Call for speakers
13-15 September 2023
Our Lean Agile Scotland 2023 call for speakers is now closed.
Submitter Information
The Lean Agile Scotland 2023 call for speakers closed at 11:59pm on Monday 13 March 2023. The following information on this page remains here for reference only.
--------
We encourage submissions from anyone with relevant skills, experience or knowledge to share with our community of professionals. We welcome and support first-time speakers.
What we're looking for
We want people who can talk from experience about any aspect of agile, lean or flow-based delivery.
Practical approaches
Our participants love new learning that can be applied to their own work. This could be a great talk about how you overcame some challenge, a practical workshop to explore a topic or learn a new technique or a thought-provoking panel discussion.
Authenticity and inspiration
We love speakers who inspire our participants with their real-world experiences. Be bold, teach us something new, make us think, make us smile but most of all, be yourself.
Fresh perspectives
Participants like new ways of exploring familiar challenges - interactive, thoughtful sessions that our participants can engage with and learn from.
Novel or Experimental
Our participants love trying new things - maybe you have a novel session format that you want to get feedback on from a smart, informed audience...?
Topics of interest
Lean Agile Scotland attracts a diverse audience working in different roles and domains.
Our connecting themes are agility, getting things done and being effective at work. Sessions are flexible and generally blend all three and participants are generally keen to hear how techniques are applied in domains they aren’t familiar with.
Agility - Ways of working and thinking to enable individuals, teams and organisations to respond to challenges and opportunities in a timely manner. How to experiment, discover and test assumptions,
Getting things done - Arguably a subset of agility, this covers techniques and approaches to ways to work smart, perform well and be effective.
Being effective - A broad category for areas which determine the answers to the question “How was your day?”. This includes topics like culture, engagement, physiological safety, motivation, and team dynamics.
Here are some topics that we are interested in to get your ideas flowing. This list is indicative rather than exhaustive, because, of course, we don’t know everything. If you think you have something to talk about that would be of interest to our community, please submit it, if you're not sure, have a chat with the program chair.
In all cases we are interested in different perspectives, for example both people who have led Transformation and people who have experienced transformation.
The conference is friendly and supportive, it's a great place to experiment and get feedback about ideas and topics. We are always keen to include new talks and new speakers, so be bold and bring the topics you are most passionate about.
Regarding technical content, many of our participants are part of IT organisations and departments, they tend to work with teams developing software. This means there is interest in approaches to software engineering but coding and in depth technical content may be less relevant. For example a talk introducing and articulating the value of serverless or continuous delivery to engineers and organisations would be considered for the program. This has broader appeal and is the kind of idea participants might support in their organisations. A talk showing frequent code snippets and how to spin up instances in a specific cloud provider is unlikely to be included.
Types of sessions
We're happy for you to present a session about your experiences or something you've done, but we encourage interactive sessions that generate conversation with the audience, group discussion or hands-on experiences.
Case study
A presentation and discussion of real-life experiences of the application (or mis-application) of relevant techniques. Case studies include some discussion of lessons learned and an indication of how new the work is.
Talk
A presentation and discussion of a specific topic or issue. Talks should include sharing of real-life examples and experiences.
Workshop
A 'hands-on' working session focused around a specific topic, tool, technique or issue. Led by the speaker, workshops should have a high degree of interactivity and individual/group exercises. Tell us if you need to cap numbers.
Discussion
A more informal session e.g Goldfish Bowl, Fireside Chat, Lean Coffee or something else that allows the participants to bring thoughts, ideas, questions and problems on a topic that you facilitate. Be sure to indicate which type of discussion you propose when submitting and if you need to cap numbers.
Our participants
Lean Agile Scotland allows participants to connect and learn from their peers and leaders in the industry and beyond.
More information about our participants to follow.
Our review process
Our review process takes approximately 2 to 4 weeks. After the deadline closes, our selection panel will review all submissions. (These submissions will be anonymised.
