Course Recommendations

[Chet Hendrickson]

Hi,

Here we are at the beginning of a new year.  One think I usually do about now is begin to think about personal development.  So, I thought I would reach out and see if any of my colleagues here had any suggestions.  

Is there any course you would like to recommend?  One you have heard about, one you have taken, one you give (but be aware that Jeffries may show up too).  I am mostly thinking about in person, but other is ok too.

I am interested in everything, so do worry about that.  I am the world's most experienced beginner, so don't worry about level.

chet

	Chet Hendrickson ch...@hendricksonxp.com	Tel 248.345.7258 http://www.hendricksonxp.com

[Liz Keogh]

Cognitive Edge's Cynefin and Sensemaking courses are amazing. I see the world in a whole different way now (and teach Cynefin alongside just about everything else as a result). Don't worry too much about Sensemaker, which is a tool they produce, though do take any chance offered to see it in action, as it's also a little mind-blowing.

The other amazing life-changing course for me was Adam Eason's hypnotherapy training; two sets of 9 days in lovely Bournemouth. Comes with a ton of homework if you want to get the diploma (which will actually allow you to change careers to a hypnotherapist, complete with professional body membership, if you want).

Liz.

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Liz Keogh
l...@lunivore.com
http://lizkeogh.com
http://lunivore.com

[Erik G. H. Meade]

Liz Keogh <l...@lunivore.com> wrote:
> [1]Cognitive Edge's Cynefin and Sensemaking courses are amazing. I see the

> world in a whole different way now (and teach Cynefin alongside just about
> everything else as a result). Don't worry too much about Sensemaker, which
> is a tool they produce, though do take any chance offered to see it in
> action, as it's also a little mind-blowing.

I recommend as well.

[Ron Jeffries]

Thanks, Liz,

On Jan 6, 2015, at 4:59 AM, Liz Keogh <l...@lunivore.com> wrote:

Cognitive Edge's Cynefin and Sensemaking courses are amazing. I see the world in a whole different way now (and teach Cynefin alongside just about everything else as a result).

I have quite some interest in this, as Dave seems to be bright, articulate and a bit grumpy, and I’d really like to understand why what he’s saying is useful. Every time I read about it I’m like “OK, and …” and I’m sure it deserves a better response.

So far he hasn’t come to Ann Arbor, though ...

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

I try to Zen through it and keep my voice very mellow and low.

Inside I am screaming and have a machine gun.

Yin and Yang I figure.

  -- Tom Jeffries

[Yves Hanoulle]

cynefin is on my list of trainings I want to follow too.

this year I'm also going to follow a LESS training.

next to that, I hope to work this year at least a week as a remote coach for a company and learn from that.

and I'm interested in learning more about agile architecture.

y

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Yves Hanoulle 

Phone 00 32 476 43 38 32

PS: Gratis omwille van het nieuwe schooljaar: Programmeren voor kinderen: http://www.leanpub.com/programmerenvoorkinderen

[Jon Kern]

Mike and Nicole Clark’s Rails video series is good.

Pat Maddox’s RubySteps is good. You can do mob programming too ;-)

Jon Kern

blog: http://technicaldebt.com

twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA

github: https://github.com/JonKernPA

[Adrian Howard]

On 6 Jan 2015, at 11:55, Yves Hanoulle <Yv...@PairCoaching.net> wrote:

cynefin is on my list of trainings I want to follow too.

this year I’m also going to follow a LESS training.

Cynefin is on my list too. Too many smart folk I respect seem to be getting value out of it — but I’m not really grokking it myself yet.

Adrian

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adr...@quietstars.com / +44 (0)7752 419080 / @adrianh / quietstars.com

(CSSTWP.com the product team certification programme you can trust! ;-)

[Liz Keogh]

If anyone wants it, email me and I'll be happy to send a copy of the "Cynefin for Developers" article which I wrote a while back. It's a slightly more formal version of this blog post. This other blog post on a thing I call "Capability Red" explains more on how I use it. I also did a talk on it. But I still recommend Cognitive Edge's courses for seeing how far the rabbit hole really goes.

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[Pierre Neis | We&Co]

I had the opportunity to follow this training in 2010 with Dave Snowden.

Agree with Liz, helps a lot to understand team/management/org./leadership/communication dynamics.

