Posts Tagged ‘training’

Quests and powerups

Agile & Lean, Education, Musings | Posted by Doc
Mar 07 2011

on a questThe first challenge I’ve set myself is to explore how to incorporate the concepts of quests and powerups/levelups into the professional educational setting1.

In many situations, there is certainly a sense of accomplishment. In fact, at our internal at ThoughtWorks, we’ve2 moved away from lecture and classroom intensive training, and toward project-focused, experiential . This allows the participants to gain feelings of achievement and accomplishment, to learn about collaboration, and to find a sense of discovery. Much of the instruction has moved to a Socratic Method, which both leads and allows the participants to use their intrinsic motivation.

The question I’m exploring is “can we apply these same methods and techniques in a public, less-controlled setting?” I believe the answer is yes.

What would the changes have to be?

  • Far less lecture. Just enough to give them a basic understanding, but not enough to fill their heads.
  • Challenges that allow them to discover, rather than be spoon-fed.
  • Questions rather than assertions, to allow them to incorporate changes in their thinking.
  • Achievements that allow them to feel good about themselves while they are learning.
  • Some extrinsic motivation, as long as it’s not the main focus.
  • The idea of a constant progression toward mastery (which takes me back to Shu Ha Ri and my post Is easy the same as hard?).

We’ll be working on this in our educational content. Expect to see the first results publicly available in the next few months.

Just because, look at this TED Talk by Sugata Mitra. It’s fantastic. (it should be embedded right here)

1 Just in case it hasn’t become painfully clear yet, I am avoiding the word “training”.

2 While I say “we”, in fact I had nothing to do with it. Take a look at Sumeet Moghe’s blog. Sumeet is the driving force behind all of our internal at ThoughtWorks.

P.S. We’re hiring at ThoughtWorks again (still).

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Learning and games, games and learning

Agile & Lean, Education, Musings | Posted by Doc
Mar 04 2011

I’m reading “Reality is Broken: How Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World” by Jane McGonigal. It’s fascinating stuff, talking about Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and using gaming to teach, learn, collaborate, and learn to enjoy what we do.

Of course, it’s got me thinking.

Alternate Reality

Does this mean some kind of weird science fiction stuff? No. It means games that can be played in the real world or in virtual worlds that may apply different sets of rules or contexts. McGonigal mentions the virtual worlds of Halo and World of Warcraft in the book. These are two very different contexts and scenarios. Halo is warfare set in something like the real world we know. Okay, there are aliens. But other than that…

I’ve never been a big, enthusiastic gamer, but I do like shooting things and blowing them up. And yet, somehow Halo has never called to me.

And then there’s World of Warcraft, which is a fantasy world in which you complete quests, fight, and band with others. If you’d asked me last week, I’d have said that I had no particular interest. But thanks to Jane McGonigal, I decided to sign up for a free trial of the game. It was more what she said about Intrinsic Motivation (see Dan Pink’s “Drive”) and how the quests relate, and the overall idea of collaboration but not (necessarily) competition.

The quests are compelling. Nothing really happens. I don’t get any prizes or recognition or anything but leveling up in the game. Somehow, in spite of that, I want to keep doing quest after quest. There’s a feeling of satisfaction about it. Finish one, start another. Level up periodically. Fight monsters, deliver messages, get lost and wander around, go up trees and down into the earth… On one level, it seems entirely pointless. On another, I FREAKIN’ GET IT!

?

How does this apply? Is there a way to use this kind of approach in delivering what we oh-so-annoyingly* call “training”?

I’m thinking about the idea of intrinsic motivation, quests, achievements that allow each of us to feel a sense of accomplishment, and extending it beyond the specific educational situation. That last includes some form of “social medium” and also thinking about how to extend it into the workplace.

teams are pretty good at this. Each time a person or pair completes a story, they get to move it on. There’s a sense of achievement in that. Of course, they don’t get a nifty “+1″ floating over their heads. They don’t level up to the next level of developer or tester. Maybe there’s a way?

For now, my immediate focus is on how to apply this in the educational/ situation. Is there a way to design and create environments that take advantage of the work of Jane McGonigal, game designers, and others?

* I say “oh-so-annoyingly” because we should NOT be doing “training”. We train pets to certain specific behaviors. When I’m working with a project or a bunch of folks from an organization that wants to adopt Agile, I’m not training them. I’m leading them to think differently and adopt different behaviors. So “training” just seems the wrong word to me.

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What is training?

Facilitation, Musings, Presentation | Posted by Doc
Nov 13 2010

Doing what we call “” for a while, I’m reflecting on what it means.