We’ll contact you and let you know, even if you’re not successful this time.
To help us ensure personally identifying information is not included in the process, please do not include this information in your session descriptions. These might be in links to blogs or recordings.
If you’re a new speaker and would like an extension and/or mentorship, contact us as soon as possible.
We want to hear your story - the first step is to submit it.
Inclusivity and diversity
We aim to be inclusive and diverse - in terms of our speakers and our participants.
We’re committed to creating a safe space for everyone to share ideas, try something new, get feedback and engage with a knowledgeable, open-minded audience. We want to ensure participants can connect, network and learn from their industry peers in a positive environment.
We provide a safe and fun place to share ideas and try something new. Our Code of Conduct describes expected behaviour.
Our review process is anonymous - to ensure selection based on merit and not how well a speaker is known. This is an opportunity for both experienced and first-time speakers to share experiences of the practical application of agile and lean techniques.
If you’re still in the early stages of your speaking career and would like some help, contact us as soon as possible to discuss options for how we can support you.
Speaker support
Free speaker tickets
We offer a free ticket for every session selected to be on our conference programme. However, as we have to cover speaker costs with the income from tickets - we allocate these tickets in relation to session duration:
- For a 45 minute session, only the first named speaker pays no conference fees. Additional speakers must purchase a special low-cost ticket.
- For a 60 minute session, only the first two named speakers pay no conference fees. Additional speakers must purchase a special low-cost ticket.
- For 90+ minute sessions, only the first three named speakers will pay no conference fees. Additional speakers must purchase a special low-cost ticket.
Included in your ticket:
- participation in the full event programme
- lunch & refreshments at scheduled breaks throughout the day
- free Wi-Fi at the conference venue
- For more detail or if you have any questions, contact us.
Expenses
We aim to cover all speaker travel and accommodation expenses, if requested and in line with our ‘speaker reimbursement policy’.
Part of the decision on whether to accept a session or not involves considering its financial costs. On your session proposal, tell us what financial support you’d need. This could be how many nights’ accommodation you’d need, and how far you’d be travelling to the event.
If your session is accepted, we’ll suggest a financial amount to you, based on our understanding of your costs to come to the event.
Unfortunately, we cannot accept requests for additional financial support after you’ve agreed to that amount. And we cannot pay expenses that we have not agreed to pay in advance of the event.
Visas
If you’re travelling from outside the UK, think about any visa requirements for your visit to the UK - you can find useful information at GOV.UK
Supplies
We provide standard supplies for sessions - like sticky notes, markers, pens and paper. We’ll cover costs or supply directly any additional materials you require to conduct your session - such as printing. Just let us know when submitting your session.
Data policy
We need to hold information you provide on computer databases for administrative purposes. Summary information, which could include contact data, will be published for all session leaders.
Information about participants will be made available to organisations involved in administering, organising or supporting the event - this may include organisations outside the European Community.
Opinions
The organisers are not responsible for the views or opinions expressed by speakers, sponsors or other participants.
Programming
Inclusion of a session in the programme will be at the sole discretion of the conference organisers. By agreeing to have your session included in the programme, you agree to participate in the conference and in all pre-conference quality control activities as deemed necessary by the conference organisers.
You also agree to promote your session and involvement in the build-up to the event. We’ll provide a range of assets to support any promotional efforts.
The organisers reserve the right to remove a session from the programme at any time. Speakers will no longer be eligible for free entry to the conference and so will have to pay the current non-speaker rate if they wish to participate in the conference.
The organisers will not be responsible for payment of any kind on behalf of the speaker in this event.
Ask us
Ask us if you have any queries. We can also advise you about how best to get to the event and where you can stay.
Submit your session
We're accepting session proposals via WeReview, a submission and review platform which is currently in public beta.
Head to WeReview to submit your session(s) now!
Need some help?
Read our tips for submitting a proposal.