Lightning talks are short and intense talks on experiences, opinions, or ideas on Agile topics. They are meant to inspire the audience, open up discussion on difficult topics, or even provoke and send wake-up calls.

They are 5 minutes each followed by a 5-minute Q&A. These have the format of “pitches”, like the ones delivered by co-founders of startups presenting their big ideas in a very condensed format to investors.

Lightning topics will run across the different sessions, so they could be on any modern Agile or Lean topic: enterprise agility, scaling/ descaling Agile teams, servant leadership, coaching teams, facilitation techniques, Agile and happiness metrics, games, tools and processes, DevOps CI/CD pipelines, DevOps, etc.

The idea of lightning talks is to spark new energy in the last 30 minutes of a 90-minute session, to keep the session participants focused and motivated, and to surprise them when they least expect it!

To participate in a Lighting Talk, some experience in “pitching” and/or public presentation experience is advisable, but not a prerequisite. Your ability to tell your story in narrative form, with or without visuals, will be the key to success.

Proposals will be evaluated based on these criteria:

• Novelty/wow factor
• Relevance to educators and practitioners
• Likelihood of sparking interesting discussions
• Fit with the conference themes