Fostering Continuous Learning - Tips and Tricks
Why is continuous learning important? What fosters a learning culture? What specific things can I do in my organization to encourage continuously learning at the personal and group levels?
These questions and more will guide us through this session where we will discuss specific ways to create continuous learning in your organization.
1. Tips and Tricks
Roni Tamari
Lead Agile Coach AgileSparks
Fostering
Continuous Learning
Agile Israel 2017
2. “By 2020, more than a third
of the desired core skill sets
of most occupations will be
comprised of skills that are
not yet considered crucial
to the job today.”
Source: World Economic Forum – Future of Jobs report
http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/
3. Or in other words:
In three years,
your group will
have to relearn
30% of their skills.
Source: World Economic Forum – the future of jobs report
11. Dunning-Kruger Effect
Unskilled people
don’t know what
they don’t know
Source: Unskilled and Unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead in
Inflated Self Assessment. Dunning & Kruger, 1999
12. Stages of Knowledge
Novice – SHU – Learn the rules
Competent – HA – Break the rules
Expert – RI – Be the rules
21. Mob programming
Video that illustrates it: mob programming
The website: http://mobprogramming.org/
Short guidebook: https://leanpub.com/mobprogrammingguidebook
34. Create a learning routine
For example:
• End of iteration
• End of PI
• Weekly happy
hour
• Once a week at
Daily standups
If you want it to happen, put it on the calendar
38. T-Shaped People
Great at this
one thing
Specialized
Cross-functional Familiar with all
this other stuff
39. Internalize Specialize
Collaborate Broaden
Personal Professional
Individual
Group
Mindfulness
Personal Kanban
Focus / concentration
Personal fitness
Self-organization
Meeting facilitation
Active listening
Powerful questions
Crucial conversations
Your technologies
Your tools / frameworks
Engineering practices
TDD / BDD
Refactoring
Close technology
Close roles
Product discovery
Business
Know your industry
Beyond the standard skills
40. Every individual and team needs a mix
Strike a balance
Internalize Specialize
Collaborate Broaden
למידה מתמדת
You know how it is when you watch a good TED talk or read a good article? How it makes you think differently about things? This is part of what למידה מתמדת
Image: http://www.peoplefluent.com/images/default-source/default-album/05-04-blog-post.png?sfvrsn=0
companies need to have people who are constantly learning
Source: World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/3-key-steps-to-making-sure-your-skills-stay-relevant/
World Economic Forum – the future of jobs
“On average, by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today.”
Or in other words:
“In three years, your group will have to relearn 30% of their skills.”
Image: https://edutechpost.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/b630f-unlearn.jpg?w=523&h=355
companies need to have people who are constantly learning
Source: World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/3-key-steps-to-making-sure-your-skills-stay-relevant/
World Economic Forum – the future of jobs
“On average, by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today.”
Or in other words:
“In three years, your group will have to relearn 30% of their skills.”
Image: https://edutechpost.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/b630f-unlearn.jpg?w=523&h=355
What would people in your group say if asked the following question?
What you as a manager can do to create continuous learning
It’s clear to everyone these days that companies must be responsive to change.
Naturally this means that the groups within them and the people in these companies must be changing as well.
To change is to learn.
Besides the importance for a company that its people will be learning all the time, for the person itself it’s actually a key aspect of motivation. If you haven’t seen this short video or read the book Drive yet, dig into it, Mastery which is learning new things is one of the main motivators.
What you as a manager can do to create continuous learning
remove?
Novices don’t know how much they don’t know.
“For any skill, unskilled people underestimate their level of knowledge”
How well do you think you performed in that test, relative to others?
They were famously inspired by McArthur Wheeler, a Pittsburgh man who attempted in 1995 to rob a bank while his face was covered in lemon juice. Wheeler had learned that lemon juice could be used as "invisible ink" (that is, the old childhood experiment of making the juice appear when heated); he therefore got the idea that unheated lemon juice would render his facial features unrecognizable or "invisible."
After he was effortlessly caught (as he made no other attempts to conceal himself during the robberies), he was presented with video surveillance footage of him robbing the banks in question, fully recognizable. At this, he expressed apparently sincere surprise and lack of understanding as to why his plan did not work - he was not competent enough to see the logical gaps in his thinking and plan.[9]
Novices don’t know how much they don’t know.
“For any skill, unskilled people underestimate their level of knowledge”
How well do you think you performed in that test, relative to others?
They were famously inspired by McArthur Wheeler, a Pittsburgh man who attempted in 1995 to rob a bank while his face was covered in lemon juice. Wheeler had learned that lemon juice could be used as "invisible ink" (that is, the old childhood experiment of making the juice appear when heated); he therefore got the idea that unheated lemon juice would render his facial features unrecognizable or "invisible."
