Facilitators, we need them!
ncancelliere
It doesn't take much, simply ones time and talent, AgileAustin takes
care of the test.
What do you think the biggest road-blocks are to people wanting to
facilitate?
I've been talking with Scott Killen about this, because a lot of folks
have expressed interest in being a facilitator, but few actually
commit to a topic.
Two things:
a) Fear of time commitment; people are afraid it will take more time
than they are willing to commit to.
b) Fear of competency; people do not feel they are qualified to
facilitate a topic.
What other reasons do you think people are reluctant to help
facilitate? Have you expressed interests, but had second thoughts?
What were they? (Maybe we can dispel those fears!)
Scott Bellware
> What other reasons do you think people are reluctant to help
> facilitate? Have you expressed interests, but had second thoughts?
> What were they? (Maybe we can dispel those fears!)
the community and find out what content is available, what people
want, and what leaders are presently concerned with. I look at the
list of topics and see nothing too terribly interesting or insightful,
and I see yet again another instance of the Agile Austin organization
not leveraging very basic and fundamental agile practices toward its
own success in this program, and this makes me rather disinterested in
applying my own experience over the last five years in building and
delivering curriculum.
I also observe that there are novices on the list of facilitators,
which says to me that Agile Austin is willing to risk the very
knowledge advancement that it seeks to promote by putting novices in
positions of authority.
In short, I'm personally reluctant to help facilitate because the
program itself doesn't come off as having put integrity first, and
this quality is an absolute must. I would prefer to host my own
events at my own expense rather than be involved with something that I
have a hard time believing in yet.
The idea behind the program is good, but I wish that the execution
would itself be representative of agile values, principles, and
approaches.
-Scott
Nicholas Cancelliere
We actually had queried folks on what they'd like to see workshops on. The list of topics was collected from an online survey that we polled after every workshop. We didn't just decide on these topics, these are the topics people in the community want to see discussed in a workshop. I have also been very clear in pointing out no one is limited to the list of topics, but any topic related to Agile software development is welcomed. If there are topics you'd like to see added to the list please point it out. Again the list is only representative of what people thus far have communicated wanting to see more of. We have to start somewhere, and the list is bound to change with time.
We all share different experiences with implementing Agile and all have various levels of expertise. We ask people facilitate workshops, this isn't to say that everyone is always going to be an expert in their area. We instead rely on the class itself to discuss and learn together from their collective experiences. For example in my user story workshop people are presented with the basic concepts of story writing and then are asked to break up into teams and to write their own stories for a mock project. Some people are writing stories for the first time, others have had experience doing it before, and so in the end everyone ends up learning and teaching.
I'm sad to learn that you're unwilling to help, because you are very knowledgeable and would probably be a great facilitator on a variety of topics. In terms of eating our own dog food ... we have essentially a backlog of topics, all ranked in priority based on what people have asked us for. I think it's been proven out by the fact that a highly requested item (iteration and release planning) has already filled up in only 1 week of being advertised. We've set-up a web site and Google group to get more discussion and collaboration going. I cannot force people to collaborate, share their ideas or participate -- they have to do that on their own, but I'm trying to provide the necessary tools and start the needed discussions. There are lot of side-line observers, but that's not true collaboration. People have to get involved.
What more would you like to see? I can appreciate your criticisms; however, it's one thing to point fault, it's another to do so in a constructive manner.
Sincerley,
Nicholas
Nicholas Cancelliere - Austin, TX
CSM/CSP and Rails Developer
"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." --Albert Einstein
Scott Bellware
> every workshop. We didn't just decide on these topics, these are the topics
> people in the community want to see discussed in a workshop.
Well, they're topics that people who were polled and responded
expressed an interest in.
> I have also been very clear in pointing out no one is limited to the list of topics, but
> any topic related to Agile software development is welcomed.
Yep, I just found the sentence on the workshops page that points this
out. Designing the page for interactivity rather than as a marketing
release might have made that point come across much better. Apologies
for getting that wrong.
