Lean Agile KC 2020 Speaker Series - Heidi Helfand

We created this community-oriented event five years ago to give back. The events of 2020 have changed how we normally come together. While we will miss seeing you in person, we want to keep the spirit of LAKC going.

This year, we chose a local charity, Giving The Basics, to support through this event. If you are able, and want to donate, please do so at the end of your registration process. Thank you for your interest and support.

Our Talk:

Heidi Helfand

Dynamic Reteaming - Coaching Teams Through Change

Teams age and change. It's inevitable. People are going to join our teams and people are going to leave our teams. Sometimes we catalyze the changes. At other times, we need to adapt to the changes that just happen (ex: changes resulting from COVID-19). Part of the work in dynamic reteaming is in understanding and applying the 5 structural change patterns - one by one, grow and split, isolation, merging and switching. The other part is understanding and supporting the human impacts of reteaming. When we change our teams it can be really challenging for people and it takes some transition time to be ready to roll in our new team structure, especially if we were surprised by the reteaming or if we didn't want it to happen. This talk introduces the basics of dynamic reteaming and some coaching techniques to apply when dealing with unexpected changes.

About Heidi:

Heidi Helfand is author of the book Dynamic Reteaming. She coaches software development teams using practical, people-focused techniques, with the goal of building resilient organizations as they double and triple in size.

Heidi is currently Director of R&D Excellence at Procore Technologies. She draws on her vast experience from coaching there, as well as at AppFolio and Citrix Online, where Heidi was on the original development team that invented GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. Heidi is based in Southern California.

About Our Charity:

Giving The Basics (https://www.givingthebasics.org)

Giving the Basics started in the Midwest in 2011 when a small group of people came together to help a family in need. The family was struggling to make ends meet. They were requesting food donations from the local pantry but their basic necessities of life like shampoo, toothpaste, laundry detergent, diapers and toilet paper were not available. These products were not covered by government assistance programs. The family was too embarrassed to ask for these items from other sources, so sadly they went without. The concerned group of people decided something needed to be done. They pooled their resources and agreed to help the family until they were able to help themselves. Giving the Basics was born.

Now entering its 9th year, Giving the Basics has grown by teaming with more than 140 non-profit organizations and 350 local schools to distribute personal care items in the KC area (in both Missouri and Kansas). These hygiene items immediately help low-income families with small children, students, battered women, veterans, senior citizens, former prisoners and the mentally ill. Our services provide products that allow children to attend school feeling fresh, comfortable and open to the learning environment. They help young adults address issues needed to gain employment and have an opportunity for improved health, hope and dignity. From homeless teens to single moms, veterans to recently released prisoners, Giving the Basics positively impacts members of our community from many walks of life. We serve children and families of all ethnicities and religious beliefs.