After he was effortlessly caught (as he made no other attempts to conceal himself during the robberies), he was presented with video surveillance footage of him robbing the banks in question, fully recognizable. At this, he expressed apparently sincere surprise and lack of understanding as to why his plan did not work - he was not competent enough to see the logical gaps in his thinking and plan.[9]
Novice = טירון
Competent = מוסמך
Expert = מומחה
There are other models (e.g. Dreyfuss) but this one is simple
If you’re asking the colors – it’s martial arts belts
Shu warning: Don’t rob a bank with lemon juice on his face
http://www.martialartsgreece.com/images/index/adult-karate.png
This is an example. Your spider will vary depending on whether you are a developer, tester, ops person etc.
On each scale, you need to understand what that means
This is an example. Your spider will vary depending on whether you are a developer, tester, ops person etc.
On each scale, you need to understand what that means
What you as a manager can do to create continuous learning
* It’s like an internal meetup group, GUILD
Create mailing lists or wiki/portal to share interesting resources (videos etc.)
People who share interests and actively share information
Inside the company
Cross-groups
People are also available to help later
Generic knowledge, made relevant to the organization’s specific needs
Organize unconferences
Image: http://www.agilebuddha.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/community.jpg
* Give example of working on product and have a specific gap in knowledge
Jolt – Marketplace for live content sessions given to your team by exceptional industry professionals
Live and team-specific, Share your own knowledge via Jolt to get currency for sessions you consume
Watch conference videos together:
InfoQ
Google I/O
Apple WWDC
TED
World experts
Save the trip to San Jose
Image: https://crunchbase-production-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/c_limit,h_600,w_600/v1463411583/xtutbc7pz049qw3ouo7t.jpg
http://tedxinnovations.ted.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/tumblr_mo6wsrEmqf1qedf7ko5_1280.jpg
The most cost-effective way to find defects Learn technology, practices AND the product
Dev+Dev; dev+tester, dev+designer, etc.
promiscuouity
To the extreme – mob programming
Image: https://spin.atomicobject.com/wp-content/uploads/crucial-conversations-pairing.jpg
Image: https://techbeacon.scdn7.secure.raxcdn.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_hero_image/public/DevTest-How-automation-builds-strong-development-testing-teams.jpg?itok=b0hB_Kno
The most cost-effective way to find defects Learn technology, practices AND the product
Dev+Dev; dev+tester, dev+designer, etc.
promiscuouity
To the extreme – mob programming
Image: https://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mobteam1.png
Not just at team level at end of iteration, also at PI also for larger group
Not just basic.
You learn most from running experiments, and only little from mistakes and good practices.
“Celebrate failure” is nonsense, because you shouldn’t celebrate failure that comes from mistakes (the red part).
you should celebrate is learning, and repeating good practices (the green parts).
Pay-for-performance tends to drive people away from experiments, toward the safe practices on the right, with little learning as a result.
Hierarchies are good at exploiting opportunities, and endlessly repeating the same practices; but they learn very little.
Networks are good at exploring new opportunities, and failing half of the time, but they’re not good at efficiently repeating practices.
Training is teaching people about good practices.
Mentoring is about growing and learning. Don’t celebrate all successes, because they might be a result of mistakes.
Celebrate good behaviors (experiments and good practices)
What you as a manager can do to create continuous learning
Story to tell: instead of asking the kids “how was school today?”, ask “what questions did you ask today?”
Idea: at the daily meeting, every day, someone else asks questions as if they don’t know anything
Normalize the “asking questions”
Experiment: Frame work as a learning problem, not execution problems. High performing teams make more mistakes.
Image: https://public-media.interaction-design.org/images/ux-daily/5677ebab4176d.jpg
This is an example. Your spider will vary depending on whether you are a developer, tester, ops person etc.
On each scale, you need to understand what that means
Take care in how this is done, create safety within the team
When done with whole team:
Reality check on individuals’ ratings
Identify team-level needs
Discuss how we can help one another learn
Sets common expectations
Establishes trust in the team
Don’t…
Use a 1-10 scale
Use it as evaluation which is linked to reward
Use in teams where there is no trust
It’s like when you have those moments of quiet in the shower, watching the clouds, etc. that’s when things connect, come together.
3M example - 15% slack time
Can create one hour a week, hackathon is another example – 1 day in a quarter
The managers role is to encourage the team/group to create a learning routine
Image: https://www.insidethegates.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Calendar-with-pins-AdobeStock_69314529-web.gif
What you as a manager can do to create continuous learning
How does all this relate to Agile?
-- continuous improvement – how can you keep improving without learning
-- your group is “doing” Agile, but there are so many engineering practices to learn
-- people became Scrum Masters or Pos, but there’s still so much to learn.
Image: https://s3.amazonaws.com/scrumorg-blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/22051816/3028124-poster-p-dna.jpg
נגמרו התירוצים
Don’t need much money, the knowledge is out there for you to take
Takes little time – can do much of it as part of other things you currently do, can do it together, etc.
You have what you need to do it
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/230598443399958416/
