Next weekend sixteen professionals from across the mountain and tactical spectrum will come to Jackson for the first MTI Scrum. Our goal with the Scrum is to conceptualize a new type of industry gathering.
The typical model involves speakers, courses, trade shows, and artificial “mingling” times.
While industry conferences suck you in with glitzy marketing materials touting great speakers, interesting topics, awesome learning opportunities, the take-aways are often disappointing. We’ve found that a shallowness and superficiality blankets the entire experience. Speakers hold back. Presentations lack practical applicability. Conference attendees posture and preen.
The Scrum will be different.
Here’s how we hope to build an engaging, thought-provoking, and enriching experience in which attendees walk away with authentic connections by working together on mission-direct initiatives:
First, we’ve created a “Noah’s Arc” of professionals from across the mountain and tactical spectrum. The group is diverse not only in terms of their specific occupations, but in their time on the job. We know that senior mountain guides can learn something from young military officers that they can take back to their team, and vice versa. We’ll create an engaging environment to share insights, tools, and new perspectives with other professionals who have similarly intense careers.
Second, the Scrum will be a working weekend. Attendees won’t just move from lecture hall to lecture hall, chit-chatting with their neighbors during breaks. Attendees will be fully immersed in the group, from the early morning trail run until the evening campfire.
We’ll be focused on getting all of the attendees to contribute and collaborate on mission-direct initiatives in a Sprint Project. Instead of getting into the weeds with general theory, they’ll draw on their personal experiences to narrow in on common problems, and come up with initial solutions. At the end of the Scrum, we’ll have actionable recommendations we’ll share so other industry leaders can test our solutions immediately.
Third, the attendees are the speakers and presenters. While they’re not preparing powerpoints prior to arriving in Wyoming, we’ll be pushing them to share insights, experiences, and tools over the course of the weekend. Not just anyone can come to the Scrum, and we turned down some incredibly accomplished applicants in order to get a wide variety of perspectives around the table. There is not just one expert. They’ll all be “in the arena,” puzzling it out together.
Our goal is for the Scrum attendees is to leave Wyoming mentally and physically exhausted. But also intellectually and professional invigorated, not only by the ideas and concepts we pound, but also by the deep relationships built with the other attendees during the experience.
Just like we do with our training, research, and education courses, once we’re finished, we’ll gather feedback, churn it, improve it, and host another Scrum.
Interested in attending a future Scrum? Stay tuned for the next application deadline.