AGILE | PRACTICE-BASED TEACHING APPROACH

Goodbye to the Agile Guitar Hero

Practice the mindset of keeping your (Agile) learners engaged

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/actor-adult-ancient-art-236171/

I’m playing with a crazy thought: what if we got it all wrong — and instead of insisting so much on teaching the Agile mindset first, we started by teaching practices? Just with a twist compared to the usual approach.

I’m noticing a fundamental problem in how Agile is introduced in work contexts. There’s a huge disconnect between consumers & providers. The consumers don’t really know what they are asking for, while the providers don’t truly empathize with where their consumers are coming from.

Trainers and coaches believe that we should start from the mindset: teach the mindset for hours, days, weeks if necessary. You need to get that right before you can learn the rest. Sure, it’s the Mr. Miyagi style: wax on, wax off with your arms until all of a sudden you discover that you are capable to deliver a deadly kick in the local tournament.

But that is Hollywood. It’s not that the method doesn’t work. It’s just that in real life it is super rare that your consumers will be as patient as the Karate Kid. They will also not be the bullied teenagers, with 40 years less than you have, who over time see you as their replacement father. I hope for both.

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The consumers type “students” need intrinsic motivation to start learning. To be motivated to learn something ethereal like a mindset, one has to get it. But once you get it, you probably have the mindset — and you can move on to the next concepts. If not, you end up like traditional academic studies that inflict on poor kids hours over hours of apparently useless topics delivered in the form of very passive lectures. Where’s the interaction? Where is the learning?

Sure you can run super fabulously engaging workshops that make them excited about the topic of Agile. It makes me think of trying to get someone pumped and ready for an uptempo concert in front of 100k spectators by having them play the video game Guitar Hero in easy mode. Just to get the rhythm.

Guitar Hero (released November 2005 for PS2 by Harmonix & RedOctane)

The sponsors of the consumers never thought of mindset as their priority. Let’s face it. If they did, they would probably have adopted behaviors that avoided the work context from being dysfunctional. Maybe they care though. Maybe they have always cared. But high-priority work took precedence, which is why they sacrifice the mindset. Which, based on the principle of yesterday’s weather, means that it will be sacrificed again at the next priority.

Teaching practices should make both consumers & sponsors happy.

It is said that starting by teaching practices is bad, because people learn to go through the motions & that’s where they stop.

But does it have to be really so?

What if we contracted with sponsors that practices are the beginning of the journey but not the end? What if we sold something beyond the 4 hours workshop or the micro lesson on Planning Poker — and also beyond the workshop on principles?

What if, as providers, we stopped being so uncompromising and started meeting our customers where they are? And in exchange, we received a promise to go over mindset a bit later, as soon as the consumers are ready to receive — and sponsors can appreciate the value?

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