From San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE, covering Big Data SV 2016. Welcome back to theCUBE and the Big Data Silicon Valley event, we've been live for the last couple of days and tonight we're being joined by a whole bunch of the members of our community to talk about some of these core Big Data issues. This segment we're going to spend some time talking with some of the industry influencers, some of the leading analysts in the business and I've been around analysts a lot and this is one of the best groups that I've ever been a part of assembling here. I wanna introduce each of them in turn and I'm gonna ask them to introduce themselves. So Tony Bair of OVM. Okay, I'm Tony Bair, I'm principal analyst with OVM and my coverage basically is data management, database management and Big Data. And basically the, really the core, I guess the theme of my coverage is looking at what will make Big Data a first class citizen in the enterprise. Excellent, Mike Galtier of Forrester. Yeah, Mike Galtier, principal analyst at Forrester. It generally cover advanced analytics and Big Data platforms. So I'm co-author on the predictive analytics wave, on the streaming analytics wave, on what we call the Big Data search and knowledge discovery wave, a few other waves, Hadoop waves as well. So covering everything Big Data. You're one of Forrester's big surfers and George Gilbert of Wikibon. So my name's George Gilbert. I'm the chief Big Data analyst at Wikibon. I like to say chief, but no Indians. And I'm a techie by heart and I like to cover how the technologies work, but I think what's ultimately more interesting is how we're gonna apply them. And I think that having Peter here to help steer us with that kind of discipline is gonna be a good experience for us. Well, George you're still here, so I haven't driven you nuts yet. So you heard me talk about this evolving role of Big Data and digital business. And I know Tony, you for example, talked about making digital or making data a first class citizen. So I'll kick off some questions and then we'll open it up for everybody. I'll wander out into the audience and really, really frighten you. But Tony, why don't you talk a bit about what it means for data to become more of a first class citizen within the enterprise? Right. Well, it really goes on a couple levels and part of it is really looking at fairly mundane governance level, which is that basically with Big Data, you need to know what data is in your data lake. And the thing is that you need to have the same type of confidence that the data that's in that data lake is as protected and managed as it is in your enterprise databases. And so in the Big Data space, we basically started with a raw platform and so we've really had to invent as we've gone along. We've found is that we've really had to adapt and extend governance. And so I think that's been a real key challenge for the Big Data community. But the other part, which is really more in terms of what the advantage is and really were the big payoff is basically is looking how data basically can basically make a competitive difference. And that's where I really see a really key role for machine learning because ultimately it's going to transform not just analytics, but applications so that basically your supply chain application will have embedded analytics with embedded machine learning. You will not have to worry about having to program different machine learning algorithms, but it will make you smarter. And that's the type of thing that gets me very excited. Yeah, Mike, I was, until recently, I was at Forester with you and got to know your research extremely well. And one of the advantages that you bring to the table is great visibility both in the technology and many of these new business problems, what I call the problems of demand through some of Forester's research about customers and how customers are evolving. Why don't you identify, can you help identify a few of those key issues that are starting to percolate up? Yeah, so first I sort of use this framework. There's four types of insights that a business needs, strategic insights. Those are used to make decisions about should I build a new building here? Should I acquire this company? So there's strategic insights. Then there's KPI insights. How is my business performing? There's different time frames for these as well.  So there's sort of a spectrum, and across that spectrum, you need four types of analytics. You need descriptive analytics, which is more of your traditional BI. You need predictive analytics, and that's a little bit about what Tony was saying in terms of using a combination of statistical and machine learning algorithms to build predictive models. You need streaming analytics, which is all about what's happening in real time. Think IoT, and then you need prescriptive analytics, which is, okay, what am I gonna do? I've predicted this outcome. What's the next best course of action? So what our research shows at Forester is that the most focused insight that companies are looking for is that about the customer, right? Because if you can predict how the customer will behave, perhaps you can serve them better. And you can serve them better, not tomorrow, but right now, right? Because the consumer is increasingly connected as well. So I think what's behind big data and what's behind all of those companies on the exhibit floor is moving towards providing all those forms of analytics, but doing it cheaper, doing it faster, and especially using more advanced forms of analytics, not just reports that someone throws on the desk. And by the way, things like visualization tools, which have been very hot, I don't see those as particularly as useful as other forms of analytics, because I think they're really flashy tools, but how many insights are really gained from those? So I think companies should refocus their efforts more on the advanced analytics, more on the predictive modeling and prescriptive analytics. They're increasingly in service to that fundamental question of engaging the customer. Yes, yes. So George, we've talked predictive analytics. I find it fascinating that we can almost look at the history of the industry if we look at it from the problems that we've solved, the relationship between data and time, it's inextricable. OLTP recorded what happened in the past of spreadsheets and a lot of the writing documents inside was about telling people what's gonna happen in the future, and this real, real hard problem of what's happening right now. How do we compress the time to move data through the analysis chain to get to faster to that real time notion? Okay, let me start with a usage scenario that I think might be relevant, which is Jeffrey Moore has done a great job of popularizing the notion of systems of engagement, but he talks about it as a sort of a consumer, internet service provider class user experience tied into a traditional enterprise application. But it's when you start peeling away that the foundation that you need to build that, that you get to some of the answers to the questions you're posing, which is for one, and following on Mike's comment, you can't anticipate and influence and guide the customer's interactions unless you have a machine learning model in the back or at least a machine learning model and sort of snapshot it out a predictive model that says, here's how you should guide this customer. And then creating that model, in the past we had a database over here and a batch load over, was it daily, weekly, whatever to the data warehouse that might have, if it was very advanced, it would have cranked out a model and then model would have gone back into the operational application. Now we broke down the entire pipeline into a bunch of mix and match engines and that's what the Hadoop, that's the Hadoop analytic pipeline. And we thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread because it was 5 to 10% of the cost of your typical data warehouse appliance. And then we got all this flexibility, you had incredible choice. And then we woke up one day and we realized we were in the same position we were with PCs when in the 90s, Gartner did a study and found out that the average annual cost of maintaining a PC was $6,000. And so this was, with our big data pipelines, it was like that Verizon commercial where you have 150 people behind you, can you hear me now, can you hear me now? Anyway, the shorter answer or the end of the answer is that we're revisiting simplicity with technologies like Spark. It doesn't replace Hadoop. It complements storage and management and it replaces some of the analytic engines. It's not all totally mature but I think there's a fair amount of agreement that it can deliver what we used to go to these Nixon match engines for. And Peter, you asked about sort of data as a first class citizen, right? I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking, well, okay, it's really higher than that. It's analytics but really it's predictive, right? So I like to think what does it mean to be a predictive enterprise, right? Where every decision you make, wouldn't it be good if you could have a certain probability, a better probability that what that decision was gonna result in, even if that decision is about what to offer a customer or at the strategic level, what company to acquire. I think there's an opportunity to use that data to create predictive models and I think once companies do that on all levels, they will become a predictive enterprise and guess what, there already are predictive enterprises. It's called Google, it's called Facebook, it's called Amazon, right? Those are the companies that are truly predictive enterprises. They're using it across the board for everything. And in many respects, it's almost the difference or the differentiation between some of those time frames, the prediction versus the operations, is starting to blur that the future is a series of operational steps that can be mapped out in advance. Well, there's another concept that I talk about a lot which is called perishable insights, right? There's many insights, it's perishable. You get it immediately, right? There's some things where you get that insight if you don't act on it, you're done, right? It's really easy to think of some stock trade or something. But increasingly, as consumers are connected and your B2B customers are connected, that window goes down, right? So how are you gonna capture those perishable insights? So it's not just about throwing it into a data lake and doing that analytics, that's insufficient. You need that but that's insufficient. You also need to do real-time analytics to capture and then act on those perishable insights. And then the other thing that came up in one of the CUBE interviews, the notion of today's perishable insight or this context perishable insight, like, oh, my heart rate's too high, becomes tomorrow's not so perishable insight when I have to go to a doctor because I work out so much. I mean, it's just... I have to go to, this is not my problem. I'm talking about a friend of mine. I have to go to a doctor and actually, that data now becomes not so perishable. In a new context, it takes on a new role and a new source of value. Tony? Well, there's another way of thinking about which is really breaking down the barrier between basically transactional application and analytics and that traditionally we did transactions and analytics we did after the fact to figure out how we could do transactions better the next time. What we're finding out now is basically through the advances in hardware in memory processing, this can now be done fast enough. And in fact, basically at the speed of today's business where you're trying to give, but basically, let's say, a next best offer, you're trying to engage a gamer, you're trying to basically stop some intrusion in real time. Integrating analytics with the transaction is not a luxury, it's a necessity. Right, so do we have any questions from the audience? Is anybody, so we got one, so let me see if I can take my incredibly fit self and we got a microphone here. Yes, there it is, Lawrence. Thank you, sir.  