tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42190265413530440942020-01-16T20:08:09.742+01:00AdventuresErik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-50172242516812138272019-03-19T19:53:00.000+01:002019-03-19T19:53:45.251+01:00SMELL - self-education conference - participant reflections<h3>SMELL</h3>SMELL was a peer conference on self-education using the open space format...<br /><br />Peer conference?<br />Well basically a conference where everyone participates on equal terms (same right to influence, same expectations to contribute and all costs shared equally).<br /><br />Open space?<br />I'll explain our implementation in detail in part 2 (and you can find plenty of information online) but a very short explanation: Participants suggest sessions at the conference and together they create a schedule based on these sessions. Sessions can be anything from "I'd like to try this exercise on some people" to "I have this presentation if you want to listen" to "I'd like to talk about this topic".<br /><br />If you happen to be fluent in Swedish and/or trust Google Translate you can find more information about the event on <a href="http://testsverige.se/invite_smell.htm">the invite page</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CiqiEqfoB5o/XI9aiLNBZRI/AAAAAAAAWHU/7qOAo8hIscExtolj3AWe3f90Qj1ahR01QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_8726.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CiqiEqfoB5o/XI9aiLNBZRI/AAAAAAAAWHU/7qOAo8hIscExtolj3AWe3f90Qj1ahR01QCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_8726.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br />Participants and thus contributors to of the ideas below: Patrik Åkerman, Daniel Johnsson, Gunilla Zachrisson, Caitlinn Loftus, Natalia Wall, Olle Karlsson, Johan Jonasson, Tobias Fors, Jörgen Hartman, Jonas Breisel, Klaus Nohlås,&nbsp; Erik Brickarp, Andreas Cederholm, Sebastian Lindholm, Frida Tell, Göran Bakken, Robert Gistvik, Martin Berggren, Markus Wall, Henrik Brattander.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <br /><h3>Presentations</h3>All participants were instructed to learn something in a new way and then share their experience in an up to 5 minutes long presentation at the conference.<br /><br />These presentations were meant to get people in the right mode and create some new ideas for topics during open space so I didn't expect these presentations to render many insights...<br /><br />... but I was wrong.<br /><br />The presentations were actually a highlight of the conference as people had went in all sorts of different and interesting directions!<br /><br />Here are my own lessons from the presentations:<br /><br /><b>Olle</b>:<br />I'm curious to try some learning apps as I haven't toyed around with them much before.<br /><br /><b>Gunilla</b>:<br />A great reminder that turning my learnings into actions is important but not always easy.<br /><br /><b>Jörgen</b>:<br />Mundane tasks can be turned into great learning opportunities e.g. by listening to podcasts while running or by reading a book while waiting in a queue.<br /><br /><b>Sebastian</b>:<br />A great reminder to expand my visual language (standard visualizations to use in my notes).<br /><br /><b>Natalia</b>:<br />A great reminder to include experts (as in actually talking to them) when I learn.<br /><br /><b>Henrik</b>:<br />I should go and interview some kick-ass coach if I want to become a better coach!<br /><br /><b>Johan</b>:<br />Having both the audio book (easier to consume) and physical book (easier to use as reference) can be a very powerful combo.<br /><br /><b>Tobias</b>:<br />It's easy to get stuck in a procrastination/fear loop and it's important to remind myself that pushing through is most likely nowhere near as complicated/risky as I imagine.<br /><br /><b>Daniel</b>:<br />Skilled instructors can greatly boost my progress when learning something.<br /><br /><b>Göran</b>:<br />Break down complicated sequences into small steps and master these steps individually.<br /><br /><b>Caitlinn</b>:<br />Testing my skills (tests, public challenges etc.) is a useful step to help me stay on course as well as motivate myself to continue learning.<br /><br /><b>Frida</b>:<br />Schedule time for learning!<br /><br /><b>Patrik</b>:<br />His talk was focused around bullet journaling but my biggest takeaway was: Dare to break patterns!<br /><br /><b>Jonas</b>:<br />Mentoring programs can be a great way to boost colleagues especially if the program is well organized (the mentors know how to actually mentor others).<br /><br /><b>Klaus</b>:<br />I can improve my reading speed by not subvocalizing as I read.<br /><br /><b>Andreas</b>:<br />Daily retrospectives is something I've stopped doing after doing them daily last autumn. This was a great reminder as well as inspiration to pick that up again.<br /><br /><b>Markus</b>:<br />Mix in what I'm trying to learn in everything; e.g. if I try to learn a language: Change the language on my phone, read news in that language, in my head translate things as I go etc.<br /><br /><b>Martin</b>:<br />Mentoring another person can be a great way to enhance my own understanding of a subject as well as create motivation to learn more.<br /><br /><b>Robert</b>:<br />To immediately discuss/share something after I've processed it myself can be a great way to both make myself learn it (if the sharing is a pre-planned activity) as well as reinforce the learning.<br /><br /><b>My own assignment</b>:<br />I don't necessarily need new information to deepen my understanding of a topic; often there's already more than enough "unprocessed"/disconnected information in my head I can revisit.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; <br /><h3>Sessions</h3>I won't go through all sessions, tips and material I picked up, instead I'll simply list some of my greatest takeaways in general; this includes conversations from lunches, evening and breaks. Notice I won't share any lessons learned about the format itself, these will be added in the next part instead.<br /><ul><li>Gamification can be a powerful way to create motivation; this is a topic I should revisit.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>To get started more easily, prepare yourself the day before by looking into and preparing what you need, make necessary bookings, tease yourself by just glancing at what you're about to do, place the stuff you need in a way that makes them accessible etc.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Without the right level of challenge <i>and feedback</i>, flow is hard/impossible to achieve.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Michael Bolton's Unless heuristic: "Do X&nbsp;<i>unless</i>&nbsp;&lt;a scenario where X is not the right approach&gt;" to better understand the limitations of that practice.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>When designing experiential learning exercises I often get stuck on "what experience could display this specific thing I want to teach". A different approach I think will help me is to do it the other way around: Design an experience first then think of what that experience could teach. This way I can slowly build a library as well as learn the mechanics.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>When designing experiential learning exercises trust the participants! Don't guide them to the end, trust them to find it themselves and even if they don't, trust them to learn from the experience as long as you provide enough support.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>A great experiential learning exercise has a good balance between directed (get to the conclusion wanted) and undirected (allow the participants to find their own way and lessons).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Some ideas for daily retrospectives:</li><ul><li>Focus on one thing per day</li><li>Dare to experiment and evaluate</li><li>Try to run these retrospectives with someone else</li><li>Don't forget to include positives, not just "improvements".</li><li>I wonder what else from e.g. Scrum I could be implemented in my own life (a personal daily standup... refinements of tasks ahead... sprint planning)<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li></ul><li>A pretty fun way to put it: "good coaching is when it's not mentoring"<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Spend time with people who've achieved the things you want to achieve<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Change patterns rather than solve specific challenges.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>"What stops you... <i>now</i>?"<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Answer "yes" without thinking too much as well as stop and reflect on your "no:s"; why did you answer no, was it really the right choice, if not how can you avoid making that mistake again and check if you can change your answer ("I know I said no but I've changed my mind, is it okay if I join you?").<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Creating the ultimate conference (though experiment) turned out to be hard but here are some parts most of us seemed to agree on:</li><ul><li>Don't include sponsored talks</li><li>Avoid sponsor booths if possible (include sponsors in other ways as the booths distract)</li><li>Conferences with the primary goal to "make money" won't attract top notch people as participants</li><li>The invite should be just as much of a deterrent of the wrong people as it is to include the right people</li><li>A venue where people automatically run into each others (not mixed with other events, have all participants live at the same hotel, optimal venue size for the number of participants etc.).</li><li>To attract top notch people, focus the content around actual experiences of people dealing with genuinely difficult problems preferably with a somewhat unique approach or outcome.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li></ul><li>Create your standard language when you take notes so you can easily find what's important to you later. Colors, symbols and size can all be great ways to help make title, date, quotes, questions, own reflections, key insights, things to check out, action points, exercises etc. easier to find.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Shu-ha-ri: Follow the rules =&gt; Break/test the rules =&gt; Create your own rules.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Some interesting insights from a conversation about "when did you learn the best":</li><ul><li>"Best" can either mean "effective short term", which often included some level of tight deadline, <i>or</i>&nbsp;finding a way to make learning happen for a very long time. We focused on the latter.</li><li>Common denominators of "best learning":</li><ul><li>Some partner (group or person) progressing at a similar pace as yourself.</li><li>This partner was not just a "learning tool" but also a fun relationship</li><li>A clear structure; either a plan of action or a clear end goal.</li><li>Regularity; learning being more of a "habit" than an event.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li></ul></ul><li>Accept your own priorities instead of regretting what you missed.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Conclusions</h3>Göran and I had a dream of a conference where great autodidacts gathered with the sole purpose to become even better autodidacts: Thank you for making that happen!Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-84221562181159818042019-02-14T09:56:00.000+01:002019-02-14T09:56:16.314+01:00My learning - Part 18 - Reflections<h3>Seven, for me, important insights</h3><ol><li>The hourglass model and the learning modes were both very interesting concepts I had never formalized before and both turned out to have far bigger implications than I anticipated.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Only focusing on the big lessons and basically ignoring all other content is something I've used pretty much everywhere for a very long time but after making myself more aware of it I feel less guilty of doing it and I feel like I will be able to do it in a more deliberate, effective way.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I need less stuff not more.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Over the years I've looked far and wide to improve my ability to learn. What this experience has taught me is I forgot to look in the most important place: Myself.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Sometimes I feel like my motivation is the most irrational thing in the universe. But it turned out the old saying is true:<br />"To be understood you must first understand".<br />These blog posts made me <i>understand </i>what's happening when I gain or lose motivation and this knowledge has already helped me better control it.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>My old way of thinking (avoiding not being great) still haunts me and writing this blog series made me realize I'm far from done replacing it with a "better why".<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>I want to get back to that action-oriented learner I use to be and I think these blog posts have both inspired me and shown me how to get there.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ol><h3>Three things I'll try</h3><ol><li>Self-coaching in a more formal way.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Deconstruct the concept of learning.