Agile Thailand 2013 – Agile in Startup

I got the privilege to be a speaker at Agile Thailand 2013. I submitted a talk on the topic “Agile in Startup” and got accepted. I didn’t have any experience to present in the public before and I thought this would be a good opportunity because I have had some experience in startups and it was in my language so it’s easier for me to practice.

Agile Thailand which was organised by Agile66, a group of top leading agile evangelists in Thailand which some of whom I know personally and worked with in the past. I was really excited because this was going to be my first event as a speaker as I spent the last two years attending conferences and wondering how it’s going to be like in on the other side. To be standing on the stage freaking out and don’t know what to speak to hundred of people. I kept thinking about like “that slides are so bad”, “that guy didn’t prepare anything he just turned up and talked”. I could do that I thought. Now I realised that it’s not an easy job to prepare slides in a way that people will understand the stuff coming out of your month. And how to get attention from a couple hundred of people who turn up in your session hoping to get something out of it.

How do I prepare the slides

I had to admin I have never prepared any slides before and I was really nervous. But at ThoughtWorks I have seen many good and bad slides and wondering how people prepare good slides. I found this book on the shelf at the office and some of my co-workers recommended this book “Presentation Zen“. So, I decided to give it a go. The book taught me how to deliver good slides which not just putting some bullet points in the slides along side with some pictures and expect that the audience will get what are you trying to say. Most of the time during the talk people should pay attention to you and not the slides. They should just glance your slide while listening to you. So, I cut all my text and swapped with images instead. In summary, the audience should not be reading the slide, they should be listening to you.

Here’s the slides I used at the conference.

Feedback

Feedback or take aways I got from this conference was that I should be more prepared and keeping the time. I was rushing at the end of my talk and was not able to deliver what I wanted to say the most. Seconds, I need to prepare in advance and set the expectation what kind of audience I will be getting. Are they technical people? Or they are just business people? Will they be able to understand what I wanted to say? Last, I need to pick just one specific topic and talk about it rather than trying to fit a broad topic in just one hour.