I am Phil Hotston, I'm with Sama Technologies. So a new buzzword that I heard today with a meeting with a customer, this is from Mike, towards you, a new buzzword that I heard today from a client that I was working with, talks about building not just a data lake, but an intelligent data lake. Can you tell me where you think that trend is going? Well, I think it's gonna go to an advanced intelligent data lake. It should be predictive as well. Yeah. Autonomous, yeah. So, yeah, so I haven't heard this, but I think what they're probably referring to is like the first notion of a data lake is that we just have silos. You know, we have a portfolio of hundreds of applications and the data is just everywhere. We have some of it in a data warehouse, but the data warehouse itself has become a silo, so let's just get it all together in a data lake. No intelligence. The intelligence is that now we finally have the data together, so now we can do some more sophisticated analysis. The intelligent data lake could mean, I don't know what they're referring to, but could mean we're seeing some companies now adding continuous analytics on that data lake, right? Starting to do machine learning to build models in that data lake, not using the data lake simply as a repository, as sort of a landing zone for data that is then pushed up to a data warehouse or to another platform analysis, but actually continuous analytics. And if you look at an example of this Google, Google Dataflow, which is sort of their real-time batch slash streaming platform in one, that's really that technical approach that I would say is probably similar to a intelligent data lake. Another question? James, say who you are. Is it on, guys? Hello? Did I turn it off? Yeah, James Capilos with IBM. I'm also a former Forrester analyst, but it's a material here. The notion of perishable insights was really interesting. In many ways, you can look at those as they're perishable in the sense that they may be very short-lived in terms of windows, but they may encode very important response loops to things that might happen in the future. And that's algorithms, essentially. So I'd like to hear what the panel's thought is in terms of how do you, in terms of governance, there's data governance that you should be doing in your data lake. But how should you be doing algorithm governance or model governance so you can preserve those perishable insights algorithmically so that they can be used in the future when those particular scenarios present themselves? How can you make those kinds of perishable insights discoverable in the future when somebody's building another next best action application that requires those kinds of assets? Yeah, it's a good question, Jim, because using a real-time or streaming analytics platform, it doesn't magically ingest data and figure out what to do. And this is why it's also important to have a batch processing regime as well. So you're gathering all of this data, you're building models, and once you're confident with that model, then you can inject it in the streaming engine to detect those, but it's a continuous process because models are based upon correlation, not causation, so they can go out of whack. So you have to continuously update and monitor those, but you asked another question, too, which I thought you were asking about how do you trust the algorithm? This is a big problem as well, right? Because some of these algorithms that are just running, a business executive has to make a decision. A data scientist says, here, I found the perfect model. That model could have implications of millions of dollars if it's wrong. And there's techniques that companies use to overcome that. I mean, Amazon, for example, is constantly testing models. They'll do an AB test or sometimes it's known as a champion challenger for those models, but there's also a big issue as more models are used, how can we trust those models from a business perspective? I think another issue there that was also like, are we using the right data set? Are we looking for the right signals? So it's really both models and data sets. I would add that there's sort of like a third derivative, Jim, which is that as we get to in that S-curve chart, when we're up to the right where we have sort of intelligent self-tuning systems, you never really take the data scientist or the human out of the loop, but you can apply machine learning to the analytic pipeline more and more. So it might evaluate new data sets to see if they are valid predictors or really if they have a positive correlation, if they add to the fidelity of the model. And you can even go so far as to have them benchmark a model against an existing one and to keep essentially the existing one from drifting. So I guess what I'm saying is there's a runtime one, which is the one we're all familiar with. And then there's a design time one that we'll come, we'll see in several years out. Just one thing to add to that, which is that what's really essential is to have, I mean, it almost sounds cliche-ish, but you need a good effective collaboration environment. So basically where people have insights, let's say on different data sets or in specific models or algorithms or know what to apply in certain scenarios, your domain experts or whatever, you need to have some sort of way of sharing that. And eventually over time you build up, I mean, like I don't want to sound like a, basically like I'm trying to promote like a knowledge management system, you know, but you need something very dynamic and maybe there's kind of like a Yelp rating system or whatever. I mean, that's the type of thing which hopefully the community will start to kind of figure out, but we need collaboration and to pool our collective intelligence. And one thing I'd add to that, James, I'm gonna move on. One thing I'd add to that is very quickly is that it is easier to govern hardware and software than it is to govern human beings. And so the other thing we haven't mentioned is that as this machine learning, as its system does more self-tuning, we can translate policy directly into software and that's gonna have an enormous implication how things run. One more? Okay. Who are you? That's a really good question, independent consultant. On a related point, I have a question as you move to real time, how do you see companies dealing with data quality? You know, as a consultant, I always talk about it as the Mickey Mouse problem, like almost every company has Mickey Mouse as a customer in their data set somewhere. It's a really good question with regard to data quality. And the thing is that what we've, through our research at OVM, we've really sort of, and I realize that what you're talking about is a slightly different use case, but there's your traditional analytics where you're making some hard and fast decisions that must be audible, and therefore that data has to be as watertight as possible. You need data where you have, let's say just for arbitrary sake, let's say a 90% confidence rating. Then you're doing the exploratory where you're basically trying to figure out what's the right data to look at, what's the right problem, what question to ask. And there, basically, if, let's say you, if your data set is not totally complete, maybe you've missed some click streams or some tweet streams or whatever, it's not a showstopper. That being said, basically, when you're dealing with a real time stream, you need to know the provenance of that stream, the provenance of the source, I should say, and take that into account in terms of whatever decisions you're making on that stream. All right, so I wanna thank our panelists, Tony, Mike, George, great to see you guys again. And we're gonna reconfigure the stage and bring up some customers and talk about how the doers are getting things done. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thanks.


Let's please all join in a few moments of centering silence. Please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn, number 300, and the words are also located in your order of service. Welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience for each individual, as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Grevler, and on behalf of the congregation, I want to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning.  Newcomers are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library, which is directly across from the center doors of this auditorium. Bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. Please also look for people holding teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would welcome visiting with you. Experienced guides are generally available to give building tours after each service. If you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our National Landmark Meeting House across the parking lot there, please meet near the large glass windows on what's your left side of the auditorium after this service. We welcome children to stay for the duration of the service, however, because it's sometimes difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively acoustical environment. Our child haven right back in that corner and the commons outside are excellent places to go.  This service can still be seen and heard well from those areas. This would also be an excellent time to turn off any devices that might cause a disturbance during the service, especially cell phone ringers, please. And I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly. Maureen Friend is on sound today and Smiley is our lay minister. Penny Mori is our greeter and ushers include Doug Hill and Smiley and Karen Jagger. Jeannie Sears is filling in back in the kitchen because Jeannie Hills is not well today, so if anyone else can please join Jeannie after the service to help back in the kitchen that would be excellent and thank you very much for that. Please note the announcements in the red floor insert of your order of service, which includes upcoming events at the society and provides more information about today's activities. I have some to highlight right now. Those include Capitol Times editor and FUS member Paul Fanlin would like to extend an invitation to attend the Cap Times idea fest next weekend to any of us as his guest. Anyone associated with FUS can go to captimesideafest.com and use his code, which is Paul Fanlin as your guest as your code for free admission that's very generous thank you. So see Michael after the service if you have any questions. The music department search committee, be still my heart, has begun the task of finding our new music director and they are interested in knowing your thoughts regarding our music program and the role it plays here at FUS. There is a table set up out in the commons for you to visit after today's service. It's over by coffee. Please do stop by, discuss your thoughts, fill out a note or complete the prepared survey sharing your ideas and wishes. Another one here. As a founding congregation of the Dane Sanctuary Coalition all members of FUS are invited to attend the first coalition meeting. It will take place next Sunday, September 17 at 7 p.m. at the Madison Christian Community on Old Sock Road. And one more thing, nope that one's not good anymore, that was just for nine o'clock, so never mind, geez, again welcome. You trust today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. My name is T.K. Browning. I'm the new ministerial intern here at FUS. You might remember me and my family up there in the balcony. We were members here from 2012 to 2014 while my partner was getting her master's degree at UW. We've been the last three years in Austin, Texas where I went to seminary and my partner began her PhD work and now I'm here and I'm super excited I'll be here for this academic year and hopefully get to know a lot of you. I have the opening words today, the opening words are by Vern Barnett. On the cusp of autumn we gather as members of the great congregation whose membership embraces all humanity, whose temple is the world, the world of nature, of history, of inner self. Our faith is to proclaim the sacred presence of life. For every person is a child of the universe. Beyond all barriers of age, race, nation, class, creed, gender, ableness or loyalty, we arise within each other, rely upon each other, and are secure in ourselves only when all are secure and free. Our covenant is to lift the burden of every oppression, open the locks of every captivity, heal grief and anger, and live in communion with all persons. Thus we do resolve to honor the planet, each person, and our own capacity to shape a better future. And on this day we hold in our thoughts the people of Houston in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, the Caribbean islands, and Florida as Hurricane Irma continues her approach. We now have the lighting of the chalice, if you can all please stand and join me in the words found in your order of service with the help of Karen. Ours is a faith in people, hope for tomorrow's child, events in a continuity that spans all time. It looks not to a perfect heaven, but toward a good earth. It is respectful of the past, but not limited to it. It is trust in growing and conspiracy with change. It is spiritual responsibility for a moral tomorrow. We're about to sing him 347 Gather the Spirit, but first I ask you to turn to your neighbor and greet the good people next to you. Good to see you. Matt here, excited for classes to start today? You don't have to be, but you can be if you want. The story today is Good People Everywhere by Linnea Gellin. Today in neighborhoods all over the world, millions and millions of people are doing very good things. You got a picture up here if you want to take a look. Today carpenters are building fences and houses and repairing homes that have been damaged by storms like the hurricane in Texas and in Florida. Today moms and dads are cooking dinners for their families. And cooks are working in kitchens, making meals for people who don't have homes. Doctors and midwives are delivering babies and gently passing them into the eager arms of their parents. Teachers are teaching math, spelling, and reading skills. Musicians are opening their hearts and playing beautiful music. And dancers are leaping across dance floors, practicing performances that will bring joy to their friends and families and their communities. Today people are planting seeds, picking fruits and vegetables, and driving them to grocery stores all around the world so you can have a ripe, juicy orange in your lunch. Who likes oranges? Oh, I want orange vans. Today a child is trying her very best to do well on her science test. And a teenage boy is helping a young child who is sad and lonely. Today a first grade boy, who's a first grader? Anybody a first grader? A couple over there? A couple over here? A first grade boy is helping a friend who has a skin knee.   