Why my Pecha Kucha is like it is and why I needed to read it from a manuscript
At the XP-Days 2009 in Karlsruhe, Germany (twitter tag #xdde09) I held a Pecha Kucha. As the people really seemed to like it, I thought to write a little on how I came up with the Pecha Kucha.
The topic was already used twice on conferences: How did we, at mobile.international get on the agile track and how did we develop.
Here is an example of a presentation on that topic, given on Seacon 2009:
Scrum-Einführung bei mobile.de
So, to me, it was more than welcome to drastically change the format to Pecha Kucha and thus concentrate on the small message I had:
- We came from a mode where we saw all development as one large project, more or less.
- We migrated our product from Perl to Java. That took us quite some time and this meant no new features for a long long time.
- Close to the end of the migration we decided to go Scrum.
- That wasn‘t easy but still successful as we delivered all of the first projects successfully.
- We learnt that it‘s not all process but a lot of technical skills and craftsmanship. So, all the time we are oscillating between improving process -> working on skills -> improving process -> and so on.
- We‘re not there yet, still lots to do in Test Automation, config management, etc.
- Even more to do … ;-)
- Same time, we introduced Kanban for maintenance, quite a difference again …
I could go on for ages, but I had only 6‘40‘‘.
I prepared myself for the presentation by looking into some examples on the web and some other presentation styles, like the famous Lessig style. The most impressive presentation that I came across was Identity 2.0 by Dick Hardt (click and enjoy, I did so many times), which is one incredible piece of entertainment, information and incredibly precision. I really do not want to know at all how long Dick sat on the preparation. The video of his presentation is so effortless and flawless, I still can‘t believe it.
Anyway - it was clear at once that copying all the these brilliant guys makes no sense at all. I had to find my own way.
So I sat down and thought a little. I damned myself for the title of the presentation. The oh-so-funny travel metaphor got painful right away. Did I really want to keep that up through the presentation? Try to find a nice travel picture explaining for all the topics and concepts of your move to agile. Thanks for that.
So, I tried to refrain a little from the travel. I had no idea. Then I went running. As so often, that helped. At least, now I had a clear picture of the storyline and more: It should start out in a dark valley. Depression! But we knew there is a promised land. And there must be some way to get there. Then I could describe that we need a (travel) coach, show that promised land in all bright colors now. It‘s boring if things just go right from here on, so I needed some retarded moment in the presentation where the progress turns into bad luck again and then finally everything turns good anyway.
With the storyline and the pictures and colors in mind it all of a sudden was clear to me that the presentation needed a certain language. Like an old Humboldt report. Old language. Or even like a the language of one of my favorite writes oin one of his best books (where he describes his terrible fiction of a journey to the north pole): Christoph Ransmayr - Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, close to the boarder of being elevated or declamatory, nearly embarrassing myself. I wanted that language not only because it would fit the pictures but because I had the idea that it would be quite contradictory to the sheer speed of the Pecha Kucha format and make the experience more intense and dynamic and seemingly slower. Just like a really good musical solo - e.g. by Pat Metheny - where the musician starts of slow and then goes through all feelings possible for human beings, then suddenly dies and then comes to life again, not exploring only all notes and styles but also every volume there can possibly be. OK, I‘m not Pat nor any other master of anything, but I least I could give it all I got.
In a Sunday afternoon (and, I confess large parts of the evening) I got a good script together and had some pictures chosen. Now the embarrassing part: I knew I couldn‘t learn the whole text by heart. I also knew I couldn‘t talk in that style in free form, just like that. I guess, even Ransmayr couldn‘t do that or maybe he would. (It‘s a bit like talking old Latin language, try that. Yeah, I know, there are some who can, but hey!) But me: No way. It was Sunday, the presentation had to be held on Thursday, lots of work at mobile.de left to do. No chance of learning the script.
So the choice was: A) I do not learn the script well, get stuck somewhere, Bernd Schiffer‘s picture presentation software for the Pecha Kucha wouldn‘t stop, I would make a complete fool out of myself, not ending the 6‘40‘‘ presentation at all. B) I make half a fool out of myself, betraying the idea of Pecha Kucha and script read the whole thing, including feeling like a jerk and not getting the whole credit for the performance of course, as I didn‘t go the whole way.
Of course I decided for the latter, feeling bad about it. Finally, the Pecha Kucha was quite a success. But I do know that this would still have been so much more impressive had I just learned the sucker by heart and really ripped it all of. (Some written feedback on that point I got as well, damn!)
Anyway, you can have a look at the pictures here.
Journey Into Agile Land - Pecha Kucha
Finally a special Big Thank You! to Bernd Schiffer and Martin Heider who make such a good and dedicated job at establishing Pecha Kucha as an accepted and interesting format at the nicer conferences!
As @berndschiffer mentions in the comments, I’m also happy to include @jens_coldewey in the praise of having hosted the Pecha Kucha sessions at #xdde09. Further, I did not know (or unhappily forgot) about @StefanRoock pioneering this format already on the JAX2009! Thanks again to all involved for making it happen!
Thanks for your reading patience,
Markus