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Learn something and immediately teach it to someone else<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ol><h3>How to get more action-oriented</h3><ul><li>More and better self-coaching.</li><li>Even more emphasis on experiments.</li><li>Remove some passive self-education to make room for more "doing".</li><li>Reform my "why" to create a "why" that matters to me and that truly centers around actions.</li><li>Hang out with more action-oriented friends as well as friends who might not be very action-oriented but open to join me on this journey.</li><li>Define and perform actions based on things I learn. Keep doing it until it becomes a habit.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Removing is more important than adding</h3>I started this series assuming I needed more:<br /><ul><li>More time</li><li>More learning resources</li><li>More information to process </li><li>More people</li><li>More models </li><li>More everything</li></ul>But now I sit here thinking I need less:<br /><ul><li>I don't need more time</li><li>I want to limit my learning resources to better learn from the ones I use</li><li>I want fewer resources to create less distraction</li><li>I want to spend more time with the people I know rather than look for new</li><li>I want to actively forget/ignore things so what's left becomes more clear</li><li>I want to simplify concepts and focus more on deconstruction</li><li>I want to stop gathering information and instead use what I already have </li></ul>The problem is not that I have too little information; the problem is I have so much information that what's relevant becomes hard to find.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>How will I follow this up?&nbsp;</h3>First of all I'm pretty sure I'll get plenty of reasons to follow up these posts thanks to friends reading them and asking questions (true so far).<br /><br />However, on my phone I've also scheduled a reminder to revisit each of the blog posts individually about two months after they're published. Probably not necessary but better safe than sorry.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Bottom line</h3>This has been a tremendous journey which I'm happy I stuck with and I'm proud of the result!<br /><br />At the same time I'm happy it's over. I've spent more hours than I want to admit writing it and it's time to catch up with friends, family and other parts of my life I've had to cut back on (sorry Louise, Jesper, Helena and others). In the end I'm more motivated than ever to learn but also more aware than ever that some things in life are more important.<br /><br />From the bottom of my heart:<br />Thank you for joining me on this adventure and good luck on your own! ♥Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-80140839573535182662019-02-14T09:55:00.000+01:002019-02-14T09:55:56.836+01:00My learning - Part 17 - Your learning<br />In this post I'll try to describe things I've discovered while writing this series that I think are applicable, but not obvious, to most of you as well as common mistakes (my opinion) I see among my peers.<br /><br />Notice this is <i>my view</i>, you decide what's true for you. I'm more than happy to discuss all of these just to help you understand what might actually be relevant<i> to you</i> and what <i>you </i>should ignore.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Set a direction</h3>Without a clear direction it's, at least for me, hard to build motivation and hard to be effective. So make sure you spend enough time figuring out what you want, why and what's a good method to get there. You can also try to write this down if you feel like you have a hard time keeping your focus... maybe print it out and put it in a frame .)<br /><br />On the other hand: Be careful because finding the "optimal what" and "optimal how" is an impossible project! What you need is a great enough "what", a good enough "how" and a "why" that means something to you. Or to put it in another way: The easiest way to find <i>your true calling</i> is to just fully commit to (almost)&nbsp;<i>anything</i> for long enough. As your competence grows passion comes with it.<br /><ul><li>Finding a "why":</li><ul><li>What will I get from learning this?</li><li>Why is learning this important&nbsp;<i>to me</i>?</li><li>What is one tangible thing&nbsp;<i>I want</i>&nbsp;to learn <i>to do</i>?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><li>What kind of career do I dream about?</li><ul><li>Which skills would I need to do that job well?&nbsp;</li><li>Which skills seem most important to get a good start in this direction?&nbsp;</li><li>How can I learn those skills?</li><li>Which of those skills seems the most fun and/or useful to learn?</li><li>What's an easy way to start learning that skill?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><li>What's the most interesting skill to learn relevant to...</li><ul><li>My most important working task?</li><li>My most common working task?</li><li>My most engaging working task?</li><li>A task at work I'd like to be allowed to do more often?</li><li>A job I'd like to apply for? </li><li>One of my hobbies?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><li>Is learning important to me in general? Why / why not?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><ul></ul></ul><ul><ul></ul></ul><h3>Learn about your own learning before learning about learning </h3>People sometimes tell me "how learning works" but when I ask them how&nbsp;<i>they learn</i> they can't really answer or their answer is not about <i>how they actually learn</i> but<i> how they think they should learn</i>&nbsp;(the latter by the way has been a huge challenge to avoid when writing this blog series).<br /><br />What I suggest is before you read anything else about "the best way to learn" sit down, figure out how <i>you learn</i> and write it down: <br /><ul><li>Describe how you successfully learned a particular thing in the past.</li><li>If you were to describe your learning with just three words, which words would you choose and why?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>What in general motivates you and what makes you lose motivation? </li><li>When did you learn the most in the shortest amount of time?</li><ul><li>How did you do it and why was that so effective?</li></ul><li>When was learning effortless? Why?</li><ul><li>Did it ever stop being effortless? Why?</li></ul><li>When was learning the most fun? Why?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>List your top three sources (books, people etc.) based on how often you use them?</li><li>List your top three sources based on how effective you think they are for you?</li><li>Did the list of most effective match with most common? If not, why not?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>What makes information stick for&nbsp;<i>you</i>?</li><li>Give three examples of situations where learning something led to action</li><ul><li>What made you act?</li></ul><li>When did you last try a new way to learn?</li><ul><li>What did you do?</li><li>How did it go?</li></ul><li>What makes you reflect?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>What do you want to learn right now?</li><li>What skill is most important to do your job well?</li><ul><li>How can you improve it?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li></ul><li>Which are the strongest distractions for you?</li><li>Which are the most common distractions for you?</li><li>Are these more important than learning and if not, how could you remove them?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Who would you like to learn from and why?</li><li>Which <i>kind </i>of ... do you prefer?</li><ul><li>Books</li><li>Podcasts</li><li>Blog posts/articles</li><li>Learning events</li><li>Learning buddies<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><li>Where are you usually when you educate yourself (location)?</li><li>Where do you prefer to be when you educate yourself?</li><li>What's important to make a location a good learning place <i>for you</i>?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>What helps you get started?</li><li>What makes you stop educating yourself?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Which are your strengths as a learner?</li><li>How do you maximize these strengths/make you utilize these strengths better?<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><ul></ul></ul><h3>Only look for nuggets</h3><div><i>"Only focus on the big lessons"</i></div><div>from My strategy</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div><i>"I aim to only note down what I think is&nbsp;- useful for me - right now."</i></div><div>from Note-taking</div><div>&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><i>"I don't have the goal of completing a book; I read books&nbsp;to extract the big lessons"</i></div><div>from How I read books<br /><br /></div>Stop worrying about the things you might miss and start worrying about wasting your time on things you will never use anyway.<br />&nbsp; <br /><div><h3>Take control over your learning at work</h3>You're not needy if you take responsibility for your own learning at work, you're a professional who actually gives a damn and companies typically want that.<br /><ul><li>Suggest courses and conferences, don't wait for your manager's suggestions.</li><li>Ask if the company can fund books your want to read/online courses you want to attend.</li><li>Ask if you can run experiments at work that might benefit both you and the company.</li><li>Ask if you can attend learning events on working hours.</li><li>Ask if you can get an hour of paid time to self-educate yourself each week. Your chance of success is higher if your manager knows you spend several hours of spare time each week self-educating yourself already.&nbsp;</li><li>Ask if you can observe/learn from people having roles you want to have in the future (e.g. follow one of the sales managers for a day).</li><li>Start a community of practice or local meetup group for a relevant topic at work.</li><li>Share your learnings with colleagues (blog, present, discuss).</li><li>Be open about how much time and effort you spend on your self-education outside of work. </li><li>Don't assume your manager knows what kind of education you need.</li><li>Don't assume what you're trying to learn right now is not relevant to your employer.</li><li>Just because no one else cares about their education doesn't mean you shouldn't.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Find a peer</h3>Find a peer!!! This person can be just a conversation partner to whom you share your recent learnings or projects or it might be someone you actively learn together with. Read the part about <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/02/my-learning-part-8-people.html">People</a> to get some help with finding a person like this. A peer can be a complete game changer (doesn't matter if you consider yourself an extrovert or introvert) so even though finding one might be intimidating, time consuming and hard; it's still worth it! Start online if meeting in person is not your thing.<br /><br />Another way to accomplish this is to take one of your close friends and suggest: "Hey, I have this crazy idea that we should learn &lt;something&gt; together, what do you think?"<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Deconstruct something</h3>Go back to <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/02/my-learning-part-13-reflection.html">Reflection</a> and read about deconstruction then take a concept you think you already know or some concept you're trying to learn and deconstruct it. This is a powerful tool that can truly change your perception even of things you think you know well.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-14631140982502159282019-02-11T10:37:00.001+01:002019-02-11T10:37:55.690+01:00My Learning - Part 16 - Optimal conditions<div><h3>Finding time</h3><div>Finding time is actually quite easy:<br />I have a hard limitation of 24 hours to spend every day. If I cheat too much with my sleep I won't get much out of the rest of the hours so roughly 8 hours are dedicated to sleep. Now there are 16 hours left. During these hours I can basically do whatever I want as long as I have the resources necessary.<br /><br />Obviously I have to be careful how I use parts of that time if I want my important relationships to last, my kids to thrive and have food for tomorrow but even with three young kids I'm pretty free to spend these 16 hours the way I want. So I prioritize and since e.g. family and friends are prioritized higher than learning new stuff, learning new stuff won't get all those 16 hours.<br /><br />That being said there are a few things I can do, related to time, that greatly impacts how much I learn:<br /><ol><li>I can stop spending time on things with lower priority</li><li>I can minimize the time I spend waiting</li><li>I can do other tasks more efficiently</li><li>I can make my own education more efficient</li><li>I can incorporate learning in more prioritized activities</li></ol><div>Let's take them one by one; first I can stop spending time on things like video games, board game design projects or programming projects (not related to learning) or I can do these things together with my kids or with friends so I get to do them without "wasting any time from learning and other higher priorities".