> We ask people facilitate workshops, this isn't
> to say that everyone is always going to be an expert in their area. We
> instead rely on the class itself to discuss and learn together from their
> collective experiences.
There's simply just no way in hell that you'll ever be able to
convince me that this is anything but the most negligent path.
If you're holding discussion groups, then hold discussion groups. The
term "workshop" means something colloquially in this field, and part
of what it means is that the leader is an authority. You're
intentions here are sweet, but counting on the Utopian thing happening
is very risky.
You will create false authorities this way and doing so will damage
the rate of growth of understanding in the community, and will damage
the overall quality of the knowledge and practices that a number of
folks have been working toward communicating clearly for a lot longer
than Agile Austin has been in play. You have a responsibility to the
folks who contributed to the foundations that Agile Austin sits on to
make sure that the rest of the oeuvre has just as much integrity and
that the knowledge leaders going forward are indeed knowledge leaders.
> For example in my user story workshop people are
> presented with the basic concepts of story writing and then are asked to
> break up into teams and to write their own stories for a mock project. Some
> people are writing stories for the first time, others have had experience
> doing it before, and so in the end everyone ends up learning and teaching.
I don't think I know you, but nonetheless, I expect that you would
have the integrity to have serious experience with user stories before
doing a workshop.
It's fine for your students to not have experience, but this is not
what I'm talking about. The leader or facilitator or proctor must
have a sufficient level of experience and insight into a subject
before presuming to hold himself up as a communicator of knowledge and
experiences in a workshop.
Participants will naturally presume a leader to be knowledgeable and
continue to take guidance from that person long after the end of the
workshop. A workshop leader has a moral and ethical obligation to be
at the top of the game, to work to get there, and to work to stay
there, if he is to put himself into a position where others will bond
to him as a source of credible and actionable guidance and
information.
Again, if these sessions are discussion groups, then all you really
need is a facilitator. And again, call them discussion groups so as
to avoid accidentally conferring authority onto novices who may be
merely facilitating.
> I'm sad to learn that you're unwilling to help
I specially tried to convey that I'm not willing to help **yet**. I
want to be comfortable that these workshops are crafted and conducted
with integrity in an effort solely to improve understanding, in
service to community, and not just another status pump and self-promo
opportunity for novices looking to carve out a shaky niche in the
Central Texas community. We've allowed ourselves to collect more than
enough of those lately, and I don't want to participate with anything
in the area until I personally feel that the level of integrity of the
effort is a level that I'm personally comfortable with.
At present, I'm not personally comfortable with the workshop program.
> What more would you like to see?
- Vet all prospective workshop leaders. Use only the most experienced
people as teachers. This subject area deserves nothing less. If you
can't get great teachers, don't force it - shut the thing down rather
than risk spreading misrepresentations. Do discussion groups in place
that don't create accidental and misplaced status and authority.
- Build a webapp, not just a Google site page, for the workshops.
Design the interactions so that the intent and operation of the
workshops is clear and obvious. Continuing to try to cram this stuff
into Google sites is naive at best and doesn't serve your goals.
You're merely "getting away with it", rather than serving the best
interests the best possible way.
- Put a prominent link to the workshop program on the Agile Austin
site (hopefully after ditching that god-awful Web 0.5 widget pile of
interactive negligence that is the Agile Austin site).
> I can appreciate your criticisms; however,
> it's one thing to point fault, it's another to do so in a constructive
> manner.
I used to be constructive with this organization. Over a rather short
period of time I observed that it put the interests of its own status
and that of its organizers ahead of the needs of the community and the
respect of the topic area. My good will toward Agile Austin was
squandered early in the organization's life, and not for unreasonable
reasons.
The more time that passes with the organization investing very serious
effort and much more dedication and hard work the more that my own
sense that the group deserves trivial treatment when it does things
trivially will subside.
When I start to feel that Agile Austin is itself operating in an
entirely and consistently constructive manner, then I think it will be
in a position to expect the same of me.
Best,
Scott