Internal ‘tech’ conferences can make a big impact on your organisation’s level of sharing and communication, thus while they are yet not very common, more and more people are trying to use this powerful tool to spread new ideas and practices. With this view in mind, Matthew Skelton (Co-founder at Skelton Thatcher Consulting) and Victoria Morgan-Smith (Agile Delivery Coach, Financial Times) collaborated on a report for InfoQ (“Internal Tech Conferences – How and Why”), giving the audience more reasons to and more information on how to organise these type of conferences and maybe inspiring to host one of their own.
Both Matthew and Victoria have run internal tech conferences in the past and shared tips and tricks from their own personal experience in addition to reflections and advice from people at other companies (Paddy Power Betfair, Callcredit Information Group, ING and others).
Key takeaways
- Software engineering today is as much about people as the technology itself: an internal tech conference can give a huge boost to your organisation’s social capital – that currency by which relationships flourish.
- The format you choose for your internal tech conference depends on what you want to achieve from it: it can be “by the people for the people”, or a showcase to celebrate achievement. You can keep the audience or speakers to just a single department, or invite other divisions, or even invite external speakers and/or audience.
- Making the event a success takes effort: choose your speakers well, and mentor them as they prepare their talks. Work on the logistics – it’s the little things that count.
- Remember to have fun: ‘death by PowerPoint’ will mean people remember the event for the wrong reasons!
- Follow through: for a lasting impact, keep sight of the outcomes you seek and be ready to work with others to keep the momentum going.
You can read the full article here: “Internal Tech Conferences – How and Why”. If you would like help planning or running your own internal tech conference, then we’d love to help; contact the team at Skelton Thatcher Consulting.
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