Here are the few words I managed to extract from my son about his week in Paris with me (for his 3rd grade internship). After his sister…
Why “the grumblers’ corner”? Because when I introduce Mathieu, with his sullen expression, I stupidly say (I shouldn’t do it) “my grumpy teen”, I was surprised to hear quite often: “ah well he’ll fit right in with the agile coaching community”.
NdP == father’s note.
Day #1
Where: Train and beNext - 12 rue Vivienne
We left with my father at 7:30am and arrived at the Nîmes train station at 8:15am, for a 3-hour train ride to Paris. I was excited about this week. In Paris we stop by the apartment, on the 7th floor! My father made me walk more than 10,000 steps. He takes me to his company, beNext. I didn’t think at all that it would be in a residential building. At beNext they have me play a game where I must figure out who does what without asking questions, just by listening. I discovered lots of jobs in a startup: HR Manager which consists of looking after the company’s personnel; the Office Manager who handles finances (actually talking with my father and Dragos it concerns all the administrative work); the coach who proposes ideas to work more easily; the CEO, that’s the boss.
In the beNext offices.
Day #2
Where: Lean Kanban France - 13th arrondissement
I’m following my father to discover his job: coach, business advisor. He takes me to a conference, I saw my father in action! I note that he plays around a bit too much. He laughs more than he works. He presented how to make a board to organize yourself when you work. After lunch I went to see a conference on graphic facilitation. Graphic facilitation is a profession where you use a large sheet to draw what a person says, to summarize a conference for example.
Here preparing the workshop with Laurent.
Day #3
Where: Lean Kanban France then Eiffel Tower - Opera on foot
We’re off for the second day of the conference. I listen to a conference in English but I didn’t understand. I saw that he was making a timeline. With teams of five or six people who had to describe what we did before and after the moment given by the facilitator (NdP: of the workshop?, Event Storming workshop by Alberto Brandolini). At noon we went to a sushi restaurant then we came back to listen to other conferences. In the evening I visited Paris, we went to see the Eiffel Tower, it was illuminated, you would have thought it was made of gold. I also went to Place Vendôme and Rue de la Paix. It was a beautiful day.
Here with the LKFR mascot
About the people
I met lots of people this week, there was David the CEO of beNext, he’s nice, funny. There’s Justine the Office Manager she’s kind, there’s Florian the web developer he’s nice. Actually everyone is nice. Quentin the biz dev he’s funny and acts a bit silly, biz dev there’s also Daniel he can be serious or the opposite. Amandine is head of communications, she’s kind too. There’s Pauline the HR manager who is very hard-working, Maja HR too who likes to make cakes, Marie also in charge of HR, Dragos the coach, one of my father’s best friends.
Here with Dragos.
Day #4
Where: Morning at La Défense, afternoon in Pantin.
Today we went to La Défense, we took two metros for 30min each, then my father took me to a 31-story building! I went to the 26th floor, I took the opportunity to work on this internship report. I attended two meetings that both dealt with how the company operates, which is divided into “clans”. The people voted on points to improve and tensions to change in the company. We ask questions about the points about tensions, we evaluate the points to improve (NdP: triage meeting / holacracy / team health check).
In the afternoon we went to a workshop at **** to develop hypotheses to figure out how they will change the gas (NdP: from gas B to gas H, Event Storming and User Story Mapping).
A few keywords: timeline, project, hypothesis, skeleton.
On the left timeline workshop
Day #5
Where: Morning at La Défense, train
In the morning we had a meeting to brief a company and then we went back home by train, to our home, in the south.