Anybody here a big sister? A few of those? She's holding her baby brother while her mother runs across the street to help a neighbor. Today millions and millions of people will do very good things. And so will you. I wonder, what will you do? Can anyone tell me something good that they've done or that they're planning to do to help somebody? You fix somebody's home or you're planning on it? Anybody else? No good ideas? Lula? No? All right. Oh, you got one? Okay. What's that? Ah, giving some treats to your chickens. That's nice. All right. It's time to go to class. We're going to sing him 182, A Beauty in a Life, while you guys head off to classes through these back doors back here. Hey man. I'll come with you. We continue our service with the first of two readings. This is drawn from Herman Melville's novelette, Billy Budd. And for those of you who remember your high school literature classes, Billy Budd is a sailor serving in the British Royal Navy, and he has been falsely accused of conspiring to mutiny by the ship's jealous and abusive master at arms, John Claggert. Billy is enraged by this false accusation, and he strikes Claggert in the forehead inadvertently killing him. The crew and even the captain personally believe that Billy's act was justified, and yet protocol does demand that a court-martial be held aboard the ship. So here in this particular passage, the captain, Captain Veer, addresses his crew. Your scruples, do they move as in the dusk? Challenge them. Make them advance and declare themselves. Come now. Do they import something like this? If mindless of palliating circumstances, we are bound to regard the death of the master at arms as the prisoner's deed, then does this constitute a capital crime whereof the penalty is a mortal one? But in natural justice is nothing but the prisoner's overt act to be considered. How can we adjudge to summary and shameful death a fellow creature innocent before God and whom we feel to be so? Does that state the matter aright? You sign your sad assent. Well, I too feel that, the full force of that. It is natural. But do these brass buttons that we wear attest that our allegiance is to nature? No, to the king. Though the ocean which is in violent nature primeval, though this be the element where we move and have our being as sailors, yet as the king's officers lies our duty in a sphere that is correspondingly natural, so little is this true that in receiving our commissions, we in the most important regards cease to be natural free agents. When war is declared, are we the commissioned fighters previously consulted? No, we fight at command. If our judgments approve of the war, well, that is but coincidence. So too in other particulars, and so too now. For suppose condemnation to follow these present proceedings? Would it be so much we ourselves that should condemn as it would be martial law that is operating through us? For that law and the rigor of it, we are not responsible. Our vowed responsibility is this, that however pitilessly the law may operate in any instance, we nevertheless must adhere to it and we must administer it. The second reading in a somewhat different vein but related to the overarching theme that we'll be following this morning comes from Harvey Cox's essay, The Market as God that was first published in 1999. Cox taught at the Harvard Divinity School for many years. He is the author of many books on the interface between religion and culture. He writes, since the earliest stages of human history there have been bazaars and rialtoes and trading posts, all markets. But the market was never God because there were other centers of value and meaning. There were other gods. The market operated within a plethora of other institutions that restrained it. As Carl Polanyi has demonstrated in his classic work The Great Transformation, only in the past two centuries has the market risen above these demagogues, these phonic spirits to become today's first cause. Initially, the market's rise to Olympian supremacy replicated the gradual ascent of Zeus, above all the other deities in the ancient Greek pantheon. But that ascent was never quite secure. Zeus, it will be recalled, had to keep storming down from Olympus to Quell, this or that dire threat to his sovereignty. Recently, the market is becoming more like the Yahweh of the Old Testament, not just one superior deity contending with others, but the supreme deity, the only true God whose reign must now be universally accepted and who allows for no rivals. Divine omnipotence. That means the capacity to define what is real. It is the power to make something out of nothing and nothing out of something. The will but not yet achieved omnipotence of the market means that there is no conceivable limit to its inexorable ability to convert creation into commodities. But again, this is hardly a new idea, although it does have a new twist to it. In Catholic theology, through so-called transubstantiation, ordinary bread and wine become vehicles of the holy. In the mass of the marketplace, a reverse process occurs. Things that had been held sacred transmute into interchangeable items for sale. Land is a good example. For millennia, land has held various meanings, many of them numinous. It has been Mother Earth, ancestral resting place, holy mountain, enchanted forest, tribal homeland, aesthetic inspiration, sacred turf, and much, much more. But when the market's sanctus bell rings and the elements are elevated, all these complex meanings of land meld into one, real estate. At the right price, no land is not for sale. And this includes everything from burial grounds to the cove of a local fertility sprite. The radical desacralization dramatically alters the human relationship to the land, and the same thing happens with our water, our air, our space, and perhaps eventually the heavenly spheres. And as your program notes, at two o'clock today, Marilyn and the rest of the Oakwood Chamber players will be holding a concert at Oakwood Village West. And we hope maybe some of you will take advantage of their lovely music. So it appears that the Wisconsin legislature is poised to pass legislation opening the door and rolling out the red carpet for the Taiwanese tech manufacturer Foxconn. This is touted as the opportunity of a lifetime for a state that has been hemorrhaging factory jobs for quite some time now, and the governor and other supporters of this initiative claim that it's going to be a really great deal for Wisconsin workers, and that perhaps it will motivate other manufacturers to relocate in or to expand here in the state of Wisconsin. All a good thing. There are, of course, drawbacks. A percentage of Foxconn's workers in the state's southeastern counties will undoubtedly commute here from Illinois. The $3 billion worth of inducements offered to the company by state officials that translates into a $230,000 public subsidy for each job created, ensuring that Wisconsin residents will be paying higher taxes for at least a quarter of a century. The deal also sets an unhealthy precedent by relaxing environmental protections for wetlands and groundwater and the Great Lakes in order to reduce the cost of building and operating this massive facility. But as that phrase that was added to the border crossing signs of welcoming people to Wisconsin in 2010, as it says, Wisconsin is open for business. Really, really open. Now, of course, no one wants to say openly that we are doing the Foxconn corporation itself a huge favor, instead, job creation. That has long been the mantra repeated by conservative politicians to rally support for proposals such as this. That prospect has been trotted out to promote massive strip mines in the Northwoods and confined animal feeding operations in the state's midsection. I find it somewhat ironic that while state leaders emphasize the importance of greater employment in the private sector, even if heavily subsidized, they argue that thousands of decent paying public sector jobs are dispensable and unnecessary burden borne by hardworking Wisconsin families. All of this is, of course, completely consistent with the near sacred principle of free enterprise and market-based solutions. Or as President Calvin Coolidge famously put it just before the Great Depression, the business of America is business. Degree of commitment its proponents have made to this idea is, I think, rather extraordinary. Some religious conservatives even claim that free enterprise is supported by biblical teachings and is therefore blessed by God. Others argue that since public sector jobs are largely sheltered from market-driven forces, they create these unwelcome distortions in the self-regulating system called the market. While others are convinced that concerns about the environment, concerns about climate change expressed by environmentalists, these are designed merely to paper over their inherent hostility toward free enterprise. And all of the foregoing lends weight to Harvey Cox's thesis that the free market in certain key respects now resembles a deity, and in particular the God of the Bible. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, the Almighty declares in the book of Exodus. Or as Cox puts it, the market is not just one superior deity contending with others, it is the only true God whose reign must be universally accepted and who allows for no rivals. Since 1999, when Cox's essay first appeared, the trends that he describes have accelerated. In the book of Exodus, there are many other lobbyists, organizations like Alec increasingly shaped public policy at all levels of government, the privatization of education, of prisons and even the defense establishment continues apace. In former times, as Cox notes, there were other centers of value and meaning, other gods that restrained the market's activities, but that is less and less the case. In the Atlantic, Franklin Four, the former editor of the New Republic magazine, describes how this has even affected journalism, the vaunted fourth estate, the bulwark of our democracy. In this digital age, he says, competition for clicks, around your mouse, around your computer, that provides evidence of market share, and it thus plays a decisive role in determining journalistic content. The rise of Donald Trump is a case in point, Four says. He understood how, more than at any other moment in history, the media need to give the public the circus it desires. Stories about Trump yielded the sort of traffic that pleased the data gods and benefited the bottom line. Or as Leslie Moonves, president of CBS, put it during the presidential primaries, Donald Trump may not be good for America, but he sure is damn good for CBS. Now I focused on the free enterprise system and the degree to which it has come to monopolize our thinking and our behavior around values, because it does lead to a point that we would all do well to consider. That when we elevate a single principle, even an ostensibly good and useful one to a position of ultimacy, evil often follows in its wake. Now we usually think of principles in positive terms, don't we? They reflect the bottom line standard to which we appeal