As Agile practitioners, whether you are a developer, tester, scrum master or product owner, we know that it is ALL about communication, right? But how much of what we say and what we hear are words? If, as much as 93% of our communication is non-verbal how can be sure we are ‘saying’ or ‘hearing’ the right thing? Non-Verbal Communication is sometimes referred to as Body Language, but it’s much more than that. This session is designed to give you a gentle introduction to this field. It will help you recognise some common behaviours, and show you how to start using this skill every day.
Learn to recognise some basic indicators that will help you better interpret a situation. Maybe the person you are looking at is feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps someone is feeling shut-down in the conversation. Assess how confident the person speaking is about what they are saying. It will not give you a tick list of behaviours that indicate lying or cheating! Your daily standup meetings, retrospectives, planning sessions, conversations over coffee, even interacting with your partner or children at home – every human interaction you have can be richer if you look and listen for non-verbal behaviour.
We will cover a little bit about self-influencing behaviours, and influencing others using your own non-verbal signals (helping an interview candidate feel a little more relaxed for example) These skills are a starting point for a journey that could keep you engaged for the rest of your life, and enrich your interactions with people both at work and at home. If part of your role includes communication with human beings, you need to know this stuff. What is exciting, is just how much you probably already know.
Video producer: http://leanagile.scot/