I tend to think of training in terms of providing information, guidance, exercise, and correction in order to help others develop some level of understanding and skill.

I’m forced to consider whether what I do on a day-to-day basis is actually training, or is something else.

I am definitely , in the sense of pedagogy: I deliver information, attempt to engage with the students, and check to see if it’s sinking in.

I am definitely providing all the tools and environment and – in some cases – exercises people need to learn.

A lot of what I’m teaching (or enabling others to learn) is intellectual: principle, values, philosophy, attitude. While there is some skills acquisition as part of it, there’s so much more.

Is that training? Or is it something else?

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Presentation tips

Musings, Presentation | Posted by Doc
Nov 09 2010

Planning and Preparation

  • Read books like “Presentation Zen” and “The Naked Presenter” by Garr Reynolds, and “Slide:ology” and “Resonate” by Nancy Duarte. Learn core skills of designing, planning, and building the deck. Read Garr Reynolds’s blog, as well.
  • Remember that the deck is not the presentation, you are.
  • Keep it simple. Don’t expect your audience to retain dozens or even a dozen key points.
  • Decide up front what your core message is, and a few sub-messages, and stick with that. Martin Fowler talks about threes: three main points, then three sub-points under each.
  • Fewer words on the slides is better. Plan for the audience to pay attention to, listen to, and learn from you, not from reading the slides. Use words sparingly, use relevant images and illustrations, keep it simple.
  • Use visuals. Keeping words to a minimum doesn’t mean blank slides. Use appropriate photographs or illustrations that reinforce what you’re saying.**
  • Make it flow. Plan your presentation like a novel or a movie, so that the audience is guided from beginning to end.**
  • Use “callbacks” to reinforce key messages. Don’t just say something once. And don’t repeat ad nauseum. Reinforcing key messages periodically has real value. This helps to lock in the words that trigger the associated concepts.**

Delivery

  • Deliver knowledge, not just information.
  • Tell stories. There’s nothing like real experience to drive a lesson home, not to mention engaging the audience’s interest.
  • Make eye contact. Eye contact means that you are connecting with the members of your audience. If you’re not making eye contact, they might as well be listening to or watching a recording.
  • Face your audience. Don’t turn and face the screen. Turning away from the audience disengages, and also makes you look like you’re not ready.*
  • Take the audience’s temperature. Constantly monitor for alertness, interest, fatigue, distraction, and so on. Check their body language, facial expressions, and movement.
  • Move. Don’t stand in one place, particularly if that one place is behind a lectern. Don’t play it safe. On the other hand, don’t move frenetically. Slow walking, gesturing with your hands, changing the distance between you and the audience are all good. Use your movement to emphasize what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Method is a great example of this.
  • Have a conversation with the audience. Don’t talk at them. Don’t lecture them. Talk to them as if you’re having a one-on-one conversation, explaining and discussing something.
  • Relax. The more tense you are, the less comfortable they will be.  The more relaxed you are, the more they will learn from you.
  • Make it fun. Your audience will come away thinking you’re wonderful if they have fun. It helps if you have real, interesting content, of course. :)
  • Know your material, don’t read the slides. The audience has every right to expect you to be knowledgeable about your material and your subject. If you have put the words on the slide, and are reading the slides, then why does the audience need you?  See the note above about fewer words.*
  • Breathe. Seems simple, right? Allow yourself to pause, to look around, to take a deep breath.  A three-second pause will seem like eternity to you, but goes by in a flash for the audience.*

* [added 22 Nov]
** [added 26 Nov]

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Body Language

Facilitation, Musings, Presentation | Posted by Doc
Nov 08 2010

Have you ever heard or read this?

  • 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken.
  • 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
  • 55% of meaning is in facial expression.

Or maybe some variation? Maybe you’ve even repeated it, telling others that 93% of all is non-verbal.

First, let’s put this in its proper context. This misinformation is based on research done by Professor Albert Mehrabian in the last twenty years. Here’s an excellent clarification on BusinessBalls.com.

Here is the key part:

  • 7% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in the words that are spoken.
  • 38% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
  • 55% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in facial expression.

Note the inclusion of “pertaining to feelings and attitudes” in each of these. Simplified, this says “93% of all communication about feelings and attitudes is non-verbal.”

Also, please note that is not included at all!

Here’s a further clarification from Mehrabian himself, from that article on BusinessBalls.com:

Mehrabian did not intend the statistic to be used or applied freely to all communications and meaning.

