It is extremely important to understand where we are and where we want to go. This Workshop is all about that, regarding Feedback Loops. It is mandatory to have people from every part of the organisation and from different roles, not only developers or testers. This is how we are ensuring that we are drawing a complete picture.Material:
- Big White Board. I prefer a movable one
- Flip Charts. 1/5 people
- Post Its
- Pens
Agenda:
- What are the feedback loops
- Picture about the present
- Break
- Vision about the future
- Wrap UP
What are the feedback loops
This is a short talk about the Feedback Loop itself. This gives a basic understanding what we want to achieve in this Workshop.
Picture about the present
Split people in small groups. In the groups there should be diversity as much as possible. The size can be around 5 people. Give people a flip chart, pens and post-its. Ask people in groups to create picture about Feedback Loops in timeline. It needs to present the situation at the moment. People can be really free style. I usually draw really simple example. You can give groups around 20 minutes time to create their own picture.
After creating pictures, every group presents their view to the rest of the people, question may be asked, but try to avoid criticism, this is just showing the result from this part.
Create common picture. Share the white board into two parts. Draw the timeline and let people merge their pictures together. You can give a 20 minutes time box.
After creating pictures, every group presents their view to the rest of the people, question may be asked, but try to avoid criticism, this is just showing the result from this part.
Create common picture. Share the white board into two parts. Draw the timeline and let people merge their pictures together. You can give a 20 minutes time box.
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| Rough example about feedback loops |
Vision about the future
Now we are ready to draw the picture about the bright future. People can stay in the same groups or create new groups, again with the diversity. I prefer old groups, because there might be already some group dynamics in. Now same exercise, but let the people create a picture without the legacy. People should free their minds about solutions at the moment and they can really be as creative as they can. Again about 20 minutes.
Presenting the picture and in the end merging the pictures.
Wrap UP
You can briefly tell, what has happened today and what are the next steps. Ask people to present their pictures again.
My Last Words
Like I said in the beginning, the idea is to create vision. Vision does not need to be perfect. Nature of things are that they are changing, so this is just a snapshot about the situation at the moment and the vision what it should be. This snapshot should be created as often as needed. In other words, this is a longer process, not just one shot. :)
Nice info and looking forward for future knowledge sessions too.
ReplyDeleteGreat! I think these workshops go a long way to identify deep rooted problems in the development cycle which otherwise often go unnoticed. In large organizations people rarely have the opportunity to reflect on the bigger picture and this workshop is one tool which helps them step back and think about the end to end cycle.
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