in making important life decisions or in crafting social policies. And so we will speak admirably of those who will take a principled stand or who adopt a course of action as a matter of principle. And we are not entirely wrong to hold such people in high regard, but only if they have engaged in a thoughtful process of discernment and if they have made an honest attempt to consider the full implications of their choices. Mindlessly applying a principle simply because we are convinced that it's good and right is liable to result in considerable harm. For instance, in our market driven free enterprise system, pretty much any object or any human activity can be and is commodified. Things that have been held sacred transmute into interchangeable items for sale, Harvey Cox writes. And typically this is not the result of any kind of conscious decision on people's part, it's just our society's and our economy's default position. Now in his essay, The Two Economies, Wendell Berry reaches much the same conclusion as Harvey Cox. Berry contrasts the industrial economy, which exists to serve as human needs and to create wealth exclusively. He contrasts this with the much more comprehensive great economy, but he worries that the latter, the great economy, will not survive the former, the industrial economy. Unfortunately, he says, the industrial economy does not see itself as the little economy, it sees itself as the only economy. It makes itself thus exclusive by the expedient value of valuing only what it can use, that is, what it can regard as raw material to be transformed into something else. The industrial economy is based, he says, on the invasion and the pillage of the great economy. It's a grave error to suppose that we can prescribe the terms of our own success and live in ignorance of the great economy, for we are all ultimately dependent on the great economy for our survival. This dilemma that Wendell Berry describes was already impacting Native Americans in the early 17th century as William Cronin's careful study of the New England landscape makes clear. Now unlike the Indians, in considering this their new home, European settlers thought about the landscape purely in terms of commodities. And thus they tended to ignore many of the constraints, the competing values and principles that govern the Indians more considerate use of the land. And as a result, Cronin says, capitalism and environmental degradation went hand in hand, a trend that has continued unabated to this very day.  But we can point to any number of other principles, instances in which the single devotion to a value to this less than comprehensive principle has proven unwise. So let's go back to the trial of Billy Budd, as imagined by Herman Melville. Everybody on that ship likes and admires this young sailor. Everybody knows that the master at arms, John Claggart, resents the popular Billy and wishes him harm. Captain Vera and his crew believe in their hearts that Billy did not mean to kill Claggart and they probably feel that the man had it coming. And yet the king is the king. His law is the law. Circumstances, palliatives, do not matter a bit. Billy Budd must have. So here Melville offers a telling example of what can happen when we place a single principle over the welfare and the justice due to a person. It happens all too often. Consider those arbiters of criminal justice in today's world who adamantly defend the death penalty, even when they know full well that some unjustly convicted men and women are going to also be put to death. Or consider those who would prohibit minors from obtaining birth control because of their moral objection to premarital sex and unwanted pregnancy just a penalty that a girl must pay for her moral laxity. And what about those folks who would preference the Second Amendment over every other provision contained in the U.S. Constitution? For them, nothing is more important than supporting those who believe that they have the right to carry at any time and to any place the weapon or weapons of their choice. Second Amendment absolutism. Now these are kind of controversial and I suspect that most of you who are listening to me would not agree necessarily with those principles or grant them that kind of ultimacy. But there are other less controversial principles that also become problematic if we invest them with too much authority. First, do no harm. That is often cited as a foundational principle of medical practice. It is attributed to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates and so this injunction carries with it the weight of many centuries. And so many people regard it as axiomatic. We invoke it thoughtlessly. First, do no harm. But that's one of the problems. We don't bother to think through such a venerable principle and consider that it might have limitations. The editor of Harvard University's health publications, a man named Robert Schmerling, is himself a physician and he has taken on the challenge of examining that particular principle. And he doubts that standing alone, it really works very well in practice. He says if physicians took it literally, no one would have surgery even if it's life-saving. We might stop ordering mammograms because they could lead to a biopsy for a non-cancerous lump. In fact, we might not even request blood tests because the pain, the bruising, the bleeding required to draw blood clearly is an avoidable harm. The fact is, he said, when difficult life real-time decisions must be made, it's hard to apply this principle. First, do no harm because estimates of risk and benefit are so uncertain and so prone to error. And so Schmerling recommends a more nuanced approach to medical treatment, one requiring considerably more forethought and an exercise in risk assessment. But he would not abandon completely do no harm because as he puts it, it is a reminder that doctors should neither overestimate their capacity to heal nor underestimate their capacity to harm. What about the golden rule? That's another pertinent example. Many people, Christian or not, invoke the golden rule as the principle they would first appeal to in making an important moral decision. But do unto others as you would have them do unto you, it presumes that our own personal preferences have universal validity. It could be argued that do unto others what they would have you do unto them that it makes a lot more sense because it forces us to consider their perspective on what is right and good and not just our own. But if you think about it for very long, the alternative version runs into problems as well which is why the ancient Greek philosopher Confucius insisted that a principle like the golden rule should not be treated as a shortcut eliminating the need for moral reasoning but only as a starting point for serious deliberation. Which brings us at last to our own Unitarian Universalist principles of which there are seven and you can find them printed on the back of today's program as they typically are on Sunday mornings. These principles vary in age but the collection as a whole is a little over half a century old and as a denomination, we revisit these principles from time to time to see if they really are still working for us. Now they are quite general as you see but that is intentional because then they provide leeway for individuals and communities to be open and creative in developing strategies to accomplish them. Now personally, I'm not altogether happy with describing these as principles. I would rather call them precepts. Neither beliefs that we are required to uphold nor rules that we are obliged to obey, they can serve us rather as aspirational statements similar to Albert Schweitzer's reverence for life, aspirational statements that we strive to live up to knowing that we are always going to fall short. This approach has more in common with an Eastern faith like Buddhism than with the Abrahamic religions in which principles are often accorded this transcendent status that makes them pretty much non-negotiable. Regarded as precepts, we can better understand and appreciate how taken together these statements qualify and yet compliment each other. And so the first, the first speaks to the inherent dignity and worth of human beings. Good thing. But it confines itself to matters of human concern. And so by itself, it would seem to prioritize our species' interests over those of other sentient creatures. But this anthropocentrism is complimented by the biocentric seventh principle which draws our attention to the web of life, Wendell Berry's great economy, which is also worthy of our concern and to which we owe our existence. And there's the fourth principle. It calls on us to engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Its focus is inward and personal rather than outward and social. But the fourth is balanced by the second, a principle that encourages us to promote justice, equity, and compassion. Principle three, it extols congregational life, the life we share within First Unitarian society. But number six stresses the need to move beyond all parochialisms and further the goal of world community. And so it goes, these seven intersecting principles are not arranged in some kind of rank order. And so there will always be occasions when one of them might take precedence over the other. Taken as a whole, they are meant to serve as Confucius maintained as merely a starting point for more serious moral discernment. Now in conclusion, the environmental advocate and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben. McKibben stresses the need for us to remain flexible in the way that we understand and apply our principles, even the principles that are most dear to us. And addressing the cause that he has adopted as his own, climate change, he reports that he's had conversations with many colleagues, many movement purists as it were.  Isn't that hypocritical? McKibben disagrees. He says, it's the best gas that you will burn in the course of a year. We live in a world that we want to change, he says. And so some hypocrisy is the price of admission to that fight. Now whether we call it hypocrisy or compromise, the point is that in matters of principle we cannot evade the responsibility of making some hard personal choices. Like a physician, we must ponder whether the benefits of a course of action outweigh the risk of harm. And let us always remember, it's not the principle that we are meant to serve, only the persons that it's meant to support. Blessed be and amen. It is now time for the giving and receiving of our offering. And throughout the church year we do share our offerings with other worthy community organizations. And today and next week that organization is G-Safe and you can read about their good work in your program today. Please be generous. This week is a community of memory and a community of hope. To this time and this place we bring our whole and occasionally our broken selves. We carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past seeking here a place where they might be received and celebrated and shared. In our cares of the congregation book today we have several notices. We've led a candle today for Kelly Radford who had surgery last Thursday and we sent her and her husband our best wishes. And then there is a thank you here to Rob Gerke for the lovely and efficient new book cabinet that is in our commons area. And if you go over to where we sell a wonderful selection of books you will note that there is this incredibly handsome cabinet that Rob made for us and so we appreciate that very much. David Zend Schrankler is a familiar face here at FUS but he is facing presently some legal hardship and he would benefit from our well wishes and our prayers. So these go with him. And of course our thoughts today are with those people who are preparing for a hurricane in the state of Florida. I've talked to many people who have relatives in Florida particularly on the west coast where the eye of the storm is right now hitting and that includes some members of my own family as well as members of Dan family and others in our community. So we are wishing them safety today. And so now I'll let us sit silently for just a moment or two in the spirit of empathy and of hope. So by virtue of our brief time together today may our burdens be lightened and our joys expanded. Our closing hymn is number 293. And so now may the peace of the deep lakes, the peace of the meandering rivers be with us. May our spirits soar as weightless as the September clouds and may the warmth of companionship reassure us into our journeys beyond the golden sunset. May the lure of truth yet to be known draw us onward even unto the autumn of our days. Please be seated for the postlude.