Mehrabian provides this useful explanatory note (from his own website www.kaaj.com/psych, retrieved 29 May 2009):

“…Inconsistent communications – the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages: My findings on this topic have received considerable attention in the literature and in the popular media. ‘Silent Messages’ [Mehrabian's key book] contains a detailed discussion of my findings on inconsistent messages of feelings and attitudes (and the relative importance of words vs. nonverbal cues) on pages 75 to 80.

Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking

Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable. Also see references 286 and 305 in Silent Messages – these are the original sources of my findings…”

(Albert Mehrabian, source www.kaaj.com/psych, retrieved 29 May 2009)

This clarification, that this research was specifically and only about communications about feelings or attitudes, kills a common misconception. It’s not that 93% of all communication is non-verbal, or even that 93% of communications is about feelings and attitudes. Rather, this was a very focused study that addressed communication about feelings and attitudes.

This doesn’t rule out the importance of non-verbal communication, either in voice, , facial expression, or body language. It just eliminates the so-called authoritative reference.

All of that academic-y stuff being out of the way now, we all know that there are also loads of research about body language. And we also know, and research supports, that a significant amount of communication is conducted non-verbally. As such, I think it’s important that each of us who has interaction with others (hmm – that would be pretty much all of us), and particularly those of us for whom interaction is our professional focus, should have some knowledge of body language and facial expression.

Whether you do presentations or , coaching or leading, understanding what’s being communicated in ways other than in words is a critical skill. When I’m doing training or delivering a talk, one of the constants is that I’m looking at each member of my audience/class/group. At least those I can see: sometimes a group is so large that you can’t really see everyone. As I’m looking at each of them, not only am I making eye contact (a separate topic), but I’m also examining their facial expressions and body language.

  • Are they looking bored? Hostile?
  • Are they looking confused?
  • Are they looking like they have something to say?
  • Are they looking away? Or working on their computer/phone/iPad/whatever?

Each of these is a cue to me that something is going on. Note that in none of these cases is there any verbal communication. So the non-verbal communication, intended or otherwise, is actually 100% of the communication. And I can use that communication, assuming that I recognize it and understand it, to guide my actions and words.

For instance, if I look around and I see a number of people looking sleepy (usually after lunch ;) ), I may choose to stop what I’m saying and doing, and have the group do an activity.

If I see people looking confused, I may ask if there are questions, or take a few moments to explain a challenging topic in simpler terms.

Regardless of the specific cues, what’s important is knowing that they exist and how to understand them, so that I can use them to inform my choices and be more effective at my communication.

And, lest I leave out an important part, it’s equally important for me to be aware of my own non-verbal communications. But that’s a topic for another day.

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Push-Me, Pull-You

Coping and Communicating, Facilitation | Posted by Doc
Aug 10 2010

Do you remember the special animal in the movie “Doctor Dolittle“? The pushmi-pullyu?

The challenge these animals faced was this:

“They had no tail, but a head at each end, and sharp horns on each head.” and “…no matter which way you came towards him, he was always facing you.”

I always thought that an animal like this would die out, because if the heads were equal, it would never be able to go anywhere.

We all know about “too many chiefs and not enough Indians”, which has a similar problem.

So how do you handle a situation where there’s either too much push or too much pull?

In t’ai chi ch’uan (commonly referred to as just tai chi), one of the techniques has to do with pushing. Pushing takes on many different aspects, from forceful lifting/pushing, to a gentler slower movement. As I think about how we work with teams and organisations, it occurs to me that all too often we’re either pushing too hard and too directly, or not enough.

Consider, first, what happens when you try to push someone. What do they do? They brace themselves, at a minimum. Sometimes, they prepare to push back, and then they do push back.

How about if you come up on them gradually? Let’s say you’re standing next to someone, and you slowly shift your weight so that you’re leaning on them – pushing – more and more, little by little? How do they react? Most typically, they will notice when you cross some threshold that is very specific to them. Many times, it will be when some “significant” amount of pressure reaches their awareness. If you were walking down the street, then they’d realize at some point that you had steered them by either physically leaning on them or by entering their “personal space”.

If we are working with a group, , or organisation, in helping them to adopt new principles, practices, and/or methodologies, some of us – myself most definitely included – have a tendency to push. To be emphatic, zealous, excited, energetic, passionate, insistent,…

We must be aware and wary of creating resistance through our pushing. We must consider whether it’s more effective to lean on them rather than to push them.

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A Culture of Heroism

Agile & Lean, Coping and Communicating, Musings | Posted by Doc
Feb 11 2010

A while back, I wrote about A Culture of Blame. As I’ve traveled around the US and to other countries, I’ve seen more and more evidence of this, which keeps me thinking. I’m always looking for patterns of , and simple ways to describe them.