</div><div><br /></div><div>Second I can be more direct in my decisions. For instance after dinner I might wanna write on this blog post but I also want to spend time with my wife, if that's important to her that day. What often happens is I end up in some kind of limbo where I basically wait to see if my wife wanna do something without really doing anything meaningful while I wait. In these scenarios I can either use that waiting time to get some house keeping out of the way or I can straight up ask her which cuts the waiting time significantly.</div><br />Next up is optimization; I can do the other activities (like house keeping) more efficient. One way of making this happen is minimize multitasking, another is to remove unnecessary steps or simply skip whole activities. This is obviously a huge topic in and of itself but an interesting one that helps free up time for e.g. learning.<br /><br />Related to that is optimizing my learning. This is basically what this whole series is about but just as a reminder: When doing the most effective learning actions (which are often the scariest for some reason) I get a lot of extra time I can spend on either more learning or on other things that are important to me. The less time I feel like I can spend on my learning the more important the quality of my learning activities get.<br /><br />Finally I can try to incorporate learning in things I prioritize higher. Some great examples of this is learning together with my kids, practice on my kids (kids are excellent to practice coaching on for instance) or hang out with friends who are also passionate learners.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Work time</h3>Also related to incorporating learning in more prioritized activities: I try to get my work to fund my education as much as possible:<br /><ul><li>Many employees don't use up their education budget meaning, from a budget perspective, it's a better deal for my employer to spend some extra bucks on my education than on my salary. Since I spend parts of my salary on education anyway there's some potential here.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I'm clear about my ambition and how much spare time I spend on education and try to back this up by doing public activities like organizing learning events or by sharing useful material with colleagues. This seems to make my employer more interested in investing in my education.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>From the perspective of my employer a more expensive course seems like a better deal than a long one (time is money). So outside of work I generally spend more time but less money while at work I let my employer send me on fewer courses in exchange for them sending me to the ones I think are the best even when they cost a little extra. Win-win.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I take a very active role in my education at work. I make sure I know who the relevant thought leaders and teachers are in the business and if they have any courses planned in Linköping/Sweden/Europe. I also research the courses before I ask my manager so I can present a good business case for what it would bring the company (and myself).<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I organize learning activities at work. This way I get to be a part of them and generally there's a lack of initiatives like this so it's appreciated by my employer.</li></ul><div>This doesn't mean I go to tons of courses or spend an insane amount of work time educating myself but it means I get to attend the courses <i>I think</i>&nbsp;are best both for myself and the company as well as get the opportunity to participate in more learning activities at work than most.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, just to be clear, this actually makes a lot of sense for my employer (as in: I'm not just using them):<br />Education is hard and few spend their spare time learning about learning, learning about teaching or staying up to date with courses in various topics. So the fact that I do all this makes me a valuable resource to the company when it comes to education for everyone, not just me. So the extra perks I described above is more a by-product of me offering a service to my employer rather than me putting up demands.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Making time</h3>I've taken some very deliberate decision in my life that helps me create that extra time for learning.<br /><br />First off I try to get up early in the morning (alarm set to 5 AM). This gives me some extra time before the rest of the family wakes up. Getting use to this wake up time was surprisingly easy; the two tricks I used was to simply get up at 5:00 no matter when I got to bed (made me adjust the time I went to bed pretty quickly) and the second was to never snooze.<br /><br />I use to be able to have some time available after 7 PM when the kids had went to bed. Now when they're a little older that time is slowly shrinking though.<br /><br />Next there's travelling. Before I travel anywhere I make sure I've prepared books I want to read, pods/audio books I want to listen to etc. I also often take an extra early bus to the railway station/airport. This way I don't have to stress and I get some extra time to read while waiting.<br /><br /></div><div>Finally my wife works as a nurse so she often works during evenings, weekends and public holidays. This means there's time available when my wife is working and the kids are either with friends or play with each others.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Balance</h3>I <i>constantly</i>&nbsp;manage my time so I have somewhat of a balance between maintaining my important relationships, finishing various "musts and shoulds", maintaining myself and maintaining my learning. If I fail doing this I can end up in situations where I don't have enough time to learn things (which badly impacts my motivation to learn) or too much time, meaning I've "stolen" time from other activities that are more important in my life.<br /><br />Balance however doesn't mean a strict schedule to follow. For instance, if I did have a set amount of time I could spend on education completing this blog series would take ages. Instead it's more about stopping myself every once in a while and ask:<br /><ul><li>Is there balance right now between family, friends, job, my well-being and my learning?</li><li>No...</li><ul><li>Well, is that okay (for now)?</li><li>Do I need to check with someone, like my wife, to ensure she's okay with it? </li><li>What are the consequences of my current imbalance and am I okay with those?</li><li>What will I do to correct this imbalance later?</li></ul></ul>And yes, I've failed asking these questions <i>many, many times in my life</i>... but I try.<br /><br />Answering these questions not only helps me avoid unhealthy imbalance but also make me feel less guilty which removes a pretty strong distraction from my learning (assuming I've been honest in my answers and acted based on them).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Where I typically learn</h3><div><div>Göran Bakken has inspired me to look into creating an engaging "learning place". I'm not there yet though. Instead I try to always carry around the learning tools I need (e.g. notebooks).<br /><br />So at home I use the kitchen table because it's the best place to sit if I want lots of space but I also sit in our bedroom, I sit in the walk in closet upstairs where I have my computer, I sit in the sofa when I try to mix learning time and time with my wife and finally I spend a lot of time listening to online courses or podcasts while washing the dishes, preparing food or while loading the washing machine.<br /><br />Apart from that my kids have several activities and when waiting there I try to have e.g. a book ready so I can mix skimming that book with watching my kids ice skate, wrestle or dance.<br /><br />When traveling I always bring my noise cancellation headphones which allows me to create a good focused learning space where the noise level would normally distract me. This is great for e.g. airplanes or when waiting in terminals.<br /><br /></div><div>Finally hotels usually have pretty good desks or beds where I can work. However, I try to book most evenings for dinners or other activities with learning buddies or other interesting people when I'm traveling.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div></div><h3>Learn about learning</h3>What learning about learning does is it makes learning more fun because I get results faster and since learning about something creates motivation for that thing I'm motivated to learn more about learning as well as practice the learning skills I've picked up.<br /><br /></div><div>Some topics I've explored are general theory around learning and teaching, learning hacks, spaced repetition learning, time management/productivity, how to read books, how to conduct experiments, information retrieval, flow, positive psychology, coaching, note taking, neuroplasticity, how the memory works and finally observe anyone who seems like a great learner.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Low effort</h3>I've touched on this topic before but let's dive a little deeper. An important part in making learning happen for me is making the effort required to start as low as possible. Here are a few examples:<br /><ul><li>Have the books I want to read at home (borrowed from library or bought)</li><li>Initiate contact today with people I&nbsp;want to include in my learning tomorrow</li><li>Have a training rig set up and ready</li><li>Know where to look for more material when I'm done with whatever I'm studying now</li><li>Remove distractions</li><li>Not too much content to choose from; taking decisions takes effort and options make it harder for me to stay focused on the resource I'm currently using:</li><ul><li>Limit the number of books I have ready at home</li><li>Limit the list of books I might want to read later</li><li>Limit how many podcast episodes I have downloaded/in my playlist</li><li>Limit the amount of blog post suggestions I'm exposed to</li><li>Limit the number of concepts I plan to research</li></ul><li>Keep a list of experiments/exercises I want to try after I've e.g. read about a topic.</li><li>Have a clear learning routine so I don't have to think about that<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul></div><div><h3>Background music</h3>I use to think that background music helped me study but some experiments I conducted on myself suggested the opposite. Due to that I only listen to music when it's needed to remove other distracting sounds and I only listen to instrumental music (I can't seem to avoid focusing on lyrics). Typically I use music designed for relaxation, meditation or studying as well as background noise designed to improve productivity.<br /><br />My favorites right now are&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/30DIcaYeC3iKsItRo7cATd">"Study music for Focus"</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.noisli.com/">Noisili</a>&nbsp;(train, rain or bird song).<br /><br />Often when I use my noise cancellation headphones I turn on noise cancellation but no music/sound.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Inner conditions</h3><div>I've already mentioned sleep and I've experimented a lot with different sleeping times, different ways to wake me up (I like my wake-up light), different room temperatures and physical stuff like different pillows (love my memory foam pillow with good neck support). Can't say that I've come to too many conclusions more than experimenting is good and it's something I'll keep doing.<br /><br />Next I should take better care of my body and I just don't know why I find that so hard. I use to be a very sporty person, I like running and I love basically any sport that involves a ball... but I've become lazy. I know more exercise is great both for my health and learning ability, I just need to convince myself that again... by the way, a fun method I used when I wanted to get myself to run was to learn about running: I read "Born to run" and learned about training routines, oxygen absorption, running posture etc. which worked... maybe I should read "Born to run" again...<br /><br />Finally I've started to get more and more interested in techniques like integrated mental training and self-hypnosis. I've also experimented quite a bit with mindfulness and meditation over the years but never established a long running routine. Those however are topics I'd like to revisit as well.<br /><br />I guess this whole chapter about inner conditions can be summarized with:<br />This is a work in progress...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-36313630826147459072019-02-11T10:37:00.000+01:002019-02-11T10:37:45.854+01:00My learning - Part 15 - Motivation<h3>Motivation vs Energy</h3><ul><li>Motivation is the "fuel consumption". High motivation (to do something) means I can even gain energy from performing that particular activity while low motivation means I have to spend energy to force myself to do it.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Energy is the fuel but it's not clear to me exactly what that means. It's partly "physical energy" like the kind I get from a healthy lifestyle but it's also willpower and cognitive energy... and possibly something else.</li></ul>So when I speak about motivation I speak about making things effortless to do and when I speak about energy I speak about my capacity to do these things even when I'm not motivated.