At the Agile Coach Camp in St. Louis 2016, I facilitated an open space topic, sharing my strategy on how I enhance participants learning during a remote training (mostly webex based). I was then invited by Dallas Fort Worth Scrum user group to present about this topic. Delivering Agile training remotely is here to stay! And I am not giving up on the learning opportunity just because we are all not seeing each other. I challenge myself to ensure I maximize learning and focus on expansive, participatory, contributory learning methods. Do let me know if you need more information

1. What’s in it for them?
11/15/2016 DFWScrum meetup, Plano, TX
Presented by: Raji Kailasam

2. • Rajeswari Kailasam(Rajee)
Somatic leadership coach
Agile coach at Cognizant
Nature as a teacher:
Patience : Aztec doves in the backyard
Transformation is slow and hard work:
Butterfly caterpillars in the backyard
Contact:
Twitter: @tweettaps
Email: raji.coach@gmail.com
• Session attendees
What inspires you?

3. Even after all the lessons learnt..

4. • Organizational needs
• What’s new?
• Get the “feel” before
going big
• Get started for early
feedback
• Logistics issues
• Individual needs
• “I heard during lunch
about their plans, and I
need to learn about it!”

5. And our participants want to know
more about ‘the kid’:
A participant profile:
• Learner
• Curious
• Interested
• Self starter
• Has a need to know - even if not
practicing
• Is testing the waters
• Questions what’s wrong with
what I am doing now?
• Skills augmentation
The super cool kid is
actually awesome and
inclusive of all..

6. • Accept: We are evolving into a
self learning human race.
• Acknowledge: They are
intelligent, avid learners,
adaptive, and are not far
behind.
• Recognize our advantage: We
train, coach, network, have a
tool kit!
The current scenario

7. • Make it about them!
• Ask for “persistent speakers” &
“willing to make a fool of myself
speakers”
• They enjoy guess work.
• Allow people to choose when to
speak
• Red when not able to.
• Green for pick me up!
• Remember to ask for their
hobbies.
Give them attention.
It is not about what we
know.
It is about what they will
take away.

8. • Expansive learning models.
• Co-create the session: Audience
receive vs Participants create.
• Active listening mode: They
reveal, we acknowledge.
• Opportunity: “Paid internship”
• Remind and Repeat: The earliest
Agile teams were self taught.
• Remember: Agile did not end.
Innovation continues …. (Mob
Programming)
Our mastery is exhibited
in encouraging them to
explore, rather than a
display of our
knowledge

9. • Trainer
• Material
• Group
• Individuals
Engage in:
• Conversations
They come with:
• EIRTH TSUISOMNSAP
• They will take with them:
• EIRTH RSPCNETOPIE
Where should the
trainers’s focus be?

10. • Gaming the manifesto
• Gaming the principles
• Gaming a framework
• Hobby constellations for roles,
user stories
• Guess my intent? (Engineering
practices)
What shall we focus
now in the meetup?

11. • Take it easy! But take it.
- Richard StrozziFeedback

12. Appendix

13. Humor in Agile:
And then when someone explains how
sometimes, teams might pick up extra
work and “stuff” it into their “tiny”
iteration, expecting to haul all the work
to completion..
Immediately brings to our mind
Which cute mammal??
(It is a featured finalist for the most
funniest animal pictures of 2016)

16. • Individuals and
Interactions
• Working software
• Customer
collaboration
• Responding to change
• Process and tools
• Comprehensive
documentation
• Contract negotiation
• Following a plan

17. • Participants choose one manifesto item, and take sides.
• Facilitator gathers this information and encourages “time boxed”
conversations on one or more manifesto item.
• Now, folks have to switch sides and speak “positive aspects” of the
other one.
• Value: Allows a trainer to uncover individual, team and
organizational constraints. These become first backlog items when we
move from a trainer to a coach role. Reinforces to participants that
Agile was born from experience and not formulated from a theory.

18. • Each participant needs to associate those principles that they
find most aligned with the manifesto item they chose.
• Depending on how the group responds, we can do a variety of
exercises.
• The most common one I do, is the following:
• After the association is made, each participant chooses principles
that they can impact immediately and can expect results.
• Tag each item with : Need to get better at, need to learn new and
need to unlearn.
• Begin work!
• Value: (group discussion at the meetup)

19. Friday breakfast
dishes after a days on
the run…

20. • Dosa:
• https://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Dosa
• Sauerkraut:
• https://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Sauerkraut
Some photos of my versions of the sauerkraut:
https://www.facebook.com/turmerictreatsus/