As I sit down to write this post, I can’t help but reflect on the current state of our world. With the ongoing pandemic, many of us find ourselves confined to our homes, grappling with the challenges of remote work and social distancing. It’s a strange time, but it also presents an opportunity for growth and learning. Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting with Daniel Vacanti, a prominent figure in the Kanban community, about our upcoming Professional Scrum with Kanban class. I wanted to share some insights from our conversation and how they relate to the broader context of agile practices.
Embracing Change in Uncertain Times
During our discussion, Daniel and I touched on how the current situation has forced us to adapt our teaching methods. With in-person classes on hold, we are transitioning to a virtual format. This shift has its challenges, but it also opens up new avenues for engagement and interaction. Here are a few key takeaways from our conversation:
Flexibility is Key: Just as we encourage teams to be flexible in their processes, we too must be willing to adapt our teaching styles. The tools we use, such as Zoom for video conferencing and Mural for collaborative whiteboarding, are essential in creating an interactive learning environment.
Focus on Flow: One of the core concepts we will explore in our class is the idea of flow. Many Scrum teams struggle with estimating work and managing their capacity. By introducing flow management principles, we can help teams overcome these common hurdles. This is particularly relevant now, as teams are often juggling multiple priorities while working remotely.
Gamification Enhances Learning: We discussed the importance of gamification in teaching agile concepts. Tools like the Get Kanban game and the Whip Game (Twig) provide engaging ways for participants to grasp complex ideas. These simulations not only make learning fun but also foster a deeper understanding of Kanban principles.
As we navigate these uncertain times, the value of community becomes even more apparent. Daniel and I are committed to creating a supportive environment for our class participants. We encourage open communication and collaboration, and we are eager to learn from each other. Here are some ways we plan to foster this sense of community:
Interactive Sessions: Our class will be designed to be highly interactive, allowing participants to engage with the material and with each other. We want to create a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing their experiences and asking questions.
Feedback Loops: We are keen to gather feedback from participants on what works and what doesn’t in the virtual format. This iterative approach mirrors the agile mindset we advocate for in our teaching.
Discounts for Individuals: In light of the current economic climate, we are offering discounts for unemployed individuals and those self-funding their participation. We believe in supporting our community, especially during challenging times.
Looking Ahead
As we prepare for our Professional Scrum with Kanban class on the 18th and 19th of May, I am filled with anticipation. This is not just a class; it’s an opportunity for all of us to learn, grow, and adapt together. I encourage anyone interested in enhancing their Scrum skills to join us.
In closing, I want to remind everyone that while we may be physically distanced, we are not alone. The agile community is resilient, and together, we can navigate these challenges and emerge stronger. If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to reach out to me or Daniel on Twitter. Let’s keep the conversation going!
Thank you for reading, and I look forward to seeing you in class!
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hello my name is Martin hen chouet I’m here with Daniel Vacanti who was one of the original contributors on the Kanban method in the quarry creator of the Kanban guide for scrum teams and the professional scrum with Kanban class how you doing Daniel I’m doing great thanks great to see you’re marking great to be here
cool and I had a UH obviously we’re all stuck in our homes for the foreseeable future at the moment I don’t think there’s anywhere now that’s just you can just go run around and I hear you’re a lover of tennis a little a little birdie called Scott let me know and he was wondering how you were coping without tennis not pretty well I think the harder thing is that there’s no stennis to wash you know there’s big postponed the whole tennis season until at least June in this and the decision about Wimbledon was supposed to come out today I didn’t see did that put that could publish it I have to I have to go check but but as we were chatting before there’s there’s actual I’ve got some neighborhoods coherent as long as I’m allowed out once a day to go it was exercise and I was I practice proper social distancing then I’m actually coping not too bad probably better than even many people so thanks for asking I don’t know what what about you and Vasco I mean it’s told mr. aney so you probably own it be inside anymore it’s actually in it’s not been too bad it’s been um six or seven degrees so we’ve been out sunbathing in the front garden it’s actually it’s actually been okay it’s been a bit cloudy the last couple of days but there’s been some sunshine so we’ve been running out to sit in the garden when it’s sunny cuz it’s nice and warm in the Sun but then the Sun goes away in it temperature drops quite significantly but yeah we’re able to go out for for walks as long as we’re there’s not too many people in one place so it’s been pretty good but we’ve we’ve been getting kind of