<br /><br />With all that being said, the explanation above is a massive&nbsp;oversimplification but I think it's good enough to understand this post...<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Why I learn</h3>I use to learn not because I wanted to be great but because I <i>hated&nbsp;not to be great</i>. It might not sound like much of a difference but it is:<br /><ul><li>If you<i> want to be great</i> you will seek out better competition; situations where you're likely to fail but likely to learn&nbsp;because that's what challenging activities do.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>But I wanted to <i>avoid not being great</i> meaning I tried to perfect my skills in isolation, where no one would see me fail (judge me) and when I felt like I was ready I would challenge people I naturally assumed would perform worse than me.</li></ul>This was actually a surprisingly effective way to <i>make me learn</i>&nbsp;because you can be sure I prepared myself for challenges I didn't control (like school) and since I was constantly "practicing learning" I became a pretty good learner... but neither&nbsp;an appealing nor a harmonic one.<br /><br />I'm not sure exactly when and why but around high school I started challenging my self-image as a greatness seeking individual and quickly learned it was fake. My first reaction was "let's fix it". When fixing it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought I went "screw this, let's just accept this is who I am". I went with this attitude for a few years but something was different. Now I noticed how annoyed some people got and how much faster some people progressed by jumping straight to the expert challenges while I was stuck repeating the challenges I felt sure I would beat.<br /><br />So I finally started the long journey of changing my "why". The problem was "not avoiding not being great" is not a "why", it's... nothing. So to succeed I had to find a new "why" which also turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. Long story short: If I wanted to change my "why" I had to program a new "why" and attach such strong emotions to it that it simply outperformed my old "why". This is a work in progress since around&nbsp;2005 and to be fair this is the first time I've actually tried to articulate my new "whys" so they're not as elegantly described as I think they can be:<br /><ol><li>When I manage to do or understand something new I get a sense of accomplishment. When I manage to make someone else do or understand something new I get an even stronger feeling of accomplishment. This feeling of accomplishment is a strong emotion; it makes me feel proud of myself.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I'm a curios human being who loves exploration. Trying a new path just to see where it leads can captivate me in a way few other things can. Learning for me is a constant exploration making the activity itself, without any need for an end goal, an attractive and motivating activity.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I love feeling energized. The best feeling is when there's so much energy inside me that I'm almost boiling over. Being passionate about something generates this kind of energy as well as when I interact with or listen to passionate people. I've learned that passion itself is something I create by investing myself fully in a particular topic.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I love feeling smart/clever and as I learn a topic I get this feeling more and more frequently until I reach some kind of plateau. When this happens I can move on but old knowledge makes it faster to reach this state of feeling smart in some other topic as most topics relate to each others in one way or the other. I can later go back to the topic to reach an even higher plateau thanks to things I've learned in other related topics. By constantly using the progress in one skill to improve another I get to repeatedly feel smart and feeling smart feels great!</li></ol>I also try to motivate myself to do "good learning" (e.g. accept tough challenges) by placing myself in social situations where this is expected of me. This way I can substitute my "learning why" with my "social why" (be part of the group, feel appreciated etc.) and my "social why" is more powerful.<br /><br />I started writing this section thinking that "this will be one of the easiest section to write"... turned out it took a few days and a whole lot more text than I expected. "Why" is an interesting question...<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Managing my motivation</h3>I rely heavily on my motivation. In a best case scenario I can learn incredibly fast and actually gain energy from the experience. But when I rely too heavily on this automatic learning process I can also end up binge watching some French documentary series about serial killers. So management is sometimes (...often) required.<br /><br />The best way to make me act in a certain way, including the action of learning, is simply to remove any other options than the ones I prefer. This includes removing "good options" since I know having too many good options at once means I will start switching between all of them and this makes me lose a sense of progress and direction. One example of this is not having too many new, interesting books at home. <br /><br />The problem is my brain will get bored if there are too few or too similar paths and when bored it'll make up new paths and these paths surprisingly often include rainbow-colored kittens. Another risk with too few paths is my progress gets slower and sloower and slooower until I finally give up.<br /><br />To provide an example of how I manage the available paths:<br /><i>I realized this blog series would take a lot of time to complete. I also realized I would run into mental blocks due to some parts being less interesting to write, very hard to write or that I would wake up some days just not feeling motivated to write at all. To lower the risk of these blocks stopping me from finishing the series I made sure to remove as many unhelpful options as possible. "The options" in this case referred to removing news apps on my phone, I returned all the books I had borrowed from the library and I limited my social media check ins to mornings. I still mixed the writing with some research on learning though since that research would not put me off track but provide enough change to avoid boredom.</i><br /><br />Some distractions I don't want to remove because they're important to me, like friends and family, but even though important they can still become "bad distractions" or a way to procrastinate. So my next strategy is to make the thing(s) I want to do more attractive. Let's take this blog series as an example again:<br /><br /><i>I've spent quite a bit of time describing to myself how useful this series would be both to myself and others as well as how proud I'd feel when it's done. I've also made sure I've spent the right amount of time planning and preparing before I start writing each part so that the writing involves enough uncertainty to become an exciting exploration but still prepared enough to avoid most blocks.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Finally I sometimes want to force myself to do/complete a certain task. One such example can be at work: I've already lost interest in a task but my finished product is important to someone else. This is an area where I've tried many different methods but still see a lot of energy just disappear without much progress happening so today I do my best to instead <i>avoid</i> these situations all together so that I have enough energy left <i>when avoiding is not a feasible option</i>. Some examples: <br /><ul><li>I try to avoid large project at work and when I get dragged into them anyway I try to make myself expandable as soon as possible to allow myself to be moved when my speed starts to decline.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I almost never write for e.g. magazines or company blogs simply because I don't like to commit to finishing projects like that.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I only tell a small group of close friends about my projects before they're done.</li></ul>I know this might sound lazy or unprofessional and maybe it is, personally I look at it as self-awareness though. In this case I'm very open about it to e.g. my manager, not that I won't do things I don't like but that if she wants the most out of me I shouldn't be part of e.g. certain projects or do certain tasks. This allows her to get more value out of me and when she truly needs me to do something I'm not motivated to do I still have the necessary energy to do it well.<br /><br />I also know explicitly telling the world what you're about to do is a tool often suggested by productivity experts and I can't say it's not true; I get things done this way too. But a negative side-effect for me is if completing the task doesn't give me a <i>very strong feeling of accomplishment</i> it can easily lead to me instead losing motivation for the topic all together. Once again I remind you that completing things is usually not very important to me... so do I want to win the fight or win the war...<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Things I do to motivate myself</h3><ul><li>Get started<br />I know when I get started with something my motivation automatically increase, at least for a while. So I often try to identify the smallest possible thing I can do (in terms of energy cost) to get started; things like skimming a book or speak about the topic with a friend. As soon as I've started I try to grab hold of that initial motivation and go like "just a little more, you'll see this will be fun, don't worry" and suddenly it becomes motivating to continue.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Hang out with positive, high energy people<br />When I spend time with people who have tons of positive energy some of that energy rubs off on me. This is great, especially when my own energy is kinda low or I need a boost to push myself to do something "expensive".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Surround myself with playful learners<br />Related to the above I try to make extra time for friends who just have a positive impact on my learning. They're not necessarily those mega-passionate, fully dedicated energy bombs I described above but rather curios and ambitious learners. If the high energy people gives me energy I'd say these people inspire me in a way that improves my <i>motivation</i> (e.g. I want try some technique they use). These people also help me realize that certain learning activities I've considered aren't as crazy as they seem when only compared to what "most people do" (e.g. organize a conference) which also helps my motivation.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>State a clear direction<br />Knowing what I'm trying to achieve makes it easier to get going. A direction also gives even small activities a clear purpose and thus make them more motivating to perform. The direction becomes much more powerful if it's based on a "need" (e.g. I feel a need to perform well when I test a certain applications for a team).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Describe the reward of completing the activity<br />Often before getting myself to start or continue an activity I spend some time just reminding myself of what this activity will bring or feel like when it's done. For instance I've already run several positive scenarios in my head based on things that could come out of this blog series. A scenario like that could be a conversation between me and one of my heroes where the hero asks me questions about the blog series and thanks me for the inspiration it has given her. These scenarios aren't why I write the blog post, they're more like help to stay on course because they remind me that if I do this well it could lead to interesting opportunities.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Help others learn things I've already learned<br />Helping others often motivates me to revisit the topic I'm helping with or inspires me to learn some related topic.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Maintain motivation</h3>When I'm already motivated to do something I'm still careful about how I treat this motivation. If I run into unnecessary blocks I can lose interest in an instant which can be devastating if the topic is e.g. a useful life skill.<br /><ul></ul><ul><ul></ul><li>Mix learning with fun activities<br />I love people, I love games and I love exploration so if I can incorporate any of those in my learning I know my long term motivation will be higher. The most powerful option is "people"; if I find peers passionate about the topic I'm trying to learn I will have a much easier time sticking with it (it becomes a friendship activity not "just" a learning activity).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; </li><li>Feeling of progress<br />I try to find ways to show myself how far I've progressed in my learning. This can mean achieving milestones (feeling of accomplishment) or being able to do something I've not done before (feeling of mastery). I try not to plan these milestones since that can easily make me feel boxed in, so it's more about reflection: "What was I unable to do a year ago that I'm able to do now?" or "What had I not experienced a month ago that I've experienced now?"