“Why do I care?” Andy asked, interrupting about 45 seconds into my Toast presentation.
“What?”
“Why do I care?” Andy asked again. “You haven’t told me why I should care enough to listen to this presentation.”
Andy is one of our Agile coaches.A maverick entrepreneur who has made, lost, and made again several small fortunes. He is used to being boss, and is usually about as tactful as a she bear whose cubs are being tortured.
Still, he was right. I hadn’t stated why someone should care. I hadn’t provided a hook, a reason to listen, a promise of an interesting story or a guarantee of a result. I hadn’t given my students a reason to actually listen closely, and for this presentation I really needed them to listen.
I added a new slide at the beginning of the Toast deck. A picture of a giant set of keys.
The slide appears and I say, “In the next 20 minutes I’ll explain why and how agile works so clearly that you will understand it better than most people who speak at agile conferences. Listen for 20 minutes, and you will understand exactly how agile works and exactly how it differs from agile–guaranteed.”
A powerful promise. But we deliver. An nobody has ever tried to collect the guarantee, which is good, since I can’t really give them their 20 minutes back.
Still, I tell people clearly why they should care.
Today, we showed Andy a poster.
“Why do I care?” Andy said, reading the poster.
Sigh.
Dang-it, I had no idea.
When are you ever going to get this right?” He asked.