The Agile Dinner Party – Episode 5: Brainstorming
Jack finished with: “At your next meeting, try to break the work into like areas and then cut that work into slices that can be completed and reviewed with Mr. and Mrs. C.”?
During lunch the next day, several of the students were eating together.?Mrs. LeMay walked over.?“How’s everything going?” Kathy piped up.?“We were just talking over what Jack told us about.?At the same time, we were looking around the cafeteria.?The room needs to be clean and set up before we come in.?Dishes and utensils need to be set out.?The menu needs to be on the board.?The food has to have already been cooked and placed in the serving area.?Heck, even before that the cook needs to have ordered the food and all the prep work had to be done! And afterwards, everything needs to be cleaned up.”
Mrs LeMay smiled.?“Sounds like you are taking this seriously. I’ll take what you have done and get the room prepared for our next session.?I spoke to the head of the computer program earlier today and he gave me a format for working through all of this.?See you after school!”
Brainstorming
As the students walked into the room after school that day they found Mrs. LeMay had removed all the desks and replaced then with several portable white boards.?On one board were the words PREPARE THE ROOM. ?A second board had MAKE THE FOOD.?The third board had SERVE THE FOOD. The last board read CLEAN UP AFTERWARDS.
William, from the Carpentry program, walked into the room.?Mrs Lemay asked: “Can you please help me arrange these boards, William??I want them in the middle of the room, in a square box, with the front of each board facing out.”?“Sure thing!” replied William.
After most of the students had entered, Mrs. LeMay announced “Today we get down to work!?At the suggestion of Mr. Carlson from the Computer program, we are going to do something called brainstorming.?At lunch some of you identified these four basic areas of the dinner party.?Walk around and decide the area where you think you can provide the best insight.”
At first, the students just spoke to one another.?Slowly, individual students began to walk around the boards.?Just a few students selected a board and stood next to it.?Bit any bit, each board had a few students but some remained undecided.?Mrs.LeMay reacted. “You have had enough time to select.?I’ll assign you to boards to make every board as equal as possible.”?She nudged the remaining students to one board or another until all students were assigned.
“Okay! For this first part each of you take turns.?Walk up to the board and write down something you think we need to do in order to accomplish the board’s theme.?You have 1 minute each time you are up, so start thinking before it is your turn. And remember, the people that go first will likely write down all the obvious stuff, so you might want to be early!?Ready??GO!”
The Culinary students had all congregated to MAKE THE FOOD and were rushing to be the first one to the board.?Mrs. LeMay spent time with each group, making suggestions and encouraging participation.?After 30 minutes, all but the MAKE THE FOOD group had run out of ideas.?Mrs. LeMay announced “Time is up.?Take a 5 minute break to eat a snack, drink some water, or go to the bathroom.?When we re-group we will look at each board and discuss what they have come up with.”
PREPARE THE ROOM?
During this break she once again asked William to move the boards, putting them in the front of the room, one?board in front of the other, essentially hiding the other boards.?“Okay then, let’s start with the PREPARE THE ROOM board.?Who wants to walk us through?”?Leann raised her hand.
“Well, there were a LOT of comments, as you can see.?The one I really kinda liked is this question.” She pointed to it on the board.?“Wouldn’t the estate staff have already cleaned?”?Let me summarize the rest:
Set the table - do we even know how to set up a fancy dinner table?
What type of decorations do we need?
If outdoors, do they have a long table, or is it multiple?
Where do we get the linens and table settings?
What about the cocktail hour??Does it need special stuff?
Mrs. LeMay commented “This seems like a good start but frankly I expected a few more entires.?Let’s compare this to the next board.”?She pulled out a board but kept one behind on purpose.
CLEAN UP AFTERWARDS
“Who wants to tell us about this board?” Tim got up and went to the board.?“First, we thought we needed to define the boundaries.?Our position is that we start after the dinner is completely over.?Then, we also wanted to know what the estate staff will be doing.?This is because Jack told us we should ‘maximize the amount of work not done’, which sounds good to us!”
Does this include removing used dishes between courses?
Won’t the estate staff do the cleanup?
Where do we find cleaning items, like rags and brooms??Do we bring them?
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We should clean the floor last, in case we drop something while cleaning the table.
How do we get?the guests to leave the room so we can get started cleaning?
Mrs LeMay cleared her throat.?“I don’t think Jack meant to push the work onto others, but to make sure you were focused.?Just like that comment about doing the floor last so you don’t have to do it a second time.?Let’s move on to the next board.”
SERVE THE FOOD
“Wow, this is a very short list!”?Vickie turned red but got up and went to the board.?“I think that is because we really don’t know what ‘serve the food’ means!?How can we create a list of things to do when we have no idea what should be on the list?”
Why not buffet style?
What does ‘course’ mean?
Do we carry around the treats during cocktail hour or just leave them on a table?
Mrs. LeMay responded “Maybe that is what should be on the board.?Unless we can be open and honest with one another, something is going to fall through the cracks.?Mr. and Mrs.C will consider any failure to be a failure of the entire team.?Okay, I saved this board for last, for a reason.”?
MAKE THE FOOD
She pulled the last board out and heard giggles throughout the room. A girl they call Yellow jumped up.?Indeed, her hair was bright yellow and in a mohawk style.?“We just got to work.?We went back to the menu we received and started listing out how to make two of the courses.?We are ON IT and just know we are going to nail this assignment!”
Lamb chops with mint sauce
Oyster with rosemary truffle oil and orange caper mignonette
Mrs. LeMay paused.?“Well, can I ask what cookbook you copied these recipes from?”?You could see Yellow physically slump down.?Defensively, she replied “And what is wrong with that??It shows we know where to go to get the information we need, and how to list the steps in order so we all know what is going on!” She crossed her arms, defiantly.
Moving forward
Mrs. Lemay moved on.?“The rest of this session I want you to flesh this all out.?Get specific about who does what and when.?List all the questions you need answered.?Identify resources outside of your team upon which you depend for answers.?Halfway through the session, everyone moves to another board and adds their point of view.?You may well identify a critical component the original team has missed.?Finally, place all the items on a timeline so we can understand how the boards impact one another. When we come back tomorrow we will review the work.”
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