<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Good learning conditions<br />I moved the contents of this to the next blog post but long story short: Having an environment that supports my learning is key to keep up my motivation.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Don't learn about my distractions<br />My passion for learning goes well beyond "work related topics". For instance if I start to read about game design I'm quickly hooked for hours listening to the Ludology podcast and sketching on various board game designs. My solution here is simply to avoid information that reminds me about distractions I don't want in my life (e.g. block certain YouTube channels) and by doing that my interest in these activities drop.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><ul></ul><div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-15149271598416340832019-02-07T14:21:00.000+01:002019-02-11T10:18:23.206+01:00My Learning - Part 14 - Other sources<h3>Blogs and articles</h3><b>Purpose</b><br />Remember <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2019/01/my-learning-part-7-my-hourglass-model.html">My hourglass model</a>? Blog posts and articles are especially great when I'm in the bottom third of the hourglass (high level of mastery) because people share new and fresh ideas in blog posts long before they reach the refined state of a book or a conference presentation and it's these new and fresh ideas that improve me at this point.<br /><br />Blog posts and articles are typically short, free, specific and easy to skim; all of which are excellent attributes!<br /><br />One drawback though is that the effort required to publish a blog post compared to e.g. a book is much lower meaning there is more weak content shadowing the truly amazing stuff. Another is the blog posts are often quite narrow and limited in scope meaning I need an established understanding of the topic to really be able to learn from most of them. Finally there are the same problems as with books: I don't see the gaps when I read them and blog posts have almost never pushed me to actually do something.<br /><br /><b>Find them</b><br /><ul><li>I check if my heroes blog/write articles <br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </li><li>I follow my heroes on e.g. Twitter and LinkedIn and check the websites they share content from.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I just google "best &lt;topic&gt; blogs", there are (almost) always someone who've spent way too much time finding interesting blogs and articles and shared their findings. I'm careful though since they've shared websites fitting <i>their needs</i>&nbsp;not mine and unhelpful self-promotion is common.</li></ul><b>Tips</b><br />For my main area of expertise, software testing, one of my most important learning sources for years was a&nbsp;meticulously maintained list of RSS-feeds. It had an inflow of 20+ entries a day and at my peak I at a minimum skimmed all of them.<br /><br />Lately though blogs and articles have been replaced by podcasts and presentations shared on YouTube (I'll explain why in the next chapter) but I still consider blogs a good source and when I start to get a hang of coaching I'll probably start looking for blogs to follow.<br /><br />Finally; just like with books I typically skim an article or blog post quickly, then decide if it's worth my time to read them carefully and if I do I do it with my trusted notebook.<br /><br />A blog to start with:&nbsp;<a href="https://5blogs.wordpress.com/">5 Blogs</a><br />It's a blog where Simon P. Schrijver every day lists 5 great blog posts he read that day. Topics vary but typically touches on testing, leadership and/or workplace psychology.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Podcasts and audio books</h3><b>Purpose</b><br />I use podcasts the same way I use blogs and they have basically the same benefits and drawbacks. What differs is it's more common that I need my eyes for something than my ears, making podcast and audio books easier to fit into my life. The drawback however is that podcasts are much harder to skim. So if the situation allows me to read instead I typically choose that.<br /><br /><b>Find them</b><br />I find audio books the exact same way I find books so not much to say there. Podcasts are a bit different though.<br /><br />First of all I rarely listen to podcasts in focused mode so it's more a filtering tool (find people and topics I want to research). Second of all sound quality is super-important to me, so I skip many great pods just because of poor audio. Finally not that many of my heroes record their own podcasts or the sound is subpar. This means I more often look for popular podcasts on a specific topic or search for my heroes; if they've been invited as guests to a podcast that podcast might have invited more interesting people I've not yet heard about.<br /><br />Alternatively I follow a recommendation. It's quite rare I find podcasts I like this way though. I don't know if this is because my taste is weird or if it's something else but... still rare (I just don't like most of the podcasts recommended to me).<br /><br />Since sound quality is so important and podcasts are harder to skim my list of podcasts is much shorter and I typically listen to all episodes of a few podcasts rather than individual episodes from several (the way I do with blogs). If I find a podcast that seems promising rather than subscribing to it immediately I browse through the existing episodes and download the one or two that strike me as the most interesting... so they enter some kind of audition... few makes it out of this stage.<br /><br /><b>Tips</b><br />I don't do this myself but many people I respect listen to podcasts in 1.5x or 2x speed. This allows them to consume more content in a shorter amount of time. I've tried that myself but not liked it so far, still want to throw it out there.<br /><br />When I find a good podcast episode I almost always look for a book, blog or something like that by the person speaking rather than listen to the episode itself in my focused mode. The reason is listening to a complete episode takes such an enormous amount of time compared to skimming a book. What I do however, since distracted time is much more readily available, is listen to that episode over and over again in my distracted mode hoping that at least the best parts stick simply through repetition.<br /><br />The same is true for audio books but in that case I check if the actual book is available at the library so that I can borrow it and process it in my focused mode that way (skim, quickly jump between sections etc.). <br /><br />My favorites podcast:<br /><a href="https://www.framgangspodden.se/">Framgångspodden</a>&nbsp;(Swedish)<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Videos</h3><b>Purpose</b><br />Recorded presentations, brief explanatory videos etc. serve a very similar purpose as blogs; except I can't skim them as good but the quality is often better. So the purpose, benefits and drawback are virtually the same.<br /><br /><b>Find them</b><br />I would like to say I use recommendations and browse my heroes as strategy for finding good videos but I'm waaay too often led off course by YouTube's algorithms. For this reason I try to limit the amount of time I spend in front of videos...<br /><br /><b>Tips</b><br />When I see rainbow colored cats it's usually a good idea to close down the browser...<br /><br />A more useful tip:<br />Just like I mentioned in <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/02/my-learning-part-10-conferences.html">Conferences</a>, I try to come up with questions when I watch videos online and on a few occasions I've sent these questions or comments to the presenter... However, this is something I, in all honesty, do way less than I think I should.<br /><br />My favorite video on learning:<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUnpSYMNEhY">4 steps to design your own education by Till H. Groß</a><br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Courses live</h3><div><b>Purpose</b><br />I love to meet and discuss with people who are experts in topics I'm interested in. Courses are great because usually there are just a few people there meaning there aren't that much competition to speak with the teacher (assuming she's amazing).<br /><br />For me courses are, just like books, a great tool to build a solid foundation in a topic but since it's a much bigger investment (and reward) courses are normally, for me, the step after books; I want to have a pretty good understanding of the topic before I attend a course.<br /><br />The benefits are similar to a conference but the targeted focus and the access to one hero generally makes this a better option when I'm in the "narrow section of the hourglass" (see <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2019/01/my-learning-part-7-my-hourglass-model.html">My hourglass model</a>) while a conference is better when I'm in the "broad sections of the hourglass".<br /><br /><b>Find them</b><br />Typically I browse my heroes and check what they have available (price, location, date, topic) and hopefully I find a course that way. If I'm looking for a more basic, "off the shelf" topic, like most programming languages or basic business financials, I'm immediately less picky but on the other hand I rarely attend those kind of courses since I can learn that just as fast by studying myself (or that's my assumption at least).<br /><br />When it comes to selecting courses I almost exclusively focus on the teacher while the topic is a <i>much lower priority</i>.&nbsp;For me a good teacher is what makes or breaks a course and what a poor teacher brings is typically something I can find much faster and cheaper online. If I do find a course where the description sounds great but I've not heard about the teacher I typically spend a fair amount of time researching the teacher and course (e.g. check if the teacher have any videos published online, course reviews or check if friends have attended the course/know about the teacher). Once again, most of my focus is on researching the teacher, less on the course itself.<br /><br /><b>Tips</b><br /><ul><li>I always try to speak with the other participants, they're hopefully there for a reason and that reason may align with mine which can lead to very helpful conversations.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I always have a specific color for questions or a specific place to note them down so I don't forget in case I can't ask them immediately.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I ask the questions I have, not only to get the answers but also to help the teacher understand why I'm where/what's important to me since that can sometimes lead to small, helpful detours or influence which direction the teacher chooses to go when deciding what content to include/exclude.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I try to speak with the teacher before the course. One reason is the same as asking questions: If she knows what I'm looking for it might affect the content slightly in my (and hopefully others) favor. A second reason is I personally get more out of a course when I'm challenged/put on the hot seat and I've learned teachers tend to use people they know for this. So if I can communicate that before the course it ups my chances of getting more out of the course.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul></div><h3>Courses online</h3><div><b>Purpose</b><br />I'd say an online course has the exact same purpose, benefits and drawbacks as an audio book:<br />I use them to build a solid foundation in a topic. They're great because I can easily process them in my distracted mode and the content is typically much more thought through and well designed than in e.g. a podcast or blog post. Important drawbacks are they rarely lead to immediate action and they're hard to skim.<br /><br /><b>Find them</b><br />Guess what: The teacher is suuuper-important to me! Even more so than in a live situation because online it's so easy to have the mind drift away so the teacher <i>must fully captivate me</i> for the course to work. The challenge however is that few of my heroes have online courses available so the research I did before ordering my first course, even though it was quite inexpensive, was extensive!<br /><br />Regarding which platform I use the answer is Udemy but it's not because I've made my research; I just happened to stumble upon a great course during a sale and that has kept me there.<br /><br /><b>Tips</b><br />I listen to the course segments in my distracted mode and then revisit them with a pen and paper in a focused manner, if I find them interesting enough.<br /><br />Why I listen to online courses in my focused mode but not podcasts is because online courses are typically split into small segments of 5-10 minutes packed with information while a podcast can include long irrelevant (but entertaining) sections meaning they might need an hour to communicate the same amount of information a 10 minute course segment does.<br /><br />My favorite paid course:<br /><a href="https://www.udemy.com/become-a-learning-machine-read-300-books/">Become a learning machine 2.0 by Brandon Hakim</a><br /><br />My favorite free course: </div><a href="https://www.udemy.com/7-scientifically-proven-steps-to-increase-your-influence/learn/v4/overview">7 scientifically proven steps to increase your influence by Vanessa Van Edwards</a><br />&nbsp; <br /><h3><b>Share and teach</b></h3><b>Examples</b><br /><ul><li>Blog</li><li>Present/teach</li><li>Mentor someone</li><li>Record a video</li><li>Write an email</li></ul><b>Purpose</b><br />When I share knowledge, experiences or ideas with others I feel like I'm always the one learning the most probably because:<br /><ul><li>It forces me to reflect.