How to design a community (culture) of learning?
Unless someone like you care a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It is not. — Dr. Seuss
You can probably tell I have seen The Lorax movie recently but I digress. I recently participated in the first Agile Coach Camp US West in #SoCal (My third Agile Coach Camp or Unconference). During the event, I had an opportunity to exchange experiences (with thought leaders I truly admire) on how to design a community of learning.
For the past several years, I have been exploring the overlap of agile and accelerated learning. While agile has built-in learning loops (known as frequent feedback loops), I find it very useful to have a good understanding of instructional design models based on the concepts of Training from the BACK of the Room and how the brain learns.
The emphasis on learning is not new however. Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) introduced by Walter Shewhart then later became popularly known as the Deming cycle in the 1950’s emphasized learning. Also, an infoQ article by Amr Elssamadisy and Deboarah Hartmann Preuss in the recent past highlighted that “Learning is THE bottleneck”.
I have been engaged with a number of initiatives with the overall purpose of enhancing team and organization agility. One of the common patterns I have seen over and over is not enough time dedicated to learning. However, as I explore this further, I find that a potential cause is the lack of attention to learning. Attention is becoming scarce every day and with so many distractions, it’s hard to FOCUS!
One of the things I have come to realize is that change begins within and it starts with care. Care has many definitions but the ones I find relevant in this context are serious attention or consideration and feel concern or interest. One may feel concern or interest about something but not give it serious attention or consideration. The other way around is also possible, to give serious attention or consideration to something but not feel concern or interest. In the latter, you are doing it just because you have to not because you want to. This is what Christopher Avery calls ‘obligation’ in The Responsibility Process.
What was the last book you read?
That was the question that really sparked my curiosity about the overlap between agile and accelerated learning. At the time, I worked with an organization to improve the product delivery lifecycle. The challenges I encountered were all too familiar. Some of the challenges include constant change in direction, lack of shared understanding among different groups and quality issues. As I explored different agile practices to address these challenges, it became apparent to me that there was no time to learn (or experiment). The main objective was to maintain the state of being utilized at 100% (or the perception of it).
One day I was having lunch with a colleague and during our conversation, I asked ‘What was the last book you read?’ and taken back by the question, he paused for what seemed like an eternity then said, “I haven’t read a book in the last 10 years!”
This validated my idea about care as defined earlier. While I don’t believe people have no interest in learning as we are born to learn and mastery is something that motivates us according to Dan Pink. I find that Interest may be there but serious attention most likely is not. How could someone give serious attention to learning when they are constantly busy?
Peopleware
You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” — Charlie Jones
Perhaps if I designed a platform to connect people and share books around topics of interest, today’s person will not be the same person tomorrow, I thought to myself. And so I designed a lunch and learn program to connect people with the goal of sharing ideas and invited others to share what they learned from experimenting with agile practices.
Peopleware is a highly recommended read by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister.
The SPARK
As Stephen Covey once said, “Begin with an END in mind.” When designing lunch and learn programs, I usually start with 3 goals in mind:
- Connections
We tend to learn better when we feel connected, connected to the topic, connected to each other (sharing each other knowledge and experiences) and the environment is designed to spark curiosity and learning. Learning is not a task, it is the whole experience!
2. Conversations
Individuals and interactions is one of the values in agile. Deep conversations and powerful questions usually lead to shared understanding which could spark interest in topics we didn’t know we had interest in have we not paid serious attention (and that applies to many areas of our life).
3. Community
Individuals work better together when they get to know each other beyond their titles and roles. This is one of the reason sharing ‘lunch’ together is an important aspect of the lunch and learn programs. Bring your own lunch is another option for virtual events.
Gamify the learning experience
While one of khan academy goals is to reinvent education. I think one of the brilliant ideas behind this project has been the ability to gamify the learning experience through points and badges.
As for Agile learning, I utilized ICAgile Roadmap as well as the learning objectives to design different agile topics across multiple disciplines. The roadmap also provides a way to visualize and track the learning journey and it also offers certifications to reward the intent to learn. I also find The Agile Fluency™ model by Diana Larsen and James Shore a useful model in explaining how agile teams may evolve through different stages.
Beyond lunch and learn programs
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” — Anais Nin
Growing a community of learning and teaching has moved beyond lunch and learn programs for me. It became more about an exchange of ideas and experiences. The goal is to nurture a lifelong learning community that is passionate about learning, experimenting and teaching.
A walk-through my thought process
I quickly realized that to “learn” without the ability to “experiment” was not going to cut it. Learning without experimenting (applying) will soon be forgotten.
Later, it became apparent to me that the teaching is part of learning. We also need to have the ability to assess or “examine” where we stand. Learning is essential to organizational agility. So, how do we assess learning or “agility”? This will be a topic for another day.
For now, go ahead and start a community of learning or perhaps a lunch and learn program or if you already started one, what has been your experience?
As humans, we are always learning, As Dan Gilbert said in one of his ted talks:
Human beings are work in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished”.
Originally published at www.linkedin.com.