Giving kiddos opportunities with the elements of art helps them to express themselves in unique and different ways. I try to focus on the different artists maybe once a month and just introduce new ways, new elements, new ways of creating artwork. Sometimes I'll let them free draw and draw whatever they want, but other times I give them boundaries or limitations on how I expect their art to come out. We focused on the Kadinsky circles last week and this was a fun project to talk about how he uses color and pattern and layers. So when we did our project they were given the background as a rectangle and many options in the circle patterns to use. They just had to make sure that they used the sizes correctly, so the largest circle on the bottom, followed by a smaller one, then a little bit smaller one. And I didn't really give them an expectation on how many circles to use just so that you could see the pattern underneath the circle behind. Art is such a great way to express the kids thoughts and dreams and values through pieces of work.


What's going on infinite family? Welcome back to another video. It's your Virginia's if you guys are new to the channel Make sure you hit that subscribe button and join the family guys. I have the most epic print today up my sleeve So guys, I just got a new dress online. It's honestly pretty cheap But I'm going to be convincing Isaiah that I spent $4,000 on this dress. I don't know what I'm going to tell him if he asked where I got it from He probably won't but I'll make something up on the spot I'm just going to tell him that it's like a super high-end dress and we are going to get his reaction I don't know if you guys can hear by Isaiah right now. It's in the living room. He is playing this new baseball game that came out the other day I don't even want to know about it. Honestly All I know is I already had time to set up the camera before he went and drink some coffee or whatever he did his thing So once I go out there, we are going to get this prank started So guys if you are ready for today's video, don't forget to smash that like button and comment to your needs in the comment section Also, let me know how you guys think he's going to react because I think he's gonna be like what the hell But anyway, let's get this prank started guys. Let's get it really quickly before I go out there I just wanted to show you guys the dress Here it is. Can we get a little commotion for the dress? If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about To talk only but anyway. Yeah guys, it's a little summer vibe. I think it's pretty cute But let's see if Isaiah agrees when he finds out how much it costs. Let's get it guys Let's go this baby. Oh my god. Can you talk this game has a home run derby? You guys saw into these games. Look at that. Watch me smack this one watch watch watch. Yeah, that was terrible. Let's go home run though Yes, it is. Yes, it is. All right. Do you want to pay attention to me? All right. You look nice. What is that? It's a dress? What do you mean? What is that? Okay, how do you like it? It looks very I want to feel that. That looks like really silky. Let me feel that Hmm good quality, right? It's nice. Where'd you get this from? It's like wait, wait, wait, wait. What is the color look off on this? What else is the slip for? And then look You see my back tat or my rib tat. Where'd you get this from? I've never seen this dress before. Also before you tell me that Does the color look off on the TV? No, it looks fine. Okay, so anyway the other day, right? I was scrolling through all these websites You know, I know how I get like spending happy a little bit or like I just like can't sleep so I look at all this stuff online Yeah, that's when you make bad decisions. No, it wasn't a bad decision. Clearly. It's a pretty dress. It's a nice dress Yes, it is. All right, then. How's it a bad decision? Where'd you get it from? I got it from like this French designer website. I've never heard of it before No, not your your French yours French. Yes. Oh It's not your but it's like this. Oh, like I don't know. I think they're located in France So I had an expedited so it was a little bit more money than I wanted Don't tell me you bought some fufu No, I'm serious. It was it was authentic like they have like those badges and stuff online. It was authentic It looks good, but I had to get an expedited. So I had to spend a little bit more than what I How much you paid for shipping? I paid like I think 60 bucks Over all like the total was supposed to be like 4,200 by 4,200 You spent $4,000 on a dress. Yes.  Address what is wrong with it's nice. Yeah, why? $4,000 dress for white because the energy but yo you don't think that's a little insane You could buy two hoopties for that Dollars on a dress. Yeah, it's a little absurd. No, it's not I'm gonna be here wearing $5 t-shirts. Okay, and that's you if you choose to wear that That's on you. I wanted to spend this much on the dress and I went ahead and I did it. They came out of your account Let's not talk about that. Anyway, I came out the joint Babe, I'm serious.  No, don't check Did you use the joint? Don't tell me you used our joint checking for a $4,000 dress is not necessary, bro You did not need to do that. It doesn't matter What do you mean it doesn't matter? It's money out of mind. You just used $4,000. Like it's fine. That's not the point. That's absurd You don't need a $4,000 dress, but I already got it. Our comes and it gets delivered If I end up buying a crazy like car mod or something like that and I think it comes out of the joint checking I don't want to hear nothing. Um, you're not doing that because you're not doing that But you're here for a $4,000 dress with our money, not even your money. So it's like one for my car Yeah, the one that's getting delivered. Yes, bro. I'm spending like four or five K max And four or five K on this on this a maxi dress. Okay, it's a thing Okay, but here's the difference if I'm gonna buy something for my car I'm gonna use my money now our joint where it's our money. So technically I paid $2,000 for that dress then if you spent four Yeah, because this is for the pleasure of both. I wouldn't even spend $2,000 on myself for something to wear Okay, well, this is for both of us. Now. Why is that you gonna stain on that? There is little pin wipes for that they have like this little white thing So what the tide to go exactly tied to go there we go Tied to go the same my friend happy with our account I was happy until you told me that I paid for it. Well with our account. I got this dress, right? It was because I feel like I don't even want to know what you got anymore.  So you can splurge on yourself, but I can't I don't even remember last time I splurged on myself That was probably the ps5 and I spent seven hundred dollars. What do you mean? You spent seven hundred dollars on the ps5 Okay, 700 that's a lot of money still okay seven hundred dollars for ps5. That's like almost normal compared to freakin $4,000 on a dress. It was actually like 4500 all right, bro I don't want to hear them. I don't want to hear because now every time the number just keeps getting higher And it's honestly just making my blood pressure go up too, but babe seriously like there's reasons why like this I don't care. I don't care. I don't want to talk about it. Why don't you care? I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it Babe, I got this just so I can show you and you can look at me all day. You're gonna keep talking.  Babe, you already explained myself like 30 times. So you're mad just because I got a pretty dress I thought you would like it see Yeah, you like that dress huh look why ain't it why ain't it uh Why come on Leave me to my Derby, let me do what I gotta do. I don't care about your whole wrong derby Better be five dollars and not 5,000 I don't believe you. I'm checking the account. Hold on. I'm just kidding. I spent like 10 grand on the sauce Checking the account right now. I use my own account because I wouldn't do that I use my own account and I bought it on she and by myself Okay, are you happy? Oh I'm trying to credit card to oh my goodness leave me to my game really alone. You stress me out You stress me out. I didn't finish my freaking thing of coffee.  No, it wasn't. Yes, it was you almost gave me a heart attack Honestly, I felt like if I didn't say that it was from our joint account He wouldn't have believed me or he would have been like, oh, I don't care. Yeah, cuz it's your money Exactly, if you want to go ahead and spend four thousand dollars on a dress then you go ahead and you do that So really had to say that it was from our joint account cuz it's not funny That's how I would have meant like I spent like half of that for that dress and that would have got me upset Yes for your benefit. You like looking at me all day. Yeah, but I'd rather look at you All right. Anyway, it is time for today's post notifications. Shout out today's post notification Shadow goes out to daily Lopez. Thank you so much for your love and oh my god I say I love you if you want a post notification shout out All you guys got to do is like comment share and subscribe Turn on those post notification bells so you know if I whenever we post a new video and with all that being said I hope you guys enjoyed today's video and we will catch you in the next one. You see that one Love you infinite fam. No, I'm talking to the family 430 worried about today.  It's center, baby


Welcome everyone. What a good crowd, that's really amazing. So I hope you're in the right session here. I have to give an disclaimer before we get started. So first of all, this session on retrospective is kind of the topic. It's not about any games or activities. Yeah, right? So this is what you can find in a lot of books out there, also on the web and so on. And I just felt that what's missing very often is to look at the skills and capabilities of a facilitator. And not so much on what you do, but how you do it. So this session is about that. So in case you're looking for games, that's not it. That's the one disclaimer. I have another disclaimer which is a bit weird as well because while talking about retrospectives and also things, how you do stuff and so on, first of all, this session here is not a retrospective. So don't tell me later on I didn't eat my own dog's food and so on. So I know that I don't because it's not a retrospective and it's a talk, right? And it's more on the meta level on what's happening in retrospectives. And I hope, and that's why I have this other meetings here as well, I hope that you can also make use of it for other meetings other than retrospectives. The main focus is on retrospectives. Okay, enough about this, I guess. Well, and of course I have for the people who have been in my other session yesterday, they know this probably already. So all of my books here, there's a little bit of a marketing campaign. However, I didn't bring enough books, it seems. So I have three left on their retrospectives for organizational change, which I brought with me. And the cost of delay, that's gone. But in case you're interested after the talk, just talk to me. Okay, I think we can get started, right? Let's see. So that's my agenda. I first want to look at something that you might find a little bit boring, which is I want to look at preparation and design of a retrospective. Then I hope that you find really a lot of value in facilitator and also in specific problems that I've experienced myself and I also have seen others kind of experiencing and then thinking about what to do about this and wrapping up. Okay, for the preparation and design, getting started with a room. So I wouldn't have liked this room, actually. Starting with how many people are in that