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </li><li>It forces me to put my own words on things which help them stick.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Questions from students, readers etc. can highlight an aspect I've missed or they might bypass an incorrect assumption I've made forcing me to rethink.</li></ul><div><b>Experiment</b></div><div>An experiment I'd like to try is to <i>learn something with the intention to be able to teach it to someone else</i>. I'd like to see if I could trick myself to learn smarter/more effective this way. To make it more interesting I'd like to compare:<br /><ul><li>Learn the way I normally do</li><li>Learn with the intention to teach but do nothing with it afterwards</li><li>Learn with the intention to teach and prepare the teaching material</li><li>Follow up my learning activity with actually teaching what I just learned</li></ul>This is to see if the actual <i>action</i> to teach, which can sometimes be time consuming and/or involve boring administration, is necessary or not. If you have experimented with this I'd love to hear about your results.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Other sources</h3>There are obviously other sources and ways to learn than the ones I've brought up but together with the posts about People, Books, Conferences, Doing, Experiments and Reflection I think I've covered most of the ones I use (at least the ones I'm aware of). As a closing note: I did consider adding a chapter about "observation" but I cannot say I use this as an isolated source in a deliberate way so I skipped it.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-10059686748982247342019-02-07T11:00:00.000+01:002019-02-07T11:00:04.641+01:00My Learning - Part 13 - Reflection<h3><b>Purpose</b></h3>I've read a lot, listened a lot, done a lot, observed a lot and, well... experienced a lot. This means there's plenty of good stuff in my head already.<br /><br />Reflection is my method to recall, refresh and retool those existing skills and ideas. Retooling in this case refers to taking a skill or piece of knowledge I already have and apply it to something new. For instance, software testing have taught me a lot about critical thinking, skills and experiences I can retool to fit e.g. coaching or parenting.<br /><br />Reflection also tends to make me<i> act.</i><br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3><b>Trigger</b></h3>What actually makes me reflect is something I still haven't quite understood. I know I gravitate towards "new stuff" such as new books, new podcasts, new exercises etc. even when reflection probably would be my best tool. At the same time I can sometimes drop everything and sit down for days or even weeks fully committed to reflection... but I can't see the pattern or trigger that initiates my reflection sessions.<br /><br />Understanding these triggers is something I need to study and experiment more with.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>How</h3>When I get myself to sit down and reflect, what I do is I grab my notebook and start to make a plan:&nbsp;<i>What kind of information am I trying to get out of my head and why?</i>&nbsp;Forcing myself to create a plan like that can <i>sometimes </i>help me start reflecting but it doesn't work as consistently as I'd like.<br /><br />What happens after that initial plan varies but usually the process is to get as much information as possible&nbsp;<i>out of my head and on paper</i>&nbsp;so I can use this information to start building a skeleton. The gaps that form might be areas that need additional reflection, need more education or a sign that the model I based my skeleton on is flawed. Finally I try to summarize everything in a way that's easy to come back to and that helps me remember the most important ideas from the reflection.<br /><br />Or a better structured description:<br /><ul><li>I have a topic</li><li>I create a big set of questions</li><li>I try to answer these questions</li><li>I sort and group the answers</li><li>I prioritize and trim the groups</li><li>I create a skeleton where the most important answers fit</li><li>I add the other relevant answers to the skeleton</li><li>I try to visualize the skeleton in a way that matters to me</li><li>I trim away the last parts that just don't fit or aren't important enough<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Example</h3>Last summer I wanted to "relearn myself" to help me figure out what I wanted my future role and career to be like.<br /><br />The result:<br /><a href="https://brickarp.se/self-reflection-en.pdf">English</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://brickarp.se/self-reflection-sv.pdf">Swedish</a><br /><br />Behind those simple images are roughly 20 pages of notes on paper, a 14 page text document on Google Docs and various drafts with different approaches on how to summarize and visualize this.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Deconstruction</h3>A more specific form of reflection I use is deconstruction. What I mean with deconstruction is basically to create my own, basic model of something.<br /><br />In practice I start with the question "what does &lt;topic&gt; mean to me?". To be able to do this I need at least some level of understanding already. After this I iterate the following approaches over and over again until I start to see a clear pattern and/or feel like screaming "Eureka!":<br /><ol><li>I try to form my own definition and question it relentlessly until it seems to hold true (for me)</li><li>I collect and look carefully at all the details that makes up this topic looking for patterns</li><li>I remove or group things together until I have 1-5 distinct groups which each (hopefully) describes a core concept.</li><li>I look at the topic and simply ask: What is actually <i>most important</i> here? </li></ol>To give you an example of a deconstruction:<br /><i>Helena Jeret-Mäe suggested we would together create our own definition of software testing. According to my memory we first tried to just modify existing definitions but that didn't work. So instead we started describing what testing meant to us in a very detailed manner. After we had done this for a while we started removing anything that didn't seem essential to these descriptions, which actually made us go down several very distinct paths of what testing might be (this particular part taught me a lot). I think we had to go back and redo the description at least twice because what was left after we had trimmed the long description just didn't make sense the first few times.</i><br /><br /><i>After a while we had a very rough "definition" based on the trimmed down description and started questioning the wording, tested it against different scenarios etc. After a bunch of iterations like this we ended up with something pretty close to the definitions described by many of our heroes.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />This may sound anticlimactic but the outcome is not what was important...<br /><br />So why is deconstruction useful to me?<br /><ul><li>First and foremost the deep understanding I get of the topic is unmatched!</li><li>The core I end up with often form an excellent structure to tie future knowledge to and even if it may look similar to existing definitions or models this core is something I understand beyond the words' linguistic meaning.</li><li>This new structure allows me to ignore large parts of e.g. frameworks since I just need their core concepts and practices and then I can map them to my own structure which also makes the frameworks easier to remember and easier to compare.</li><li>It provides a foundation I actually understand when I try to explain the topic to someone else.</li><li>It provides a plausible answer to "any" question (assuming my deconstruction is somewhat valid) since I can derive an answer from my model: "for my deconstruction to be correct the answer should be...".</li></ul>Obviously I have to test my deconstruction carefully to see if it actually holds true (enough) or at least learn its weaknesses. This means the deconstruction I did with Helena 2014 is something I trust a lot more than for instance the deconstruction I did of coaching just about a month ago.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3><b>Reflection as a reaction</b></h3>Most of the reflecting I do happen as an immediate reaction to something rather than as a planned activity though. For instance I might prepare a presentation and realize there's a gap in my understanding. Instead of searching for an answer online I can stop and ask "what's missing here", more often than not I have a sufficient answer myself.<br /><br />Examples of activities that force me to reflect like this are:<br /><ul><li>Exercises</li><li>Discussions </li><li>Explain something (teach, present etc.)</li><li>Prepare a presentation or exercise </li><li>Summarize</li><li>Apply something to a new situation</li><li>Review something</li><li>Help someone else with something</li></ul><div>The drawback with reflection triggered this way though is it usually only makes me answer one specific question and these answers rarely results in action, just information.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Self-coaching</h3>I've used coaching questions and techniques as part of my reflection for a long time and called this self-coaching. As mentioned several times now; this blog series have made me realize though that I could use the complete coaching structure I've learned to initiate a full coaching session with myself including follow ups on my actions.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-39226190781327437632019-02-04T12:01:00.000+01:002019-02-04T12:01:17.206+01:00My Learning - Part 12 - Experiments<h3>Why</h3><ul><li>Experiments are great at highlighting incorrect assumptions I've made.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>The experiences/learnings I get from experiments "stick".<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Experiments tend to be great conversation starters, which leads to more people, which leads to... well, I think you've heard me say that enough times now.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>I love exploration and experiments are certainly an act of exploration which makes them fun!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Examples</h3><div>I'd say there are two categories of experiments I conduct:</div><div><br /></div><div>Experiments testing a hypothesis and experiments where I don't have a clear expectation, the activity I test simply seems useful and I want to learn more about it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Example with hypothesis:</div><div><i>I had the hypothesis that when I'm programming very little time is actually spent on writing the final production code. So I picked a specific feature I had programmed under pretty optimal conditions (easy, clear purpose, minimal dependencies etc.) and simply rewrote that code, character by character, into a new file and compared the time between the two activities.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Example without hypothesis:</div><div><i>What happens if I start to get up at 5 AM every morning? How will my body feel after a while? I tried different activities in the morning, I tinkered with different times to go to bed, I altered the time to 4 AM and 6 AM etc. all this while monitoring my mood, activities performed etc.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>A few more examples:</div><div><ul><li>I've experimented with several different ways to take notes</li><ul><li>Sketchnoting</li><li>Mind maps</li><li>Different pens</li><li>Digital notes</li><li>Using colors in different ways</li><li>Different notebook sizes</li><li>Different types of paper<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><li>Different ways to read</li><ul><li>Speed reading</li><li>Various memory techniques connected to reading</li><li>Writing summaries for each chapter I complete</li><li>Jumping back and forth between a couple of different books hoping that the variety would make reading more fun (it didn't work...)</li><li>Read super carefully by looking up any word I didn't fully understand, reread sections until I could correctly recall what was in there etc. (worked even worse)</li><li>Only read books with 99 pages or less. The idea being they would better match the way I like to read.</li><li>Basically everything mentioned in <a href="https://www.udemy.com/become-a-learning-machine-read-300-books/">Brandon Hakim's excellent Udemy course about reading</a>.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul></ul><h3>What makes it an experiment</h3></div><div>At this point it may sound like I call any variation to my approach an "experiment" and to some degree that's true. However, what makes me call these "experiments" is there's a very deliberate method and target with each of them. Before I conduct an experiment I carefully decide what it is I want to try (an hypothesis or an approach that seems reasonable), how I can isolate that activity and how I will evaluate the outcome(s).