Andrea Heisel
Overview
The Organization for International Cooperation (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, GIZ) organized a one-day Agile Learning Camp. The purpose of the camp was to provide a self-organized space for intensive interaction and collaborative learning. The target group included both employees from throughout the company and external consultants. The focus was on experience in the field and lessons learned from applying Agile approaches to collaborative development projects, which increasingly find themselves in fragile and volatile contexts (VUCA: volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous).
Topic
The Agile Learning Camp was designed and organized as a bar-camp (peer-to-peer method for collaborative learning). This format means that the program and speakers are not fixed in advance. Anyone who wants to present or discuss a topic can do so in dedicated sessions. Over the course of the day, around 100 participants discussed a total of almost 50 topics in 45-minute or even 90-minute sessions. The topics varied between formats such as peer consulting, discussion, presentation of methods and case studies on the topic of “Agile methods, Agile work, and Agile teams.”
In my pitch I offered the METALOG training tool CollaborationPuzzle as a hands-on inspirational input session. Given the wide range of interesting topics and input providers, I really needed to generate interest and attract participants: “In this session, you as consultants will have the opportunity to not only see things as your customers do, but to literally slip into their shoes. You will experience real challenges that are part and parcel of implementing our consulting concept ‘Agile working and Agile teams.’ One thing is for sure: you will be enthralled by the process and the dynamics and you will remember this experience the next time you hold consultations.”
The number of participants for this session was limited to a maximum of twelve people. Interest was aroused and we were able to get started with the maximum number of participants.
Staging
a. Preparation
The following assumptions were made:
• The participants (GIZ personnel and external consultants) do not know each other or do not know each other well and have never worked together in this constellation.
• Most of the participants have theoretical and/or practical knowledge of Agile methods and may even be certified in Scrum, Design Thinking, Lean, etc.
b. Performance
I staged the CollaborationPuzzle tool using the language and logic of Scrum: “I will now give you, as the development team, all the information you need for your collaborative task. Afterward, we will examine the materials together that the team will be provided with for the work process. Your result should be a wooden platform in which eight wooden sticks of different lengths are inserted at a uniform height. As a development team, you will have a maximum of ten sprints to work on this product. Between each sprint, you will have 30 seconds to prepare for the next sprint. The less time and the fewer sprints you need, the better.
What does a sprint involve? A sprint is made up of ten individual movements. A single movement means that a wooden rod can either be inserted into the platform (= one movement) or a rod is taken out and placed next to the platform (= one movement). Each team member’s contribution involves performing up to two movements. Firstly, you will determine the order in which you will take turns to enter this work area. The work steps will be performed in the separated work area, which we will have a look at together – in silence. Only one of you is allowed to be there at any one time. During each sprint, talking and interacting is strictly forbidden. After each sprint, you will have 30 seconds to confer for the next sprint. You will twice be able to opt to extend the time by five minutes between sprints to discuss and agree on your strategy.”
Before starting, the team silently entered the separated work area. From a short distance, they were able to take a look at the wooden platform with two rods already positioned and protruding at different heights, as well as the remaining six wooden rods of different lengths. Afterward, the team had five minutes to discuss how to proceed.
c. Progression
Once started, it quickly became clear that the team had forgotten to discuss a number of key points. After the first sprint, only less than half of the team had been in the workspace. Most team members had not yet been able to actually experience the specific task at hand. It took two more sprints to work out as a team that the key factor for success was sharing information and that they needed to set rules and reach agreement in order to do so. It quickly became clear that the key to collective success was developing a joint strategy. But how could the team quickly develop and remember such a strategy?
In theory, everything was actually crystal clear. But how could the team succeed in putting it into practice? The questions that preoccupied the team were, what will help us:
• …overcome the challenges of spatial separation?
• …ensure direct sharing of information?
• …leverage our different perspectives and competencies?
The team opted for an extended time slot between the sprints and discussed how many rules and how much flexibility were simultaneously required. At the same time, the participants considered how much control was needed and how much innovation – and to what extent “just trying it out and gaining experience” – needed to be possible in order to move forward together.
Quite unexpectedly, the question of, and the need for, leadership arose: do we need leadership and if so, what kind of leadership should it be?
Transfer to the real World
| Elements in the learning project | Elements in the real world |
|---|---|
| Wooden rods of different lengths | Different challenges, tasks, skill sets, heterogeneous teams |
| Wooden rods with pre-drilled holes | At first glance: clear parameters At second glance: boreholes of different depths and interpretable parameters |
| Separate workspace | Discussions that need to be held prior to performing work, e.g. in team meetings |
| Stopovers | Sprints: equal length, ten work steps (Time constraints in project work) Sprint planning: defining the specific content and a sprint goal at the beginning of a sprint Sprint review: reviewing results, defining future adjustments to achieve the product goal Sprint retrospective: continuous improvement, learning, and deciding on future course of action |
| Time constraints and sequences | Scrum: a self-organized, independent team with all the necessary skills to achieve a development goal within a fixed time frame |
Reflection
After 87 work steps, the goal was achieved. The team formulated the following “Aha!” moments:
• CollaborationPuzzle is – like the story of the building of the temple – a metaphor for mindset in Agile project management. As participants in a process, it is important to always keep the big picture in mind and to maintain this focus.
• In everyday life, it is easy to rush into a task and lose sight of the strategy. It is important and helpful to reflect, to take stock, to develop a strategy, and to continually optimize the process. However, it could also be that, by experiencing a spontaneously flowing process, it is possible to recognize the re-alignments that are necessary to continue the process (a helpful insight, especially for trainers and/or managers). In Agile work, strategy and process information are important success factors for good communication.
• “The experience hurt – but it really helped us move forward.”
