude.


Richard Dawkins - stepping outside his area of expertise? (Picture courtesy of Torley)

Status creep is very dangerous because you can very quickly get to a point where you think that what you don't know isn't worth knowing. The question is, ARE YOU SMART ENOUGH TO LEARN FROM SOMEONE DUMBER THAN YOURSELF? The attitude that everyone can teach you something is an amazing one to have. If you can (at least every now and again) approach the world with this attitude, there's the possibility of carrying on learning until your final breath. Well, if you are, then that's where I come in. I'm not as smart as you are. I don't know everything there is to know about your business. I don't know everything there is to know about project management or even about Agile. I do know a bit about communicating Agile concepts. I do know a bit about putting people at their ease in training courses and giving them the opportunity to look at their work from a different point of view and improve their skills and techniques. I know which Agile concepts people have the most difficulty with (stories, velocity) and I know ways of easing them through these difficulties.

So, if you're down and troubled and you need a helping hand. You might sit down and ask yourself some of these questions.

• What can I learn from someone who earns half my salary?


• What can I learn from someone half or a even a third of my age?


• What can I learn from someone I don't like?


• What can I learn from the people who work for me?


• What can I learn from my boss, who's a complete idiot?


• or even... What could I learn from a trainer?

Those other four great methods of learning.

Read a Book

Books, audiobooks, DVDs and other "informational products", you don't have to read. You can listen to it or watch it on your iPod. Books etc. can be very informative. I hope I'm not telling you anything new here. Of course, theory is no substitute for practice, just a practice is no substitute for theory. I start on many new topics this way and sites like Amazon are great for suggested further reading. And - I know I shouldn't say this but it's true - bittorrent sites like Pirate Bay are great for checking out informational stuff, like audiobooks, especially for business and software development, (a representative of the FBI may call) before you actually buy.

Find Yoda

Find someone who knows it all in your field. An expert, a guru. This can be very good, but it can be harder than you think for several reasons. First, you've got to find your guru, of course, gurus are few and far between, so this might take more time and effort than you expected. Second, gurus are in great demand - a lot of people will have had the same idea that you've had - so the guru will probably have put some obstructions in the way to make it hard to get to him. Third, in order to get anything out of a guru, if there is something that he can teach you, YOU have to do lots of work. This guy is the guru. He's not going to go to the effort of spoon-feeding you all the basic concepts you need to get started. He's not going to bother with you at all if you haven't even got the basics. He's not going to go through everything he says and make sure that it's all on the "same page." Tim Ferris has written very convincingly about this in his book "The Four Hour Work Week."

Buddy Up

One of the quickest and most powerful ways to learn anything is to watch and listen somebody who is just slightly more advanced than you. If you know any small children who have a slightly older sister or brother you'll know what I'm talking about. This is one of the main advantages of pair programming.

Disadvantages? Could be that pretty soon, you know what they know and they know what you know. This shared vision and shared approach can be great, but if you don't have anybody in the team who's reading about new stuff, or questing for a guru, there's a risk that things can get stale.

Just Do It

Teach yourself. Don't read the manual. The world is full of self-taught writers, musicians, programmers and mathematicians. There are tremendous advantages to this approach. You don't know any better - so many great advances have been done because the people who were doing them didn't know that they weren't supposed to be able to do that. You can go at your own pace none of that feeling left behind or getting annoyed because you got it and others are still struggling. And you can follow your passion - you can do the things that you want to do. And there's an even more powerful advantage to this method because, when you do decide to use one of the other methods, learn from a guru, find a buddy, read a book, you'll be intimately acquainted with the problems and so really want to know the answers.


Paul McCartney - self-taught. (Photo courtesy of Slagheap)

Of course, there are some problems as well. Following your passion can also mean "avoiding the hard bits" and "avoiding the embarrassment of getting it wrong in public". I've written about this a bit here at "The Loneliness of the Self-Taught Programmer."

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)

Agile Lab Courses

Scheduled Training Courses

Date	Title	Location	Fee	Contact
Friday 27th November 2009	Building the Lean Web Development Team	Central London (Venue TBC)	£350	Email mark.stringer@gmail.com or phone 07736 807 604