</div><div><br /></div><div>So for instance I wouldn't call an exercise someone gives me an "experiment" because I'm not thinking and designing that activity for myself, I simply follow instructions (well, <i>I</i> don't but still...). The same goes if I've forgotten my note taking material and "just take notes" without really having a reason to why I do it the way I do it. This can still teach me something but I wouldn't call it an experiment.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>How they're initiated</h3><div>Often when I learn something I want to test how well that thing works for <i>me</i>. Rather than "just doing it" I often try to prepare it like an experiment. For instance before I coached using the NOPRA model I asked myself: "What is it I want to achieve? Why? And how can I evaluate the result?". I then design the actual activity and decided how I would evaluate it.<br /><br />Another scenario is when I'm in the middle of doing something and realize I'm doing it slightly different than usual. If I'm in the right mood I can stop myself and say "this is interesting, how can I monitor and evaluate this?" (like the dish washing experience described in <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/01/my-learning-part-2-me.html">part 2</a>).<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Science!</h3></div><div></div><div>There's no formal process where I write things down, remove all external distractions etc. so few, if any, of my experiment would survive an academic review.<br /><br />I'm also well aware of e.g. confirmation bias, the Hawthorne effect and sampling bias and that all these will skew my results. So apart from considering this when I design my experiments, which is obviously not enough, I try to also be careful about what I make of the results, especially when I present them to others... I may have gotten carried away more than a few times though.<br /><br />That being said; the experiments are usually quite harmless and their goal is mostly to help me understand how something works <i>for me</i>, and for that I think my approach is perfectly sufficient to be honest (ignorance is bliss).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-38837273893723153682019-02-04T12:00:00.001+01:002019-02-04T12:03:42.791+01:00My Learning - Part 11 - Doing<div><i><span style="font-size: large;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</span></i><br /><i><span style="font-size: large;">"You always know enough to get started"</span></i></div><div>//Christer Olsson<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Doing</h3>"Doing" in this case refers to actually do whatever I'm trying to learn, e.g. to actually <i>coach </i>someone or <i>test </i>software rather than read about coaching or discuss testing with experts. "Do" (as a learning tool) can include a variety of activities such as:<br /><br /><ul><li>Conduct experiments <br />Do something in a specific way and evaluate a particular outcome.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Practice<br />Do something in a specific way&nbsp;to learn how to do it that particular way better. In this case the process of doing it is important, not the actual outcome normally.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Act and reflect<br />Do something as well as possible while consciously monitoring what's happening and analyzing why.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Repetition<br />Repeat something over and over, as well as I can, without "wasting" time monitoring it too much simply to make it stick.</li></ul><br />... and what I'm trying to achieve in my learning is to make "doing" one of <i>the first</i> steps in my learning process rather than waiting until the end.<br /><br />Example: Instead of reading everything there is to read about coaching before I try it for myself I might learn the absolute basics and then start to look for someone willing to let me practice on them (preferably someone who can give relevant feedback as well).<br /><br />A couple of key reasons why I find "doing" so important to me are:<br /><br /><ul><li>Actually doing something teaches me what else I need to learn/what I need to focus my learning on much more effectively and precisely than e.g. reflection does.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>When I have actual experience of something I can relate new information to this experience making it easier to understand and easier to remember.</li></ul><br />This doesn't happen naturally for me though. I'll come back to this in much more detail in a later part but long story short: I don't like to not look good... which sometimes sucks because it means I want to learn something reeeeeeally well before I go out and actually display my skills in it (including displaying it to myself, I get frustrated to see myself do things in a way that's not "good enough").<br /><br />This makes me prone to becoming "an intellectual" and while some like being that I don't, so I'm trying hard to change my own approach.<br /><br />... and I actually have a history of very effective "doing" in my learning so I know it's something I can get back to...<br /><div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <br /><h3>Becoming a doer</h3>"Doing" came naturally when I was learning software testing. I think it was because "doing" was such a central in part in everything taught and highlighted by my heroes and peers which meant whenever I tried something new I got plenty of positive feedback simply for the effort alone. So it was easy to motivate myself to continue doing things even when it meant a great risk of "failing" publicly (which I'm unfortunately not very comfortable with as I mentioned before).<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Stop being a doer</h3>When I had to cut down the time I spent learning testing one of the first things I stopped doing was... doing. I'm not sure why I quit practicing testing alone (e.g. test open source applications at home) but the more public stuff is more clear to me:<br /><ol><li>Other testers started to surpass me which meant I thought I would not perform "as well" in public challenges as I use to which made me ignore them all together not to "humiliate myself".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I had built "a reputation" for myself and since I started feeling like I wasn't progressing as fast as some other people I kinda avoided public stuff simply to not hurt my reputation.</li></ol>I understand that both are very counterproductive ways of thinking and it annoys the heck out of me that I held myself back just because of them. The good thing is thinking can be changed...<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>How do I get back?</h3>When I transitioned into an active doer while learning software testing I had to push myself and the results and feedback made it easier and easier until it almost felt hard <i>not doing things</i>.<br /><br />When learning coaching I have a couple of ideas on how to make "doing" happen again:<br /><ol><li>Simply exclude any resources that doesn't have a clear mandatory action connected to them (e.g. most books).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Make it a deliberate process to describe and perform at least one action for each resource I use before I move on.</li></ol><div>I lean towards the second option for now because I see a risk of me losing my motivation if I exclude "easy resources" all together but that might change if I find myself skipping the required actions in option two. </div><div><br /></div><div>An interesting coincidence in this case:</div><div>One of the primary purposes of coaching is to stimulate action... so by practicing on myself (a very light form of "doing") I can actually both get coaching practice <i>and</i>&nbsp;help me back to a more action-oriented way of learning...</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally I love a great discussion but I need to hang out more with the doers in my network simply to be affected by their mindsets and routines. I know this was a big factor when I learned software testing...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-48692501323971707922019-02-04T11:00:00.000+01:002019-02-04T11:00:11.170+01:00My Learning - Part 10 - Conferences<h3>Purpose</h3><div>Conferences are expensive and/or time consuming but they also offer a unique opportunity to meet people with similar interests and problems like I have and/or experience in solving those kind of problems. This opportunity to meet and confer with great people is why I attend.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Find them</h3><div>I can't speak for any other business but the primary ways I find out about interesting tech conferences are:</div><div><ul><li>Recommendations from friends.</li><li>Pages like <a href="https://testingconferences.org/">testingconferences.org</a></li><li>I check my heroes' schedules, if they speak at a conference it's at least worth checking out.</li><li>Browsing what's posted on e.g. LinkedIn or Twitter.</li></ul><div>Selecting between them is typically a mix of evaluating the program and knowing the conference's history (is it traditionally a strong or weak conference). I know great people tend to attend conferences with strong programs and since they have a better ability to evaluate this than your average attendee they tend to group up at conferences with strong programs. Once again it helps knowing a lot of amazing people to keep track of this.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>My situation in coaching is a bit different. Since I don't know who all the cool people are I can't really evaluate conference programs that well yet. So right now I'm keeping an eye out for people in my network who seem to attend coaching events, either as attendees (harder to spot) or as speakers (easier to spot), so I can ask them for directions.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Various forms of conferences</h3><div>There are many different forms of conferences and each have their own benefits and drawbacks. To give you a few examples:</div><div><ul><li>Local meetups<br />Maybe I'm stretching the definition of what a conference is but local meetups share many of the qualities of a big, international conference: They gather people with a common interest, mix mingling with more structured bits and typically have some form of topic that creates a direction for the meetup. Local meetups are great for getting to know ambitious people you can more easily have a learning relationship with (see <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/02/my-learning-part-8-people.html">People</a>) and even though the presentations may not be as polished as at a big conference the topics are often better tied to what's relevant in my area. This is also a cheap way to both build my personal brand (helps me meet great people) and the brand of the company I represent (helps me get better colleagues). Finally, this is where I started my public speaking career.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Peer conferences<br />My favorite place to be! A <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2017/04/peer-conferences-part-1.html">peer conference</a> is typically a small 1-2 day conference where the attendees are personally invited or in some other way specifically targeted. They demand action, not just participation, and the level of energy I get at a peer conference is unmatched in my experience! Also since the group is small I get a much closer relationship with the other attendees.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Regional conferences<br />Big conferences but where the vast majority of the participants are either from the same city or at least country. These are basically a compromise between a local meetup and an international conference and for me they're a mix of meeting people I can more easily meet again and getting to meet/listen to top notch people in the business.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>International conferences<br />This is where the best speakers show up. Not only does these conferences sport the most fancy programs and speaker lineups, they also tend to attract some of the best people in the business as attendees. These conferences are typically the most expensive due to travel and accommodation but like I've said before: Learning from the best tend to be multitudes more valuable.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul></div><h3>Bookings</h3></div><div>I try to always stay at the same hotel as the event is held or where I think the most interesting people stays (e.g. the speakers). A breakfast conversation with one of my heroes can be worth the whole conference fee.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also try (if my employer allows it and it fits my schedule) to arrive at least a day before the conference starts. Typically the speakers and international guests are the ones arriving first and being there early means a better chance to speak with these people.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Sessions&nbsp;</h3><div><ul><li>I arrive early so I get a seat where I can see and hear well. I always aim to sit at the front row.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I actively look for and write down questions that pop up during the talk and ask these either during the Q&amp;A or to the speaker after the talk. A bonus is people seem to notice who asks questions (especially good questions)... so asking questions can help spark other's interest in me.