051 - How To Facilitate AgileHR - with Eoin Cannon

There is a fascinating intersection between Agile and facilitation.

With experience of integrating Agile into both marketing and HR teams, Eoin Cannon has a unique perspective on why certain approaches prove fruitful and others fall short.

In this episode of Workshops Work, Eoin shares how Agile can help to shape smarter, more effective teams in any department to be better equipped to overcome problems.

There are dozens of points that Eoin picks out that hold huge value, so if you want to learn about the application of Agile in workshops (and vice versa), advice for how you might apply those principles in your workshops, and deeper interrogations of what Agile, HR, and facilitation really mean – this is the episode for you!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Eoin’s move from marketing to HR by way of facilitation
• Why it can be so impactful to make leaders co-facilitators
• How behavioural change creates cultural change
• What HR really means
• Advice for first-time experience mapping
• An explanation of the Agile HR process

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Questions and Answers

[01:15] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[03:08] What is the difference between a workshop in marketing and a workshop in HR?

[05:25] How do you get marketing teams to open up and participate more in a sharing culture?

[10:00] What does Agile HR mean?

[11:58] Can you share an example of how Agile works with, not against, human behaviour and psychology?

[14:11] What got you into Agile HR and how do you apply it?

[17:22] How would you start a project and workshop for the topic of changing or removing a company’s bonus system?

[22:46] How do you facilitate ‘downloading’ in a workshop whilst preserving the participants’ own opinions and contributions?

[25:48] Would you let participants design personas?

[29:21] How do participants differentiate between Agile vs. non-Agile coaching and training?

[32:28] How does an Agile HR professional operate differently to a non-Agile one?

[34:27] When do you think the mindset shift from non-Agile to Agile occurs?

[35:51] What is your favourite exercise?

[43:15] What makes a workshop fail?

[49:32] Is there anything else you would like to discuss?

[50:06] What does the term ‘agile facilitation’ mean to you?

[52:29] What is the one thing you would like listeners to take away from this episode?

Links to Check

Episode 50 of Workshops Work
Agile Manifesto
Agile origins: Mindset not processes:  principles on how to work in Agile                Behaviours: Article on Behaviours
Scrum: Scrum