daily notifications of what’s going on I’m sure the same as yourself although your briefings are a little bit more interesting than ours but yeah so um we you and I will be co-teaching a Kanban class and we’re going to teach our professional scrum with Kanban as a live virtual classroom on the 18th of 18th and 19th of May and Edinburgh and can you tell us a little bit about the class you think it’d be ready with the stock answer for that right but it’s it’s really about for those you know those those people have been practicing scrum for a while and for whatever reason I haven’t gotten everything that we went to out of scrum or maybe just want to take their you know comes from skills to the next level or whatever it’s really about introducing the concept of flow to solve some of those problems that you may or may not seem as Francis you know things like we’re know hey we’re we’re terrible at estimating and we can never first know how much stuff gets done in this broth no can’t ever tell their products under when something is going to be done at the end of this prints there’s always a smash - who says we’ve taken on too much work or we can never get it done you know so you know how how does flow how does management the flow just help to solve some of those common problems that you see you know it’s in several scrum teams cool so how does that and how does that differ from the Kanban method it differs it doesn’t it doesn’t matter for quite a bit in several respects probably the biggest biggest things the biggest difference is the beauty of scrum stolen supplies and entirety hire T so easy easy pile on a professional professional scrub this concept because difficulty take a look at the professionals come for example it’s less than right inherited they’re able to keep it as fat as we come you know as a foundation as our base so if you go depending on which other combine guide you you look at necessarily get into that too much but you know there’s there’s a there’s a combine you know a condensed combine guide that is ninety some pages or one hundred some pages or whatever which doesn’t sound too it’s convinced to me or whatever old I said sounds like it’s very big yes I think that’s that’s the big the biggest difference is we have scrum as our foundation we embrace everything that scrum does we’re not we’re not changing anything in scrum we’re not throwing anything out we’re not doing any of that you know take your existing scrum implementation just kind of bolt on or overlay some of these practices on top and you’re good to go
cool so there’s a couple people hearings a little bit of feedback I’ve ordered a set of headphones from upstairs I hear they might be on their way but what I’ll do is at the moment I’ll mute myself when you’re speaking down and then maybe that will will help where do we get that mute button for real life how do i how do I do that
there there is no mute button for me personally my wife has tried and but it doesn’t work usually a few men’s I’m just throwing the remote control at me for sure yeah so I’m wondering if any of the folks that are listening online have any questions as well let’s let me have a look
I got a different headphones than I was expecting
that’s okay so I guess have you have you thought about um the the tools that we want to use while we’re teaching this class no longer is I’ve been conversations past that’s kind of Baseball America no we have we tend to use the same we have the same expression intricate as well proper sport I don’t yeah anyway we you know we’ve been forced to adapt really look really look like and because it is you know fortunately or unfortunately science itself is designed to do you know very interactive very hands-on best way to learn about this sterility sleeves and do it yeah so at a point I mean how do we how do we bring in some some tools to leverage the online experience so it’s may be now may not be as good you know it’s it’s hard to say but we do have an online combat simulation that we can do so there’s that but the rest of it who knows we’ll just just kind of see I’m kind of excited to see how this plays out interested to get feedback from people who have taken to escape virtually that works and what doesn’t work
yeah I’ve been thinking of doing some free sessions with folks for different parts of the exercises and to see if I can figure out how best to do that I’ve been toying around with a couple of tools obviously zoom for the video conferencing it seems to be the one that has the
I prefer teams when I’m doing stuff but it doesn’t have breakout rooms it doesn’t have that kind of interact ability you could do it but it would be a pain in the ass so not gonna go there so zoom for that mural have you played with mural yet because that seems to be the to go to kind of whiteboard collaborative space choice so yeah I’m sure we’ll do some of that we’ll see
yep so I’m being shouted at for having a an echo while you’re talking I do have headphones now and I’ve plugged them in but it’s not outputting the audio to the headphones so I’m just switching that over I don’t even know how to do that it’s supposed to just do that when you plug in your headphones nope I think they just don’t work I will have to mute you while you’re talk what mute myself while you’re talking is what I need to do so I’ve been I’ve been playing with our tool you know that I’m into board games a little bit and there’s an online tool called table topia which is uh basically as a board game simulator so it doesn’t do any of anything clever apart from have the PCs on the table and you can has tools for flipping cards and drawing cards from a deck and rolling dice and that kind of thing and I was thinking about I’ve been chopping up the v-2 of the get Kanban game to load into this tool and see if it’s usable as a tool to still use the the get Kanban game and I haven’t seen another online version of - that’s why your honor