I’ve been interesting to have a copy of the « Cynefin for Developers ».

Cheers

Pierre

[Erik G. H. Meade]

Ron Jeffries <ronje...@acm.org> wrote:
> I have quite some interest in this, as Dave seems to be bright, articulate

> and a bit grumpy, and Ia**d really like to understand why what hea**s
> saying is useful. Every time I read about it Ia**m like a**OK, and a*|a**
> and Ia**m sure it deserves a better response.
> So far he hasna**t come to Ann Arbor, though ...
> Ron Jeffries

One of the things I find very powerful about Cynefin are the various methods and assemblies for tapping into the "subconscious" of an organization ( http://cognitive-edge.com/library/methods/ ). In particular I like how difficult they are to game. There is more exposure to these in the classes vs on the web. I suspect these methods could also be used in retrospectives.

Being able to discuss the differences between domains has been helpful to me for winning support for more agile like processes. For example, DevOps might be taking a simple domain approach, where everything needs to be production quality and finely polished. QA maybe wanting to do more safe-to-fail experiments ala the complex domain. Having the framework to be able to explain the validity of both contexts got us past DevOps telling QA they were doing it wrong. I see lots of communication problems due to crossed domain issues.

The innovation cycle is pretty powerful, understand that you want to work through the various domains (not to mention a guide to the actions taken in each domain) can be a pretty big deal for organizations and people that remain stuck. In the above example, QA wants to do a lot of quick cheap things (spikes) to learn. As QA learns and finds things that are useful these things get more structure and move from the complex domain to the complicated and simple domains.

[Wouter Lagerweij]

Hi Chet,

I'm not too sure about any structured training, but on the technical/tooling side I think that it will be valuable for technical coaches to get familiar with the whole Docker ecosystem. It's enabling a number of things that agile teams usually look for. Faster deployments, and thus faster CI, and management of test data come to mind. At the very least it will add a few additional answers to give to "can't work in our circumstances" comments. 

The other thing I'm trying to learn more about (mostly through trying to do it, I don't know of any specific training) is on the value side. I know some people that say that value is what you like. In some situations (web business) it could be possible to measure the things you like.  I'm trying to learn more about things popularised with the Lean Startup, defining and measuring funnels, creating big visible dashboards, and helping business people theorise on expected impact. 

Wouter

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Wouter Lagerweij          | wou...@lagerweij.com

http://www.lagerweij.com  | @wouterla

linkedin.com/in/lagerweij | +31(0)6 28553506

[Ron Jeffries]

Hi Erik,

What you say is interesting and makes me feel all the more that I’d benefit from a hard look at this stuff. 

Now … all … I’ve been thinking that I’d like to hear all this beginning with Dave himself. Is that a good thought? What courses should we consider, in what order, from whom, in your opinions?

Thanks,

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

Sometimes you just have to stop holding on with both hands, both feet, and your tail, to get someplace better. 

Of course you might plummet to the earth and die, but probably not: you were made for this.

[Erik G. H. Meade]

Ron Jeffries <ronje...@acm.org> wrote:
> Hi Erik,

> What you say is interesting and makes me feel all the more that Ia**d

> benefit from a hard look at this stuff.

> Now a*| all a*| Ia**ve been thinking that Ia**d like to hear all this

> beginning with Dave himself. Is that a good thought? What courses should
> we consider, in what order, from whom, in your opinions?

Dave is certainly the leading authority. Michael Cheveldave has a gentler style. Those are the two I have had classes from, I'ld recommend either. My first class was with Michael and it was good to have some background before I took classes by Dave.

Like Liz said, the various SenseMaker(tm) stuff is cool. I wouldn't take a full blown class on it unless I was serious about trying to rolling it out and had some high level buy-in.

The classes have changed since I attended, Cynefin & Sense-making is the class I think is best to start with. I haven't seen many (any?) classes offered in the US that aren't on the East or West coast. It also might be worth it to looking at becoming a member and getting the 15% off, it saved me some money.

[Ron Jeffries]

Thanks, Eric!

R

On Jan 6, 2015, at 6:27 PM, Erik G. H. Meade <aga...@eghm.net> wrote:

Dave is certainly the leading authority.  Michael Cheveldave has a gentler style.  Those are the two I have had classes from, I'ld recommend either.  My first class was with Michael and it was good to have some background before I took classes by Dave.