room, it would be much too small to do anything decent. So the size of the room often makes a big difference. And then also in terms of the location, where the room really is. So the typical question, do we want to do this on-site or off-site? Do we even run the meeting, the retrospective in the room we are working? I advise not to. But I also know that sometimes that's the only option you are having and so you better use that option than not running a retrospective. So I know that too. But I would work on finding a room that's more adequate than your usual working room. Then another thing about the room is what I find important. First of all, can I use the walls and put stuff on the wall? If I can't, which can be true as well, then I have to find a way how to make things transparent and visualize them. So for example, one thing that I really like a lot, and I have no idea if you get them here in Singapore or wherever home is for you, we have statically preloaded flip charts. So I see some people nodding, so some of you might know them. So you just put them on the wall and you don't need any tape, sticky, anything, and so they won't leave any track on the wall. And that's something that you can use all over the place. What I also like about them too is that you can use them as a whiteboard. So write out stuff that you have written on it and pack them together and carrying on with you. Maybe even reuse them. Then another thing in terms of location, I prefer to have a room which is good here where the furniture is movable. Sometimes I have experience and had the retrospective in a room where the furniture was fixed to the floor. You have probably seen that too. It's much harder. However, if you know about it in advance, you can deal with this. So in case you can make explicit what's good for you, what kind of room, then say so. What else do we need? Well, the facilitator, of course. Then there is also the question, which is a typical one, is an internal or external facilitator? Well, this depends also on the needs of the team or the crew you are facilitating here. And remember, external could also be just external to that crew. Then I believe the last question in terms of this whole organizational preparation is who will be in that meeting or in the retrospective? Well, one answer is it's the team. Another answer is maybe it's like one level up management as well because sometimes you need the backing from the management in order to really make some decisions and put them into practice. And if we forget them, we will not get the money, for example, for doing so. So that can be important at times. And another thing that can be important at times is to have the customer with you in the retrospective because the customer brings a different perspective on what has happened. And what we typically do is that from time to time, we have the customer with us. And just as a thought, who is there really? Okay, then so that was organizational preparation and I have to look at my watch. How long does it go to? Half past, right? Then methodology. I always have these difficult words, it seems, in all of my time. Methodical, is that right? I don't know. Methodical, methodical. Okay, oh my gosh. Preparation, sorry. Should have really rehearsed that over and over. So I have done it really in this, I know you can't read it, at least not the half of the room, but I have done methodical preparation in a very proper way which is kind of what I have here, how I present it. Very often it's just a sketch and it's not really proper like that. However, what I always do is think about the timing. So how long should something take? What's the order of it? What's the activity thing I want to do? What exactly is happening there? So it's activity and the method. Then I might have some comments and the actors. So what are the people who are involved with that? So maybe it's more me, maybe it's the whole crew, maybe it's somebody specifically doing something here. So it's the actors who are involved in that activity or method I'm using and then what kind of material is needed. So that's the key thing about like the method or the layout or the design of how you want to run that meeting. Again, which this is also helpful in any kind of meeting, not only in a retrospective. And then the probably most important thing about this is to come up with a plan B. Because, well, I always prepare and maybe I'm really, really German. I didn't say so in advance, but I'm German and so I really prepare myself and do the things in a kind of strict way but I never stick to it because things are happening and so I change and I'm not following this as a plan that needs to be followed but it helps me to kind of anticipate the meeting in advance. And this is helpful for really coming up with good results. So I really suggest you to focus also on a methodical preparation. Can you speak that word? Ha, getting there. Okay, then the meeting agenda and I assume for retrospective you all have seen that. So this is what Esther Derby and Diana Larson came up with in the very famous book which I absolutely recommend and I assume most of you know it, have it and whatever. So the meeting agenda for retrospective is exactly that. So first we set the stage, then we gather data, insights, decide what to do and they have a closing. The interesting thing to me and I just realized I didn't really say much about myself, I recently went through a masters program which was on business coaching and change management and there I learned which is interesting because I've been in that business for a long time, business coaching and change management. It occurred to me the first time that facilitation is really at the core of that, of change and of coaching. And probably this is also why my interest in facilitation is so big. However, why I'm saying this is because of in that master's studies what I learned as well, well there's like a classical layout for any kind of workshop and there the agenda is like that. You have an introduction, then you collect topics, you select the topics and work on them and then you have an action planning and closing. It's exactly the same just different wording than what we have here in the retrospective which also means a retrospective is nothing else than any other kind of workshop if you will and I'm saying this not for maybe downplaying retrospectives I'm saying that this opens up a lot of material for you because you can look up at any book which is dealing around like facilitating workshops or any kinds of meetings and just make that translation and when they talk about collecting topics well that's gather data, right? So it's really, you can make use of a lot of stuff that's out there so that's something that I found helpful. So I'm not really going into details here. I think that I have only one point of setting the stage which I learned some things which I found helpful. Well first of all coming up with a goal for that meeting for that retrospective which is probably not something pretty new however what might be new to you what I always do is for that goal I define an acceptance test with the group I'm working with saying okay when would this meeting this retrospective be a success for you? When would we pass that? So what would mark that acceptance test for that meeting and that's a different maybe attitude to framing where you are heading. Yeah that's the one thing, the other thing and that might be something you do anyway I don't know is at the start and this would be a too big crowd of doing that is I always want to go once round so everyone has said something at the very start I feel like this is opening up something so that people are not afraid so much in speaking speaking up in front of the group once they have been saying something and whatever they say well on the one hand it could be important but it must not be necessarily important often one thing that I like to do is for example write ideas for the acceptance test so when would for you that retrospective be successful and when would you think it would be a failure and so like this is a question we can't get around and so we collect that so that could be a good idea another thing which shouldn't be forgotten and to be honest at times I forget is at the beginning to also clarify any administrative concerns whatever it is how much time do we have available so anything that's outside of the content of what we are focusing on I guess oh yeah that's almost it dealing with time that's not showing the real time that's whatever time I don't know actually that was PowerPoint offering me that when I looked for time so you can take that and I was surprised when I saw that it was running oh it keeps running that's cool okay so in terms of time so one thing which is pretty well known is using time boxes for whatever you are doing however also there you have to be flexible because there is and think of your methodical preparation maybe you thought about well we need ten minutes for that and then you figure people are really in discussion and it probably would be a bad idea to stop here and although you said it's a time box but maybe there's more time needed and so maybe it's good another thing is also in retrospective using a lean coffee approach so just for specific things putting like short times aside and only like dipping into it and maybe last advice in terms of time which is on the one hand obvious and again also I myself forget about this at times is just ask ask how much time do you think you will need is maybe two more minutes okay or maybe you need more maybe less how far are you done and so being more flexible with that so time boxes are a good start but they are not serving every purpose and also you always need some flexibility if your focus is to get results you don't want to just ensure that the time is passing by right okay that's for the organizational for the design and preparation then the facilitator so me, you first of all the definition of it and again that's what I got from this master's study so what the official definition is that the facilitator is an objective supporter servant of the group he she is a midwife for the content meaning not involved in creating the content but helping the content to be created right the problem here is well who is the facilitator maybe you are part of the group maybe you are part of the team this gets harder and harder and so you may have to be very clear in what your current role is are you at the moment really acting as a facilitator or do you want to make a contribution sometimes it's helpful just to move from one side to the other and say okay now I'm a participant and so my perspective on this is blah blah blah right so if you are in this dual role um so the thing is really helping the group the team coming up with something and this is by what you have done in your methodical preparation so providing a method for that meeting and also by visualizing what's going on and by ensuring everyone has a voice so it's not only the talkative people here who are contributing I come back to this just in a I don't know like two slides or something okay so that's the definition of the facilitator a model that I found really helpful is something that's called theme centered interaction maybe it looks a little bit old it's because it is old so it's not that I made it old and the theme centered interaction says if you are in a meeting then there are always at least three things at play so the one is I so how am I here in this meeting and I means well it could mean the facilitator but basically mainly it means the people who are part of that group you are facilitating then so in terms of people the individuals really that's the I so it's really one and the other one right then we have the we