I thought I should this link with you but but we we have it’s not exactly get Kanban but it is a compound simulation it’s called it’s called twig twig stands for the whip game and there’s an online version of that that we will be using as as part of a class so in fact I’ve actually I don’t I don’t know if I should be saying this out loud or not but I don’t use get comp on in my PS Ches anymore I used this this online simulation because I think in general I think it’s a little bit better learning experience for for lots of reasons so that’ll be that’ll be something that we’ll get a chance to see probably we’ll send out a link to the game beforehand so people might might get a chance to play around with it before the class I’m not I’m not sure about that we’re we’re kind of going back and forth whether that’s a good idea or not I agree I think it’s um having having something a little bit different might be maybe better I’d like to hear about the simulator that you you have maybe I can integrate that into into what it is that we’re we’re doing I I’m just playing around with table topia because I’m using it anyway to get my fix from board games Scott just said get can ban on fortnight and shoot Carlos I think a lot of the folks that are on the the chat have have played get combat before probably have copies of get Kanban and although somebody’s putting a little question mark going what were they talking about you don’t know until you’ve played the game and it’s a surprise that should not be spoiled for you and but it’s part of that little little story and actually I really like to get combined game because of that that story and people and when they’re playing the game tend to interact very heavily with it and they understand the rules a lot more quickly because it’s a gamification and have you seen those are there’s a tool and that’s just come up to a board game from called scrum tail in Poland that has just come out and there is em they’ve created our board game for for a group of eight people working together to instead of building software which you’ll know we do in the PSF which is a little bit fun because you sometimes teach classes with people who don’t know software and in this tool that you build a murder-mystery you build a novel yeah III got a demo of it at one of the conferences that I went to and it was it was really really powerful
so that’s scrum tail which I really enjoyed interacting with and it was good for that when you’ve got a big class of people who don’t have any scrum knowledge and similar to get Kanban it doesn’t it’s not really a software specific thing cool
so yes Darren you got Table Talk er spelt correctly if you google for it you’ll find lots of stuff around that as well and so the the class that will be teaching is um on Monday the 18th of May um it’ll be I think we’re we’re currently thinking it’s going to be up to day a two-day class roughly the same timing as an in-person class and I guess in subsequent teaches we may change that but I think for for a one-off it’s going to be like that Daniel it’s gonna be a bit of a difficult time zone for you I make it work long as we finish we can certainly finish with whisky you can drink whisky I’ll drink to rum so it usually runs from 9:00 until 5:00
I don’t know what what’s 9 a.m. in here
yeah we did although nobody noticed because we were all in asleep it’s pretty early you maybe need a whiskey to start when you’re doing some of the exercises I did work on a scrum team in Sydney Australia from Glasgow with a 12 hour time difference that was not a lot of fun it was a good demonstration of how remote work cannot work if you’re in different time zones well I should I had four people on my team from Beijing as well accent yeah well I’ll think we’ll maybe wrap it up there is there any other questions that you had Daniel
likes to experiment with or special experimentation for all so I think Martin and I are willing to learn as all of you so yeah please please just just drop us a line just you know whatever ideas you’ve got do you have to hear cool yeah yeah we are we’re planning on running the the class we’d like to get as many people I I don’t know what what are you thinking the limit is going to be maybe 12 or 13 people something like that for our first class
and just figure out how to how to push around facilitating facilitating that for us yeah cool
well thanks very much Daniel for for making the time I know you had to move something around to get with us at five o’clock and if anybody has any questions they can message me or Daniel directly it’s on Twitter
everywhere same as myself and we’ll figure out how to do the best part oh I would note that for the kanban class and I do or we do for this class we do a discount for people that are unemployed which might be a lot of people at the moment we also do discounts for people that are self funding the class as well so if your company’s paying companies don’t get a discount just people real people get discounts companies do not I think that’s kind of the best way to go with that very Scottish I agree cool well thank you very much for for for joining us and apologies for the audio West you I’ll try and figure it out for the next one of these that we do okay thanks everybody for joining thanks for the invitation my cringe is great chat no hnt as well Daniel
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