Volunteering at Scrum Australia 2023

To be honest, I was a little bit nervous. The good news for me was that the Agile community in Sydney and Australia is relatively small. I already knew one of the organisers – Rowan Bunning.

I was accepted! My new baby was born at the end of February and although I was still on parental leave, I was given permission to go! My wife is amazing.

In February, invitations were sent out to all the volunteers, and we got together via Zoom to prepare every week in the weeks leading up to the event. I volunteered to be a “Ranger” – essentially helping out wherever needed. I envisaged this as moving chairs, running microphones, facilitating in the Open Space – whatever what was needed on the day. I volunteered to bring along my DSLR camera to take a couple of pictures.

Day 1

The day had come – as I lived in the same city as the event (there were people flying in from around Australia to volunteer) I decided to turn up early – 6:30am. After a terrible coffee from a service station, I was ready to go!

I met the amazing event organiser Jodie from JEM events First task was to affix column graphics to designate each of the workshop areas. Then to put the event bags on each of the chairs – at the same time meeting Lyssa Adkins. Being star struck! T-shirt kiosk needed to be set-up. Pre-conference stand-up with all volunteers and organisers. My iPhone indicated that I had reached my daily activity goal and it had just turned 8:00am!

I really should have brought my “Coaching Agile Teams” book for Lyssa to sign (with a Sharpie) – I’ll bring it tomorrow.

We decided pretty late on to video record – the whole conference! With Rowan, we quickly set up a camera and tripod. Perfect. Wait …. sound! Linking to the PA system was a no-go as we didn’t have the correct cable. No worries – we will just use an external microphone! Tested. Worked, hopefully we can post edit the sound later. Perfect. Wait …. batteries in the microphone are dead. Ill duck out to the bad coffee service station. They had one battery of the right size! Tested! Perfect! Wait …. the cameras we have only records every 30 minutes before stopping. So, I volunteered to ensure it was recording all the time.

The keynotes from Lyssa Adkins and Joseph Pelrine were exceptionally enlightening. During the keynote speaker presentations, the attendees were in the main conference room. For us volunteers, there wasn’t too much to do but run microphones and usher people.

Outside of keynotes, sessions were held in 4 smaller rooms. Each of these rooms had a volunteer to “manage” the room. They introduced the speakers, ensured the room was set up correctly, ensured the room wasn’t at capacity and made sure there was sufficient resource (pens, paper, Blu Tack etc) for the sessions.

The remaining of my day was taking still pictures on my camera and monitoring the video camera. See gallery below. I got to participate in the coaching clinic just after lunch.

End of day 1 was spent setting up the main room for Open Space.

Day 2

The service station coffee didn’t get better. As volunteers we helped set up the room for Open Spaces. Each volunteer was assigned a letter to help facilitate the break-out area if needed. The Open Space was a tremendous success. We covered topics such as Agile4Good to using drawing to facilitate meetings.

Forgot my “Coaching Agile Teams” book for Lyssa to sign (with a Sharpie). Damnation!

Audree and Michael Sahota – were amazing!

Day 2 has tons of breakout sessions. Lots of participation and learning. 16,000 steps both days. Countless flights of stairs.

Summary

If you are hesitant in attending a Scrum Gathering – don’t be! You will learn A LOT but most of all, you will meet amazing people in your community.

Volunteering has been the most rewarding experience in my career so far. I got to meet the leaders in my industry in Sydney, Australia and in the world.