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

If it is more than you need, it is waste. -- Andy Seidl

[Jeremy Lightsmith]

Most life changing training I've had is PSL (http://www.estherderby.com/problem-solving-leadership-psl). 5 days, 25 people, 1 room, all experiential training. It's intense. I've since talked to lots of people that have done it. Most were like me and had amazing experiences, saw huge blind spots and have been working on them since. However, some didn't enjoy it - perhaps they weren't at a place to have Jerry (or Esther or Johanna) totally call them on their sh$t or perhaps they just didn't learn that way. Either way it's an experience - think boot camp.

After that, HSD (http://www.hsdinstitute.org/learn-more/overview.html) was fabulous. In some ways, it is an alternative way of thinking about complexity to Cynefin - though really it's different, and they can be complementary. 10 days of training spread over 3 months with homework in between. The people I took it with were all veteran facilitators + change agents. Some in software, but most in education, healthcare, and the public sector. They introduce not just theory, but also many concrete methods/tools that you can use with a small group, large group, or even in 1-on-1 coaching. The beauty is it's all founded upon a really deep understanding of the nature of complexity. They use different language, but all their tools are designed to be used in a world that is often complex or even chaotic. The breaks in between the learning were also great, in that after the first 2 sessions, everyone was overwhelmed but the break let us get a handle on it, internalize it and come back for more - just what I love.

----
Jeremy Lightsmith
Helping Software Teams Get More Productive with tools like Agile, Lean, & Rails
312-953-1193
http://jeremylightsmith.com/
http://facilitationpatterns.org/ (book in progress)
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremylightsmith

[DianaOfPortland]

HI Chet, 

To add to the list, I'm also partial to the http://www.hsdinstitute.org/learn-more/overview.html training in the complexity of human system dynamics with Glenda Eoyang. It's a long course that begins with three days of residential work with a cohort group and continues through 3-4 months as an online course with new colleagues. I took it when it was 10 days on site and stuck around to be a TA twice because I found it was powerful stuff. 

My second favorite course was a "Covert Processes in Organizations" 6-day workshop put on by National Training Labs, but I don't think they offer that one anymore.  

I think Dave Snowden's course is interesting too, and Cynefin is a good model. When I took it in 2009 someone other than Dave was the facilitator. I can't recommend that person's skills in leading the workshop. I kept getting distracted by the poor facilitation. (May be my own personal problem...and maybe that person has improved in the intervening five years.) In any case, I needed & wanted a deeper dive into complex adaptive systems, and the HSD course gave me that. 

Diana

[ni...@agilebear.com]

I'm planning on doing some Cynefin stuff this year. I may even internationally travel for it.

Nigel

[Adrian Wible]

Dave Snowden has a fantastic video on cynefin here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8. If the course is anywhere near as professional, it sounds like a win to me.

Management 3.0 (Jurgen Appelo) - based on the book - is also very good. I attended with Jurgen teaching, so can't say anything about the others teaching out there.

- Adrian

On Tuesday, January 6, 2015 6:56:07 AM UTC-5, YvesHanoulle wrote:

cynefin is on my list of trainings I want to follow too.

this year I'm also going to follow a LESS training.

next to that, I hope to work this year at least a week as a remote coach for a company and learn from that.

and I'm interested in learning more about agile architecture.

y

2015-01-06 11:48 GMT+01:00 Ron Jeffries <ronje...@acm.org>:

Thanks, Liz,

On Jan 6, 2015, at 4:59 AM, Liz Keogh <l...@lunivore.com> wrote:

Cognitive Edge's Cynefin and Sensemaking courses are amazing. I see the world in a whole different way now (and teach Cynefin alongside just about everything else as a result).

I have quite some interest in this, as Dave seems to be bright, articulate and a bit grumpy, and I’d really like to understand why what he’s saying is useful. Every time I read about it I’m like “OK, and …” and I’m sure it deserves a better response.

So far he hasn’t come to Ann Arbor, though ...

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

I try to Zen through it and keep my voice very mellow and low.

Inside I am screaming and have a machine gun.

Yin and Yang I figure.

  -- Tom Jeffries

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[Alex Harms]

I'm late (wasn't getting emails) but allow me to hawk my meditation & mindfulness class for geeks :)  maitria.com/events/intro-to-meditation.html