NOTES for OAChampions Training Day One

Concept of Organic Growth/Learning
Define this a little better in the start

Airplane exercise:
Two rounds:

First round, everyone can create their own paper airplane. Goal is to go as far as possible.

Everyone throws towards the instructor.

Stand beside where your airplane landed.

People whose planes went farthest are "Subject Matter Experts"

Second round, everyone can ask for help from a Subject Matter Experts

Everyone throws again

Instructor asks: "What happened? What did you learn?"

Instructor should note both successes and "failures".

Expectations of You
Add: to enjoy

Stickies Image
Instructor hands out stickies to everyone

Expectations
- new ideas as a coach in the field

- improve my own ability to train others, spread the word

- get certified

- go back and see if we answered the big questions from OA Community Cycle 1

- contribute to the content, and to learn something

- tools for coaches in the field (concrete)

- see an Agile workspace

- feedback on how I train/facilitate

Value Delivery System
- vs. Learning System - do we introduce this?

Work is Done in Cycles
ADD THIS AS A SLIDE

Need a definition of this

Organic Growth
based in natural process - organic

planning is determined by the organic processes

gardening - plan, but adjust constantly

if what you are doing is working, don't change it

experience build

foundation

What is growing? In OpenAgile:
 * capacities as individuals
 * team capacities
 * value delivery
 * OpenAgile itself (processes)
 * we have to consider environment
 * not everything is timely
 * efficient processes
 * cohesive team
 * meeting the needs of changing requirements (what is valuable changes with time)

Trees have incisor cells that cut off the leaves - if they don't cut off, then the branch will die

Capacity and value grow together

Prioritized Value Drivers
"SMART" acronym

Typically larger than PBIs in Scrum

SMART is a guideline rather than a formal rule - sometimes it's okay to be indicative rather than precise

Needs to be prioritizable and understandable

The OpenAgile Process
Use stars or leaves instead of "$" for the value drivers in the diagram

Somehow remove the redundancy of having the GF and PF represented twice in the diagram

Use the diagram as a job aid

Person symbol looks like men's room door symbol - maybe use smiley faces or something like that

Benefits
but not guaranteed - outside factors may mean you are just doing the wrong thing or at the wrong time

Not succeeding is less painful, but you have more visibility, less delusional

ROI might not be the right phrase, but a bit of explanation will help - e.g. human effort

"Value Delivery" might be a better phrase

Big discussion about what to put here - ended up with two slides

Helps the team meet its commitments
Help each other with struggles, ask for help

Communicates obstacles to the team
Obstacles may become Value Drivers

Personal struggles, tools, etc.

ADD these responsibilities:

Learning (progress meetings, Engagement meeting)

Contributes to the Plan

Contributes knowledge, expertise, experience

Checking work against overall goal and Value Drivers

Full participant in all meetings
E.g. Cycle Engagement meeting

Volunteers for tasks
What if you have a task that no one wants?

Hopefully people ask for help.

Identifies new tasks as they are discovered
Writing them up on stickies

Also tracking how much work is being done

And makes them visible!

Works with other team members
In-person work environment

ADD:

De-invisiblizes tasks

How to discuss capabilities of a Team Member

What are the attitudes of an effective Team Member?

E.g. understanding the nature of a team as having greater value than the sum of it's parts

Humility, contributing to the greater value of the team

Can't just leave

It's not a team of great people, its a great team of people.

ADD: new section about attitudes of a Team Member

"Humble Posture of Learning"

Can we help some develop good attitudes?

Willing and able

What are the rules of engagement?

Is change a dirty word? Helping people deal with change rather than changing people. Adapting!

"Adapt" may be a better word.

What are some typical obstacles to truthfulness?
Honest, trustworthy, candid, frank

Not just truthfulness about the progress of a project

About becoming better human beings

We are not trying to re-create people

Truthfulness is hard! Not about conformance.

This is an invitation to people and teams and organization - does it help us?

Not deceiving yourself - seeing reality

Politeness can trump this, avoiding rocking the boat, Nortel Nod

Obstacles to Truthfulness: Culture, fear of consequences

Getting leaders to model better behaviors

Why do we need to build trust?
Actions, behaviors

Every relationship that works well has to be built on trust

Exercise

 * 1) liar - it depends, what are the consequences of trusting a liar? (enables, repeat) Is it possible to be truthful about trusting a liar?  What about a broken promise?  What about a habit of broken promises?
 * 2) thief - stealing is a behavior lie - conditional trust or trust within a framework

We need to see a pattern of behavior

How do our prejudices affect our ability to trust?
Culture

What should we do with our prejudices? Destroy them...

What is the distinction between prejudice and learned distinctions?

Cultural standards around bribery and doing business.

Is it possible to lie to oneself?
Unrealistic self-assessment (e.g. best driver, gambling, I can quit any time I want)

Disconnected from reality

What can we do to promote truthfulness in our daily lives?
Reflect (measure) self, hold self accountable

Recognizing and being clear about the distinction between promise/commitment and desire/intention

What is the point in saying something if you aren't going to do it? Often to avoid saying "no", avoiding confrontation.

make things visible

Focus on doing instead of talking

Learn that it is okay to say "no"

OpenAgile helps with visibility to be honest

Caution to not say "I can't"

Has a lot to do with what we do as well as what we say

Becoming aware of consequences

Not impeding growth

ADD: the ability to make and keep commitments

What would the world be like if we were all truthful and honest
Lots of effort and complexity goes into validation of reality - if we could trust things, then we wouldn't need this complexity.

Lawyers (adversarial systems) would be out of a job

NOTES:
Is this discussion too hard for a training where people might be forced to attend?

Took 90 minutes! Too long, how do we focus this?

Open questions on the slides make it much more engaging

Purpose
Prioritization

The "best solution" is dynamic - may be difficult to prioritize

Related to organic growth - best _at the time_ solution

Coming together to get a solution

Outcome
United action

Not
Debate - need to clarify in the training

ADD: Identify tools e.g. brainstorming, 6 thinking hats, lateral thinking, core protocols

Capabilities
Are these prerequisites or outcomes or both?

These are prerequisites - need to present these as something to have at least a bit of

Develop these capabilities through practice

Need to know why you need them! Why?

How to Do Consultative Decision Making
Add note: not limited to just the official OpenAgile Meetings

Not a prescription for step-by-step rules

ADD: Exercise/handout with true/false about

Results
Team grows together, move faster, respond to change

Consultative Decision Making Exercise
Try mixing good and bad behavior

Try a third round with an actual decision to be made and no role-play guidance

Reverse the order of the Consultative Exercise and Presentation Slides

Round One - Bad

Slides about what CDM is NOT

Round Two - Good

Slides about what CDM IS

Round Three - Practice without role play

Questions about concepts

Simulation I
Trainer disappears - helps team members step up to do the service of Process Facilitator

Narration and Dialog as distinct

Maybe make progress meetings 2.5 minutes or even longer

Learning Circle
Handout: very vague scale, need to define, give examples