which is what's happening with the whole group so speaking of group dynamics we all probably have heard about that and then the third thing is the it which is the subject that topic at hand which is the goal we defined beforehand right and so these three things they are embedded that's what theme centered interaction says they are embedded in the globe so saying in the environment for example in the company or part of that project or whatever so there is there are some constraints that are defined and they are just there now the thing is as a facilitator your task is to provide a balance between the individual the group and the topic at hand and now that you think or you might think oh that's cool so now I figured how to have that balance TCI says well the idea is not to keep the balance but to tip from one to the other because if you completely balance that out nothing will happen because you are stuck basically so you want to focus on the individual and you want to focus more on the group dynamics and you want to focus more on the topic so just ensuring and again this influences your methodical preparation ensuring that all of these three have their maybe own rights and enough time and that yeah you just ensure that they are all there oh yeah there's one more one more really important thing of TCI TCI says so it comes with a few rules and one of the rules is disturbances take preference and what it what it means is I guess most of you have seen that experience that you are in a meeting as a facilitator or participant it doesn't really matter and somebody knocks at the door whatever manager boss comes in and says like oh I need you for a second and please go ahead and keep on with your meeting and so walking up to one guy and then picking him or talking to him and well you could think like okay so I keep going on with that meeting but you can't it's a disturbance that's there and it has to be acknowledged and it's not acknowledging like appreciating it that's not what's meant but it's just there and you can't ignore it that's the point so any kind of disturbance that's there and disturbance most often that come from outside so kind of yeah as I described it or also when you think of the keynote it worked out fine but I felt like oh not much more thunder and lightning and I can't hear anything anymore right we had the thunderstorm and lightning like every morning for the keynote it was like right timing it's a disturbance that's there and sometimes you also have disturbances from the inside meaning that people are very passionate about something because they see their point and they really have to say it and if you kind of kill that well it's still there it's like the elephant in the room and my belief the next thing yeah that fits very nicely to that which is the way well again a difficult world let's see if I can pronounce that constructivistic oh that was good constructivistic well then perspective means that we all have our own truth and we see the world from our own view and angle and we can't assume that somebody else like you have the same view on the world that I have even if we are working together every day it's just like well we are individuals and there is a model that I find helpful which I want to share which is called Fall Truths it comes from human systems dynamics so there's a website as well hsdinstitute.org there are a lot of great models and methods there and the the way it works or what it does is it says whatever we are doing there are always fall truth around us and the first truth is probably the most obvious one which is a subjective truth and the example that I brought with me here today is if we think about noise because I just thought that probably translates to a lot of cultures so there are always people who are like different maybe I'm at the beach and there's really nobody and I still feel like a little bit disturbed because of the waves rolling into the shore because I can't stand noise not at all and then there are other people they go to a rock concert and they think oh this is really not loud enough for a rock band what is that right so we have different perceptions here of course also depending on the context that's true as well but still so I'm not sure if you have seen it I see that a lot and we talk and we do pair programming there are always some people who say well this is disturbing me I'm one of my own office where it's all quiet and all of that so it's yeah well noise is seen differently so that was a subjective truth then we have the objective truth which is something you can measure well in terms of noise you can still measure it but what's something you can deal with that's probably another topic however the official measures say that what people can stand during the day is 40 decibel and during night it's 30 and actually I'm not sure if this is international or it's a European number whatever so there are numbers out there which kind of say this is what's possible so objective truth always something to measure and go against that and then we have on the top something that's called normative truth that's the truth we decide in our team that this is how we can get along with for example it's like this we talk to each other but in a more maybe more silent voice and not so loud so that the people at the other desk can still understand each other and also talk to each other so that we have some agreement there okay these were three truths subjective objective normative and now it's getting complex which is the complex truth that's the question mark saying well all of those three truths are always there no matter what we decide and agree upon so it could mean that one of them takes precedence no matter what we decided maybe I feel today this is really so noisy and so even this what we agreed upon like the silent kind of quietly talking to each other is too loud for me maybe I parted yesterday okay so that's the four truths the way I'm using it if we really get into a heated discussion for example in a retrospective so one thing is for me to know about this that's one thing that I find helpful another thing that I find helpful is I am presenting that model to the group when we have that heated discussion which typically is good enough for people being more aware of that's how it is it's not that only my truth is the right one but there are just people with different perspectives and therefore they have their own truths so that's creating more sensibility here okay then participants in the focus that's one thing that I talked about a little bit beforehand which is thinking about how to involve or engage the participants in your meeting and one thing is well sometimes we just collect the pluses and minuses and so on which I think is not a retrospective way however what's important in order to ensure that not always the same people are talking is first of all differentiate the participation style which is like do stuff which is focusing on the individual only and this goes also back to the TCI right theme centered interaction so individual reflection like that old lady is doing here then another thing is you have a pairing thing where also it's more likely that really the two people are talking and it's not only one is talking and then you might have subgroups or the whole group doing something and interchange between those formats is often helpful another thing interchange between orally and written writing style or maybe you want to draw something that's why I also picked that lady because she's standing in front of that picture so just different styles often also help that different people are participating and a last maybe the simple but most effective one is if you go round I said this already in the opening round that everyone says something and you can use this of course also during the retrospective if you use something and just ask everyone to make a contribution then if you do that please ensure that per person per round you are only allowed to say one thing because if you don't do that maybe you have seen that as well and you said sit in the end of that round everything has been said and you feel like oh I can't contribute and just because the first two guys they were just throwing out like all the five points everyone had on his mind and on the other hand by allowing only this one after the other and just one thing also helps that everyone kind feels of oh we are all thinking along the same lines and otherwise you are so or at least I'm so frustrated that I can say anything and everything has been said that I kind of back up from the whole thing so that's probably a really simple tip but helps a lot facilitator and the pressure you will see in a second why I have that picture here which is if you feel like oh I really don't know what to do here now it's a really weird situation and not sure how to act now or how to facilitate here first step is to take a deep breath just a right oh yeah that's cool the second step is what that picture I thought is for change your physical location so change your perspective and change your perspective really physically this often makes a whole difference we talk often about that changing perspectives but really changing the place you are standing or sitting or whatever makes often a big difference and then observe so that's the third thing so take a deep breath change your perspective and then observe what's going on sometimes if it's really if you feel we are really stuck here I ask the same thing to all the participants so also for the participants one of the most important thing probably here is well maybe the deep breath but really the change of the location where they are sitting this again opens up a lot of things and I thought this is like a really fun what's going on sometimes but you could also use maybe the only game I'm having here well game activity is the Disney method which you could use here so asking people to step into the roles Disney has used like the creative dream or what would happen if so making it a really positive thing and then you have the realistic planner saying like ball but if we want to do this we really would need that and then you have the constructive critic who would then say okay but that's what's really going on here so really taking kind of a role play in order to get out of your stuck situation I think we are fine then we are coming to the specific problems and I've seen on the wall people referencing already Virginia Satir and I just realized I think I thought of doing them one after the other and I tried to do this so on top you see the denial anger, bargaining, depression and then the acceptance that's from a lady called Kubler-Ross and both of them so the one below is Virginia Satir the one on the top which isn't as pretty as from Kubler-Ross and they both refer to what's going on if you go through a change and let's take the one on the top first and I want to maybe explain that with an example so when well you all have seen that there's an update of a software well it fits well to Goikos talk before and for example what I often struggle with is a new version of PowerPoint I have a colleague who really did go through those stages just by example so first of all there was this update of so new PowerPoint version and of course he was completely ignoring it so denying that it exists and he had his busy this old version everything fine however they came the time where he had to get a new PC and the new one only came with this new version of PowerPoint so there wasn't anything about denying anymore he was really angry kind of yeah complaining about it all the time then the next thing was the bargaining what he did was he found a plugin after installing it the new PowerPoint just supposed to be the old one cool so that's that