Training classes using an experiential approach has more and more become the norm in agile leadership trainings. Check if some of these pitfalls are something you need to design around as you prepare your next class. Many trainers in the agile world are really good at using interactive exercises to engage participants. I’ve been a […]
Category Archives: Learning
Experiential Learning (No More “Silentium”)
Over the last five years, I’ve taught lots of classes to lots of people. If I knew it before, I’m convinced of it now: lecturing is not the most effective way to help others truly learn. The problem with lecturing is that it doesn’t really do much to change someone’s behavior, at least not in […]
Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paradigms
My friend from the AYE conference, John, just reminded me about the clip below. It has an important message, but there’s another reason to watch it too: the presentation is stunning. In the clip, Ken Robinson argues that our schools are using methods designed for a different age. Those methods are no longer helpful. We […]
The Power of Completion: Great vs Excellent Teachers
When I practiced aikido, I was struck by the difference between good and excellent teachers. The good teacher would be more than willing to correct me when I did something wrong. Too willing, in fact. So eager were they to instruct me that they would interrupt me mid-motion to show me how to improve. The […]
Use Improvement Stories to Make Your Retrospectives More Effective
<plug>I teach a one-day class on retrospectives. It’s in Swedish only for now, but if that’s not an obstacle, you should read about it on the Citerus web site.</plug> I love to use the user story format when I help teams plan their work. It can sometimes be hard to break user stories down into […]
Ackoff’s 95% (Cannot manage them the same way)
I’m currently cleaning up my trusty old Mac Mini G4. I’ve been cleaning out old stuff I don’t need to save, and a few days ago I installed a cheap 1 gig of memory. That upgrade did not make the machine notably faster. Today, however, I ran a bunch of maintenance tools, which seemed to […]
Centralized Services in Software Development
Reading a blog post by Tripp Babbitt reminded me of Ackoffs discussion on internal market economies in Re-Creating the Corporation. Babbitt’s blog post talks about how focusing on cost reductions often increases costs. One reason is that cost reductions are often approached by centralizing services in organizations. When this happens, a feedback loop is broken. […]
8 Steps to Getting Feedback
Forget everything you know about agile, about any methods, about any kind of tool you’ve mastered. If there’s only one thing you should do, it has to be this: ask for feedback. It doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it. If you don’t stop and ask the people you work with for […]
Learning From Mistakes
Whenever something unexpected happens – such as when we make a mistake – there’s a possibility for learning to happen. For example, I just tried to add an extra branch in my mind mapping tool, but I pressed the wrong key combination. Instead of a new branch, a nice little yellow callout appeared. I immediately […]