Workshop: Learn fast - don't fail fast

@JuttaEckstein | agilebossanova.org1
#agilebossanova
http://agilebossanova.org
Jutta Eckstein | @JuttaEckstein
www.JEckstein.com
Learn Fast don’t Fail Fast!
Workshop on the Essentials of BOSSA nova

Set the Stage
◼ Why are you here?
◼ What books you read, you recommend?
– Please write your recommendation in the chat

Goal for the Workshop
◼ Learn how to bring a culture of experimentation into your
company
– Learn how to conduct experiments, how to learn from them, and
how to scale them
– Understand the prerequisites for creating your own experiments
– Learn how to design experiments dependent on the outcome
you aim for in respect to the environment you are in
– Understand that everyone in an organization can foster learning
(faster)
– Develop strategies for the application in your own context

Agenda
◼ Welcome & set the stage
◼ Defining the context
◼ Values & principles for learning fast
◼ Enabling continuous learning (through probing)
◼ Creating probes: hypothesis, experiments, measurement
◼ Wrap-up

Reflect & Discuss
◼ What has in your context supported or hindered learning
fast?
◼ Come up with a top challenge in your group

Discuss
◼ What is the primary organizational characteristic
(strategy, structure, or process) for your top challenge?

Is Trust Cheaper?
◼ Background:
– Traditional travel expense procedures are burdensome and
assume people can’t be trusted.
◼ Hypothesis:
– Such procedures cost more than they save and are
demoralizing.
◼ Experiment:
– Pre-survey and audit. Try for three months in a few units
with other units as controls. Post-survey and audit.

Would it be worthwhile to establish mindful partnerships
between production and support service teams?
◼ Background:
– Many support service teams such as quality control, HR, or finance, tend to be
more controlling than supporting and tend to come in too late in production
processes.
◼ Hypothesis:
– If support service teams understand that production is their direct customer, or in
other situations vice versa, they can be proactive in working together to serve the
company’s external customers.
◼ Experiment:
– For a specific project, production invites the applicable support service teams at
the lift-off and treats them as stakeholders. Measure the results by asking “How is
the support service team/production relationship going?” in every retrospective.

Definition of a Probe
◼ Probes are defined by small, safe-to-fail experiments
based on hypotheses derived from reflection on the
current situation as well as on theory.

Design a Probe
◼ Name of the Probe:
– <A question that reflects your hypothesis, your curiosity>
◼ Background:
– <Define the context of your situation>
◼ Hypothesis:
– <Define what you expect to happen>
– <Observable impact>
◼ Safe-to-fail experiment:
– <Define what do you want to try and how you can (dis) prove the
hypothesis>

Hints to: Name & Background
◼ The name:
– Should be a question reflecting the hypothesis
– Often is defined last
◼ The background:
– Should be observable and
– Fact based as opposed to speculation (so you can use it as
pre-measures for the experiment)

Reflect On Your Situation
◼ Take time to think about the situation of your top
challenge
– How are we thinking about the situation?
• E.g., what are we assuming?
• What would it be like if we didn’t make that assumption?
– Don’t focus on something big – the smaller the more useful
• What do you observe?
• Can you validate the observation – how would you do that?
◼ Take notes on the jamboard

Hints to Hypothesis & Experiments
◼ The hypothesis
– Should be an assumption / a statement about
• What you expect to happen
• Under such and such conditions
◼ The experiment(s):
– Its purpose is to test your assumption stated in the hypothesis
– Need some kind of measurement (pre-/post) or comparisons
with control groups
– Need to be actionable by the author

Creating Probes
◼ In your groups
– Jointly create a probe for your top challenge
• You can also split up and (individually) create different probes
– Come up with:
• Name (will be triggered by the hypothesis)
• Background (should be the outcome of the reflection on your situation)
• Hypothesis
• Experiment(s)
◼ You can capture your probe(s) either on the jamboard or
google doc

Measurement & Control
◼ Without comparison you won’t know what you learned
– Pre- and post-measure for comparing results:
• Measure your observation (stated in the background)
• Use the same measurement after conducting the experiment
– Controls for comparing results
• Use two (or more) comparable groups
• One group conducts the experiment the other one (control group) not
◼ How will you assign people to groups & when will you measure?
◼ How long will the experiment go?
◼ What will you do to keep the experiment safe?

Hints to Measurement & Controls
◼ Hawthorne effect (in the 30ies)
– Using better lights in the factory led to:
• higher productivity
• higher motivation
– Yet… the reason was
• more care
• more respect
Don’t mix causation & correlation
Knowing about a measurement triggers specific behavior

Importance of Publication
◼ Collaborative learning depends on
sharing learnings
◼ Publishing also contributes to the
author’s learning
– as an author you need to reflect and
look at your learning from a different
perspective

Hints to Publication
◼ Internal vs external
– Company confidentiality might prevent external publication
– Internal collective learning is still important
◼ Keep reflecting on what happened
– What are the outcomes?
– What additional changes have been triggered?
◼ Make your experience extremely clear
– There is no way you can explain later to the reader what you meant
– A publication has to “stand by itself”

In Essence
Learning fast means:
◼ Never stop probing, that is never stop…
– …reflecting
– …hypothesizing
– …experimenting
– …measuring
– …sharing

Links & References
◼ Our jamboard: https://tinyurl.com/NDC-LearnFast-Jam
◼ Our google doc: https://tinyurl.com/NDC-LearnFast
◼ Abbreviated probes from book: https://www.agilebossanova.com/book/
https://www.agilebossanova.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/01/ProbesForCards.pdf
◼ Published probes from peers: http://www.agilebossanova.com/#probes
◼ Link to the possibility of joining a Narrathon that is a peer learning experience
based on experiments for continuous learning & innovation:
https://www.townscript.com/o/jutta-eckstein-340000
◼ blog by the first Narrathon cohort including also their developed probes:
https://www.agilebossanova.com/narrathon-creating-sharing-probes-for-
nourishing-learning/

Many Thanks and… Stay in Touch:
Jutta Eckstein, @JuttaEckstein
Jutta@JEckstein.com
http://JEckstein.com
PicturesbyKatjaGloggengießer
http://tinyurl.com/AgileBossaNova
@AgileBossaNova
http://agilebossanova.org

Workshop: Learn fast - don't fail fast

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