Scope:
Recently
I attended a course with a long title of “Training From The BACK Of
The Room” [1]. It was a wonderful event and has helped
me a lot in so, many different ways. I went on this course as there was a problem I was
trying to solve.
 |
| Training From The BACK Of The ROOM! |
Problem:
As an Agile Coach I have learned over time that
the main change required as core to an Agile Transformation of an
Enterprise organisation is that of Culture. Instead of mere working
practice. Culture means changing the mindset of the many.
It seems to me that one of the best ways of
changing a mindset from Command and Control to an Agile Mindset is if
the people learn how to do this themselves. But before that even
happens they will need some help with Agile Fundamentals. The basics to get them going as a mindset fundamental. Hence the name.
This means someone needs to train them. Now while
I have done training before, I always felt it could have gone better.
Thus I needed to improve my knowledge first before improving anyone
else’s knowledge.
Solution:
I
had heard about such a "train the trainer" course that would improve
your training skills. With your learners being the focus. It is called
“Training From The BACK Of The Room” created by Sharon Bowman
[2]. Then I was also fortunate enough to attend such a course which
was being trained by James Enock and Nader Talai. Who had
been taught by Sharon herself.
The
course started totally differently from every other course. The
trainers did not directly instruct us, but directed to sit at a table
and write our name on a label with a sign like so...
 |
| Learner Greeting Instructions |
Each
table also had a copy of the workbook and box with all the equipment
that us as learners would need for course. Post it notes of all sizes, Sharpies,
stickers, colour A4 paper and some weird toys! On the walls were
various learning tools, which we would come to use later.
It should be noted that This
training requires a big room, a very big room. There were only 10 of
us, the room usually holds 20 plus for training. But later we
discovered we needed the room as there is so, much to do. We used every part of it.
 |
| Group Presentation |
In
Sharon’s training, the learner chooses the areas of interest.
Therefore the learner directs their own training. Thus we were asked
to vote on 9 learning areas using a Dot-Voting technique.
 |
| Learners Dot-Vote For Learnings |
More
tools were explored and then we went into how to plan a session using
the 4C’s Map, which covers:
-
Connections
-
Concepts
-
Concrete Practice
Conclusions
In
the photo you can see the explanations of these in the supplied
Participant Workbook and also the complementary books you get with
the course.
 |
| 4C's MAP and Sharon's Books |
And
it continued on into the second day whereby we would direct our own
learning on exercises and understand how learners learn best with
Sharon’s teachings providing a very large collection of training
tools. We also covered the Brain Science [3] behind learning with the
concept of the Pinky Brain [4].
We
then had to use the 4C’s Map to develop our own one hour training
session. Here is me demonstrating my training plan for the Agile
Mindset. The outcome was not that the learner just learned, but that
they could explain it to someone else. This way we know they have
really understood the subject matter.
 |
| Presenting my session plan using 4C's |
In
summary this is one of the best courses I have ever attended. Both of
the trainers worked in harmony keeping to Sharon’s approach and I
felt I had learned so, much that it motivated me to learn even more.
Most of all I shall be putting this into practice immediately so,
that my learners can benefit too. A massive big thank you to Sharon,
James and Nader for this enlightenment.
 |
| The class with James (Centre) and Nader (far-right). |
Agile
Link:
Many
Agile, Scrum and Kanban trainers have been on this course and recommend it
highly. It seems to have became widely attended across the Agile community.
Sharon has also produced an Agile Manifesto for
Accelerated Learning as was displayed on one of the walls.
 |
| Agile Manifesto for Accelerated Learning |
I
think Mindset will need to be put on my Agile poster [5] as a future
update.
References:
[4] Pinky Brain:
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/43389793/gauss-n-x-n-1-2-myth-about-learning-brain-sharon-bowman/4
[5] Agile Development Poster:
http://agiledogma.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/agile-development-poster-there-are.html
