Team kickoff from the BACK of the room

While I truly love coaching, and feel blessed to do it for a living, my most intense passion is for training others. Sharing what I know in order to help others succeed is what drives me. And the constant "learning through teaching" I experience is truly a gift. Having read Sharon Bowman's "Training From the BACK of the Room" (a.k.a. TBR) last year, and having recently taken Sharon's 2-day class taught by Kim Brainard, I have discovered ways to channel that passion for previously unanticipated levels of success.

For those who don't know, TBR combines brain friendly learning with the concept of "get out of the way and let them learn." When done well, the result is a very fun and interactive experience for the learners, exponentially higher learner retention, and much less wear and tear on the instructor. Here's the weird thing... As an instructor, you're doing much less than if you were to stand in front of the room and lecture the entire time. It is therefore significantly less taxing on you. But at the end of the class, the learners treat you like you're some kind of guru for teaching them so much. It's a paradox that I didn't understand at first, but have come to appreciate and enjoy. Once you've been bitten by the TBR bug, you'll likely find yourself re-examining everything you do, to see how you can make it more effective with less effort.

I have kicked off dozens of scrum teams at various companies. After lots of iterations, I thought I had the process down to a science. I cover 10 main points (working agreement, definition of done, schedule, roster, team name etc...), and it takes about 4 hours (for me) to do it reasonably well. Earlier this week, I was kicking off a new scrum team. The scrum master had scheduled 2 separate sessions of 2 hours each (at my request). Prior to the kickoff, I started wondering if I could inject some TBR techniques into the kickoff. So I decided to try a few things. It caught fire. We covered everything in 2 hours (a personal record) and with greater retention, more fun and energy and with resulting structure and artifacts that the team valued immensely.

TBR has "6 trumps" (no, not that Trump) that when followed, really create a wonderful experience. They are:

1. Writing trumps reading
2. Talking trumps listening
3. Movement trumps sitting
4. Shorter trumps longer
5. Image trumps words
6. Different trumps same

Here's one example of something I did differently in this particular kickoff. I used to stand before the group and try to explain what definition of done is all about. To newbies, this was a difficult concept to grasp. And for many in the past, my explanation only made it worse. So I would go over it 6 ways to Sunday until everyone understood (while simultaneously boring the sh*t out of those who already got it). Then I would stand before them and ask what they wanted to have in their definition of done. They'd say stuff and I'd write it down on a large piece of flip chart paper. So they're sitting. I'm standing. It's taking a while. And there is nothing unique about this "teacher standing and lecturing while students sit and listen" dynamic.

So this time, I decided to try a new approach. It went something like this...

1. With stickies and sharpies, each person take 15 seconds and write down 1 thing that tells you your laundry is done. (Writing trumps reading).
2. When finished, get up and place your sticky on the wall. (Movement trumps sitting).
3. Ask for a volunteer to read out the stickies. (Talking trumps listening).
4. As they're being read, I would interject comments. For example, one sticky said "clothes folded and put away." I asked, "does that mean they're clean? Are they folded and put away sopping wet?" The team giggled. The next sticky said "buzzer goes off" to which I interjected "what if the dryer is empty and the buzzer goes off?" Again, giggles. More of the same as the remaining stickies are read aloud.
5. As we completed reading the stickies, I asked if any of them were "wrong?" The team agreed the answer was no. But none of them individually were all encompassing, right? The team agreed. So I asked the team, "what if we grouped all these things together into a master list? If all of them were combined, could we reasonably consider our laundry to be "done?" They all smiled and said yes. So I asked, "on this cross functional team, how can we use this same concept to figure out when a user story is done?" I gave them 10 minutes to collaborate on this, write items on stickies and place them on the big "definition of done" poster I had placed on the wall. (More movement trumps sitting, talking trumps listening & writing trumps reading). And I left the room.

When I came back, the team had constructed a killer definition of done for themselves. I mean it was really awesome! They did it themselves, so they owned it and were proud of it. And this activity, in it's entirety took no more than 20 minutes. (Different trumps same & shorter trumps longer). My previous approach usually took between 40 and 60 minutes. It was also painful and draining for me. And the team usually couldn't recall what was in their definition of done only a day later.

Applying similar thinking to the rest of the kickoff resulted in a rewarding and memorable experience for the team. They are now enthusiastic about practicing scrum and working together.

If you haven't read Sharon's book, I highly recommend it. And Kim's class was phenomenal. Transformative in fact.

For more info about TBR, visit https://bowperson.com.

What are some ways you can make your team kickoffs more interesting, engaging and fun?