Last week tuesday I gave the second of my Scrum Morning Sessions at my employer Sanoma. I often give presentations on the subjects of Agile and Scrum, but I am pretty new to the whole training thing. My first training was anything but a big succes. Luckily, Scrum came to my aide.
My first training was a lot like my presentations. It was mostly me talking, I had a wonderful batch of slides to share and had a good story. Despite all the hard work and preparations I put into it, the attendees didn’t really seemed very enthusiastic. I had put up a feedback sheet, which people could use to display their level of happiness about the training and the reason why, by writing on a post-it. Although it didn’t feel like it at first, this turned out to be a treasure trove.
I am the first to admit that when you get a lot of critique it can be disheartening. Talking briefly to a fellow project manager with training experience helped me turn around and make me see this feedback was pure gold. It was the raw, unrefined feedback on a product my stakeholders weren’t happy with. They gave valuable feedback on how to improve.
- For one, there was a big gap in knowledge between attendees; some attendees had some experience with Scrum and wanted more in-depth discussion, while others did not yet have an experience but wanted to learn.
- Also, the experience was far too theoretical, and didn’t have a lot of grounding with the attendees. What was desired was more practical touch.
- Finally, the amount of interaction during the training was minimal, mainly due to the amount of material I tried to cram into the 4 hours in my disposal. The interaction that did take place was considered very valuable.
Taking this feedback at heart I considered a new for training. Surprisingly enough Scrum was the answer.
I decided to treat each individual session as the product, with the participants as the major stakeholders. The training itself would be a blank canvas and the participants would decide what topics to cover during the training.
In order to make this possible, I gave all participants some homework before the actual training would start. This involved them watching a 17 minute long overview presentation on Scrum as well as thinking of a few topics they wanted to cover during the training. This way everyone would have a minimum level of understanding of Scrum as well as given some thought on relevant questions at hand.
After the introductions the participants spent the first half hour of the training writing down their training goals in the form of stories, which would then be grouped and prioritized according to value. Value was determined by a variant of value poker, where participants would ante up on a specific subject.
These topics would be then be planned in sprints of about one hour, in which I would discuss the selected topics. During these sprints I had a myriad of slides I could use to illustrate certain aspects of Scrum, but ended up having to use very little. What did happen was that there was much more discussion amongst the participants, with me basically just coaching it like a scrum master.
Each of these sprints ended in a Sprint review in which we looked back at the topics and determined whether the story was done. At one time new stories would emerge, which would be given a value and based on this the backlog was being refined. At the end of each sprint the training itself was also reviewed.
During the 3 sprint timeboxes we managed to cover all but one of the topics that were deemed valuable (one story got rejected by the group due to lack of value). Moreover, the participants were practicing scrum the entire time. The enthusiasm after the training was almost palpable.
The best part for me was that I learned as much about training as the participants learned about Scrum. The retrospective sheet showed a lot of praise and a few practical suggestions for improvement.
In my own retrospective of the training I would say there was a lot that went well:
- My participants were allowed to assemble their own training, which resulted in very satisfied stakeholders;
- Modeling the training after the Scrum framework resulted in a good mix of practical application and in-depth discussion;
- Because the training wasn’t planned linear, there was much more room for open discussion amongst the participants, which proved to be most valuable;
- Using the Scrum framework and a self-assembled slide toolbox, I spent 10 times less time preparing for a training that was proven to be more successful.
There are also some things I can improve for next time:
- Better manage the timeboxes (perhaps find a tool that can help me);
- Have a few practical examples at hand for use during the training for illustration during the scrum process;
- Keep track of the user stories and used slides to compile a reference document for handing out after the training.
- Find a good exercise to give as homework afterwards that will help retain knowledge on Agile and Scrum.
Giving this training was one of the more rewarding things I’ve done in my career. It has boosted my confidence and increased the resolve I have to continue on this path of helping others become Agile. It has also taught me that opening yourself to the critique of others can be the first step in self-improvement, if you are willing to change perspective.
Finally, I have found something that I really enjoy doing. So if you are interested, let me know.