Is pen mightier than the keyboard? What place do physical tools have in the digital age? A talk based on research. I gave this talk at the Cambridge Agile Exchange in November 2018 and again at the Arm Agile Community in March 2019.

1. • Who uses an electronic board
• Who uses a physical board
Image from JeongGuHyeok on Pixabay
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2. If you are using a physical board, I invite you to think why: was it your scrum
master/agile coach that wanted you to use it? What were you trying to achieve?
If you are using an electronic board, why is it? Did you think it was going to make your
team more efficient? Or faster? Or better in any way?
Pictures by Alexandra_Koch and OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay
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3. I am curious and I have questions:
What is it about physical tools like whiteboards that make them different from
electronic tools?
Do they have a place in a digital age?
I have a theory but first let me say that…
Image from 3dman_eu on Pixabay
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4. If you have team members who are remotely located, then you have little choice:
electronic tools are your friend.
Can you imagine the Mars rover sending a sticky note to mission control to
communicate there is a ditch in front of it? By the time the note arrives to Earth and
the correction instruction sent from Earth (on sticky note, of course) reaches Mars,
the rover is already down the ditch.
Image from WikiImages on Pixabay
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5. Advantages of digital tools:
They are fast (and also typing is faster than longhand writing)
They facilitate remote communication
Asynchronous
they usually preserve the history of an item. Very good for future reference.
Don’t change too much over time
Easy to print and share
Disadvantage: they are not too flexible (issues with user permissions anyone?)
It’s also easier to organise, print, and share documents.
Image from Pexels on Pixabay
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6. On the other hand, nothing beats a sticky note on the door if you don’t want to forget
something (that’s my theory of annoyance; I leave myself a note where I cannot
ignore it)
Writing an email to myself or having a reminder on my phone is not as effective as
not being able to open the door without reading that note.
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7. There is something more. What might seem disadvantages of physical tools, are actually plus
sides of it.
On a keyboard a single stroke is required to write a letter. And it’s always the same one
regardless of the letter you are typing. Typing is faster than longhand writing and that’s why
many people prefer it. Longhand writing is not mnemonic, it’s an experience that involves
different parts of the brain.
When we take a marker and write on a sticky note, we have to use different muscles, we have to
feel the marker and the way it moves, feel the paper, look at the signs we are making (each letter
is a different movement). These activities stimulates our memory and make it simple to
remember the concepts.Also longhand writing is slow, so you have to take your time, and you
have to synthetize the concepts. The space on the paper is limited, so you have to carefully
choose what to write.
When we take notes with a keyboard, we tend to record them verbatim rather than elaborating
them ourselves. We focus on single words and not on concepts.
The message your brain gets when you write by hand is ‘Pay attention! This is worth the effort!’.
If you are taking the time to write it down, then it must be important. Writing by hand activates
the reticular activating system (RAS), the part of the brain that signals to the cortex to wake up
and pay attention.
According to research: You learn faster; You recall more; You are more creative
The way I see it: You give time to your brain to process the information, organise it, and make it
yours.
Image from ElisaRiva on Pixabay
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8. My point is: There is value in both kinds of tools and, if you use just one, I believe you
are missing out. Take the advantage of both!
Try it for a couple of sprints/ one month, see how it goes, and discuss it in your
retrospective.
Image from Pexels on Pixabay
Thanks for your attention!
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