When talking about teams as compared to teams, one of the things that has become apparent is that is also a of Heroism. In fact, in many ways, much of Western culture is about heroism. We laud the star athlete, the exceptional business person, the standout author, and so on. In many cases, it seems to be recognition and acclaim for the individual over the group, or at least the individual separate from the group.

Agile teams foster a culture of collaboration and cooperation. That’s not to say that there’s not room for individual excellence, effort, and achievement. I would say that high performant teams tend to focus on the success of the over the individual. Is Agile more socialist, while Waterfall is more capitalist? I’m not sure, but it seems that way.

Regardless, there are a number of side effects of a Culture of Heroism:

  • Ego-driven achievement
  • Unhealthy competition (although sometimes it’s quite healthy)
  • Rewards that – in recognizing the individual – discourage the others on the team
  • A focus on the individual rather than the group goals

This is an interesting thing for me, because I’m highly competitive, and am happy to have individual recognition. On the other hand, I believe strongly in subordinating my ego to the purposes and goals of the team, and that the success of the team is what’s important*. Since my ego still wins out at times, I recognize that this is not just a struggle for me, but for others as well.

We’re raised in a culture of individualism and heroism, then we are invited into the Agile fold, and asked to shift our focus and our energy from ourselves to our teams.

I’ll continue to explore this as I get the opportunity to work with more teams. I will say that I’ve seen the culture of heroism everywhere I’ve gone, in one form or another, and believe firmly that the change to a culture of collaboration must come from the leadership as well as the team.

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Training is amazing

Agile & Lean | Posted by Doc
Feb 09 2010

I’m at the end of day one of , doing a custom two-day workshop for a client. The requests were long, so we negotiated it down to what we thought would reasonably fit within two days.

At 11am, I was on slide 4 in the PowerPoint deck. The reason it was moving so slowly is that these people are STARVING for information and guidance. They know they’re doing “quagile” (quasi-), they want to move closer to “real” , and they are interested and eager and articulate.

It fascinated me all day, as they took what I was presenting and ran with it. Some heated discussions, some passionate, some involving the whole group of 15, some a subset. It went on all day.

It’s frustrating to me that they’re so eager, and facing such challenges in achieving Agile adoption. And yet it’s the same …

The development wants it, the QAs want it, the BAs and PMs want it – the “business” and the “customer” want the same old thing.

Sigh.

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Is Agile a mystery?

Agile & Lean, Musings | Posted by Doc
Sep 02 2009

Over the past few weeks, in between preparing for 2009, I was preparing to deliver some to a company’s product owners and project managers. I was told that they’d been doing various practices for as much as a year.  This made me curious as to why we’d be delivering a course on Fundamentals.

After all, if they’ve been doing stuff for a year, I thought, shouldn’t they have some of the fundamentals firmly in mind?

Nonetheless, skepticism firmly in hand, I prepared myself to deliver to what might be a knowledegable and, perhaps, challenging group.

Much to my surprise – although it shouldn’t surprise me – these folks have piecemeal knowledge of certain practices, and seem to mostly lack a solid grasp of the underlying principles of Agile. While I don’t think that the Agile Manifesto is a bible, I do think that it’s both required reading and deserves some thought. The implications are profound, once you start thinking about them and trying to understand what they mean for an organization.

How can it be that people have been doing standups and iterations and estimating and story cards for 6 – 12 months, and don’t have a firm grasp of the why of what they’re doing?

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe most people don’t have any need to understand the philosophy or principles or subtleties of what they’re doing, and are happy to just learn the what and the how.

I’m still a bit baffled. The subtleties of what makes Agile be what it is are what excite me. Yes, I do get excited about pairing and standups and iterations and IPMs and retrospectives and all the other stuff we do. And I also get excited by the understanding and the “cultural shift” (as one attendee put it) that goes along with Agile adoption.

After all, Agile is clearly not just about the practices and methodologies. It’s about the discipline and the attitude changes and the mental shifts in things like code ownership and transparency. How can you go from the dark ages of , individual code ownership, controlled , and defensiveness to Agility without being affected by all of those changes in profound ways? How can you make the shift from maybe-doing-unit-testing-a-little-bit-after-the-fact to / and not see that there’s more going on than just the practices?

Sigh.

I guess the opportunity to share that excitement that comes with the transformation is part of what drives me to do coaching and training and .  If I can see just one person get it, then it’s all worth it.

It seems that you can take the man out of motivational speaking, but you can’t take the motivational speaking out of the man. ;)

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