thing however then there comes a time where first of all there's one or the other thing that's not working probably or he gets slides from somebody else who uses something that's not there in the old version and therefore things are not really the way they should so it's kind of that depression going on and finally he finds out like oh maybe the new version can do stuff I was looking for a long time and so coming into acceptance so that's the Kubler-Ross model actually coming from grief after losing a person that's how she was developing it but it's really if you're realistic true for all kinds of change then Virginia Satir kind of says a similar thing well you are on a status problem maybe PowerPoint usage then the foreign element the new version you drop into chaos you have your ups and downs maybe you think oh it's maybe it's not too bad but then there's another thing where you don't find the menu anymore and you're like oh it's all screwed up and you're just up and down until you get to a transforming idea where you think oh maybe yeah it is really practical integration and practice and you come to the new status quo so that's something we all go through but if we are now in a retrospective where we are talking a lot about things we want to change or things we plan to have changed and nothing happened the thing is that every individual goes through these curves some very quickly in one circumstance and from another circumstance maybe the same person it takes a long time because it's really true for all of us now the the big problem is if I'm just kind of all through that and I'm in the integration and practice because I have gone through this with my mind for a while then maybe somebody else in the group hears that for the first time and this is the moment and I guess you all have heard that too like some people say oh we are not starting that discussion again we have gone through that before and the point is that person who wants to go through that discussion again is probably at a different stage as you are and so for that person it's probably needed maybe one more thing about change I heard I have to speed up here well first of all I learned that you have to have a cat in every slide deck in order that people like it so the other thing is we are talking about resistance to change and cats are just animals who are not following on they just do their stuff right so this is one of the things on the other hand that I said well you have them in every slide deck because they are very attractive to people it seems the highest click rate on YouTube well what I'm heading at is that if you think somebody is resistant to change if you take an approach on attitude which is something that's created in the complexity and chaos theory is they are saying there is no such thing as resistance to change but there is always an attractor that seems to be more attractive than that change you want to kind of implementing so kind of like people are looking for the cats YouTube and not for another YouTube because I think the cat is more attractive right so what you need to find out is what is the attractor why somebody is resistant to that change what keeps that person away from that change what is that attractive thing and once you know about that you can either try to implement or yeah implement that attraction also to that changing thing or maybe you can work with that person in order to kind of find another attractor in the change so thinking about resistance more as something like an attractor is also something that at least helps for me when yeah I deal with difficult situations oh my gosh yeah problem seems unsolvable we all have seen that but I find really helpful here is what's called solution focused approach which is well we have that problem we don't really know how to solve that and let's just assume we have that here so today is the last day of the conference you do whatever you do go home or let's assume we are living all in Singapore so we are going home having dinner with our family maybe doing some sports activity watch TV or so and go to bed the next morning we are getting up and that problem is solved it's gone however nobody told you that's gone overnight a miracle has happened which you don't know what it was but the problem is gone and so the question is how do you know that the problem is gone who else would know it what marks that difference and yeah who else would mark would recognize that difference so this again is something that opens up something if you are in a stuck situation so just thinking very positively about the situation and imagine that a miracle has happened so that's something that I really like to use which is different than looking at for example asking five times why are you digging to the problem deeper and deeper it's just the opposite here you just imagine it's gone okay so now what's the situation and then if you know what the situation is you can plan for actions how to get there which is often easier I really like to show this as well which is and then probably we finish the problem seems not solvable by the team so there I have a few things so one thing is sometimes it's part of the team's culture so they always come up in the retrospective with things they can't change it's always some people around them so people around them who just screwed things up and that's why they can't do whatever they can do so that's the first question another question is that you figure out who's really in control here and maybe you invite that person as I said at the beginning maybe the manager should be here so you really can kind of make a difference here however the thing that I really found the most powerful is the thing that's called paradox intervention it's actually something that's even pronounceable surprisingly paradox intervention what it does is if you're saying okay we have that problem how can we make that problem worse and this is your question your question is not how to solve it your question is to the whole group how to make that problem worse how can we make it really so bad that it's terrible bad and remember we said at the beginning it's a situation where the team really feels they are not in control it's people around them who created that however I've never never ever experienced that people were not coming up with a way how to make that situation worse they always come up with making the situation worse and they have quite fun in doing so it's always like oh yeah and then we could do blah blah blah and so it's cool however now the trick is then once you know what you can do to make it worse you also know you can do something about that situation you also can make it better because you can influence the situation really and it could be just by like how you act and react to what's going on but often it's much more than that and you only figure out by thinking about this like how to make it worse and then you know how to make it better and improve it okay that's very good and I'm coming to the end because I heard I'm running out of time or have been running out of time so facilitation wants to ensure that everyone has a voice that you have to buy in from everyone by being inclusive and share changing between like remember that individuals pairing then the like a subgroup or the whole group so creating shared understanding ensuring that different perspectives sometimes really physically this is needed in order to change a perspective and to open up and it should support learning and only quickly so these are some of the references so there are more and more retrospective books out here however remember you can look up any kind of workshop facilitation book they also fit to retrospectives and thank you to Katya and Yana for the pictures and we have two more minutes I think thank you two more minutes for questions I probably can take two or three how do you make a team member who is not speaking up on shared issues so how can I make a team member who is not speaking up to be contributing to the retrospectives so one of the things is really doing like individual things so individual reflections and also doing stuff in writing often helps but I'm not sure is this where you're getting it yeah not speaking up is what you said so not basing everything you do on speaking that's the main thing and what I find often helpful is doing I don't remember how it's called I'm sure somebody knows it here in the room so you start with an individual reflection then you pair up or triple up and then you have like maybe five or six people together before you have like the whole group how big ever then your group is which means whatever individual has contributed will be kind of forwarded to the next bigger group and that person might not speak up once it's presented to the whole group but with the pairing and especially if you say it's written up then it's still there yeah maybe one more yeah that's a really difficult question how to facilitate retrospectives for not non-collocated teams which is actually I would think a completely new topic which takes another I don't know time it depends very very much what your setting is for example if you are basically on two locations you have like four people here and three people there then it's very helpful to have a facilitator at each site and ensure that whatever is happening is synchronized every once in a while and you spread up again however if you are like completely dispersed so everyone sits at the different site then everything is virtual and regarding the time I think my best advice is that you need to have more time for preparation so you do more prep work for that and for example appreciate inquiry questions in advance help there which is like but what you think is really important and good and helpful in our situation so coming up with some questions where people are answering and you collecting presenting it there and then also kind of yeah splitting out again so at least I think often virtual meetings they train a lot of energy but again it's a really a complete new topic right and I don't know we are out of time one last question okay when you say some students when working with no problem teams no what teams? they have no problems ah they have no problems ah right that's a good point yeah which is so one thing that I found helpful there is that I asked do I have that book here the norm curse original switch it off retrospective book nothing's working here okay so the first book on retrospectives from norm curse where he has a thing that's called definition of success so he's more talking about end of project retrospectives but you can also use that end of sprint retrospective and the thing is you say you ask has this last sprint been a success and we define this success as we would do everything exactly the same way as we did in the past sprint and this often is enough that people say like well yeah but this maybe not so that's sometimes a trigger for coming up with something else another thing that you could do is maybe use your retrospective and do a value stream analysis and see how you create value with the team and by coming up with this value stream you I bet you find points where well there are waiting times handing handover people misunderstand each other and therefore not really moving forward so using something like this which is focusing on the results that have been created and how they have been created probably would help as well I just think about the way I'm talking about it it's not so much different than the definition of success actually looking at the value stream it's just from a different angle but maybe when I sleep over it I think it's not really the same yeah okay thank you very much as I said I had your books that we are interested and thank you