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I almost exclusively look at the speaker and not the slides (if there are any).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I always bring my own note taking material, that way I know it fits my note taking style and I don't have to start looking for pens etc.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>If a session turns out to be about something I'm not interested in I usually leave it (go to another session or just hang outside). When I do this I try however to inform the speaker why I left cause normally it's not because the talk was bad, it just wasn't relevant to me.</li></ul><div>Additional pro tips:</div></div><div><ul><li>If there's a session I <i>must</i>&nbsp;attend&nbsp;which has limited amounts of seats, I often attend the session before in that room so that I can stay and guarantee a seat.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I sometimes skip one or more slots at a conference and instead stay outside. This allows me to speak with others who decided to opt out. The other people skipping sessions are often the experienced conference visitors and/or speakers meaning they tend to have a lot of valuable stuff to share.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul></div><div><h3>Breaks and food</h3><div>I try to avoid my colleagues during lunches, dinners and other breaks because I want to meet new people and/or people I (almost) exclusively meet at conferences.<br /><br />Second of all, if I don't have a person I specifically want to dine with I try to look for a table with one of the top speakers. First of all it means bonus material and an opportunity to ask questions relevant to my context. Another reason is the people sitting near the speakers are typically either their friends (and likely pretty experienced themselves) or ambitious people with interesting ideas... so it's not just the speakers&nbsp;themselves who are interesting, it's also the other people around those tables. A tweak to this is to sit by the table where one or more of the "second tier speaker" sit since they attract a bit fewer people but still provide similar benefits.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Evenings</h3></div>This is a big reason why I attend conferences!<br /><br />Here are just a few examples of things I love to do:<br /><ul><li>Catch up with friends I (almost) only meet at conferences; you'll get those when you start to attend a few.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Participate in games and exercises held in the open areas, especially the ones run by my heroes (they're often fun and I get a good opportunity to chat with them).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Give a lightning talk if the chance presents itself, it's a great way to make people approach me and heroes notice me. Lightning talks are also a great thing to listen to since there are always some new, fresh ideas brought up.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Organize something: Run an exercise, invite people to a special interest group (great to get ideas relevant to what <i>I</i>&nbsp;(and they) want out of the conference), facilitate some activity like powerpoint karaoke or lightning talks.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; </li><li>Join conversation groups which seems to be open to more participants, it's a conference, few mind another person conferring unless it's like a few friends catching up.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Check the official and unofficial (if I find them) communication channels&nbsp;where the most interesting people of the conference share their plans... and join in if possible.</li></ul>Once again, I generally try to stay away from my colleagues since my goal is to meet people I wouldn't normally get to meet.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Sleep</h3>I wish I could say "Sleep is important to my ability to learn so I make sure I get enough of it"... but that's not the case. I have a few times considered skipping a less interesting conference slot to instead take a nap but never actually done that.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>The conference is just the start</h3><div><i>My most important professional relationship</i> started thanks to&nbsp;<a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2013/09/transpection-tuesdays.html">a conversation that continued after a conference</a>. Since then I consider conferences <i>"a start"</i>, not just&nbsp;<i>"an event".</i><br /><br />This means I try to stay in touch with interesting people I meet so I don't have to wait another year or two before we meet again. Staying in touch can mean adding them on Skype, continue a conversation on social media or, if it's someone living nearby, book a lunch with them.<br /><br /></div><div>Another great way to get more out of a conference after it has ended is blogging. I use this to reinforce my learnings as well as make myself visible. Today most of my conference summaries end up as unfinished drafts but I still start most of them.<br /><br /></div><div>Finally, if someone posted some kind of challenge during the conference (that environment tend to create situations like that), I at least consider accepting them. With challenge I mean something like "post your biggest lesson from the conference using the hashtag #something" or "read at least one blog post per day for a month" etc. This is great since it makes me bond with other ambitious participants and usually the challenges get some extra attention which once again helps people notice me which once again allows me to meet more great people which once again is fundamental to my learning.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Speak at a conference</h3></div><div>Apart from getting all the benefits already listed for a cheaper price (paid entrance, paid logistics, salary or whatever policy there is), speaking at a conference also gives me better access to other speakers, participants will seek me out and it helps spread the message that I'm a passionate practitioner happy to meet other passionate practitioners.</div><div><br /></div><div>Preparing and running a session (talk, workshop etc.) also have learning benefits on their own which I'll mention in future posts.</div><div><br /></div><div>... and you don't have to be the most skilled person in the world to give a presentation at a conference (especially not a smaller conference); for instance some of the most interesting presentations I've watched came from inexperienced speakers who simply had a fresh take on something.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Organize a conference</h3><div>Something I've started doing the last couple of years is organize events and small conferences. Doing this is absolutely amazing! First of all it allows me to set a topic that's relevant to <i>me</i> (and obviously others if I want any attendees), set a date that fits me, I get a guaranteed seat, I get to influence who'll be there and I can set a format that fits me. Attendees tend to assume the organizer is some kind of hotshot as well so it gives me better access to high profile attendees or speakers as well as some "fame"... and fame means meeting more great people and more great people means... yeah, you get it.</div><div><br />If you want to arrange a conference I have a few old posts that might be helpful:</div><div><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2017/04/peer-conferences-part-1.html">Peer conferences</a><br /><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2017/04/peer-conferences-part-2-checklist.html">Peer conferences, checklist</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-87695346012329201222019-01-31T11:33:00.000+01:002019-01-31T11:32:59.997+01:00My Learning - Part 9 - Books<div><h3>Purpose</h3><div>Books for me are good at building one solid, coherent understanding of something.</div><div><br />They're often more well written, complete and well researched than e.g. a blog post. </div><div>Finally books are both easy to skim (big plus), easy to obtain (the city library is situated next to my workplace) and have very low requirements (non-threatening, easy to opt-out, doesn't depend on anyone else, socially acceptable etc.).</div><div><br /></div><div>There are some notable drawbacks though:</div><div><ol><li>Since the author have both time, space and an expectation to explain things thoroughly there's (almost) always a lot of "fat" in books; stuff I'm just not interested in.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Books <i>very rarely</i>&nbsp;make me act. Compared to a conversation or reflection session the odds of me acting based on a book is much slimmer and I haven't so far found a reliable way to change this.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </li><li>When reading I feel like my internal questioning turns off. The result is I read and nod, thinking that I understand what has been claimed but when I later process it or talk about it with someone, there are notable gaps in my understanding. This is something that's much more rare when I for instance leave a course or conversation.</li></ol></div><div>Trivia:</div><div>I have a lot of friends who read copious amounts of books and I've noticed one of the things I can bring to a conversation with them is asking questions that force them to find and explore those gaps I mentioned. Another observation is most of them seem to experience these gaps too.</div><div><br /></div><div>Reading is a quite passive activity making it&nbsp;<i>very</i>&nbsp;easy but also&nbsp;<i>very</i>&nbsp;not challenging. So I need to be careful because when I read a lot it can be an indication that I've become lazy or even lost my motivation.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Find them</h3><div>The books I read either come from recommendations (friends, experts in the field or referenced in other books I like) or from browsing the library computer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Recommendations in this case is tricky. I hang out with <i>a lot</i>&nbsp;of people who read <i>a lot</i>&nbsp;of books and I try to limit myself because books, once again, tend to be a lazy fallback for me. For this reason I basically only value recommendations from people who I trust have great taste in that particular domain <i>and</i> who knows what kind of books I like... or recommendations I've heard soooo many times I can no longer ignore them.</div><div><br /></div><div>When browsing books at the library, without looking for a specific book, I almost exclusively look for specific authors. Alternatively I search for a particular topic (e.g. "business economy") but this is only in a situations where I don't know any good authors and have no trusted recommendations which is <i>extremely</i>&nbsp;rare.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Reading books</h3></div><div>First of all: Check out this&nbsp;<a href="https://www.udemy.com/become-a-learning-machine-read-300-books/">Udemy course by Brandon Hakim</a>; it has literally changed the way I read and perceive books! The biggest "Wow!" for me was when Brandon spoke about the perception of a book. Instead of me explaining this, check out the free preview video called: "The Single Mindset Shift That Permanently Transforms Your Reading". Highly recommended!<br /><br />Now, how do I read books? Well, first of all, and related to that course, I don't have the goal of "completing" a book; I read books <i>to extract the big lessons relevant to me</i>.<br /><br />How I read a book is also greatly affected by which mode I'm in (see <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/01/my-learning-part-4-learning-modes.html">Modes</a>):<br /><ol><li>Distracted: Skim really fast to evaluate if the book is worth a second look</li><li>Focused: Read parts of or even the full book, carefully, while having my notebook ready</li></ol><div>In my distracted mode I ignore anything in the book that doesn't strike me as super-interesting and I can stop long before I'm "done" if I see no sign of value (to me); this includes books I've bought.</div><div><br /></div><div>In my focused mode I typically start by looking at the table of contents, then the first page and at some point I land on the last page but on my way there I skip sections, skim parts, read others several times etc. The goal here is once again to find the nuggets. Parts I typically give an extra look are titles, summaries, bullet lists, quotes, visualizations and "colored boxes" (typically stuff the author thought was extra important). Whenever I find something interesting, I take a note.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I'm done with the book I typically walk through the notes just to help reinforce them. If anything is of extra interest to me I mark it with an orange exclamation mark. Notice that I add the exclamation marks after I'm done since I find it hard to take this decision while reading; in the moment, everything seems to be worth an exclamation mark.<br /><br />Something I've realized while writing this blog series is I probably should use this walk through to also form experiments or plan activities based on the book. This could help me tackle the problem with books not leading to action. But this is not something I do today.</div><div><br /></div><div>I try to always have at least one book ready that I've skimmed and want to dig deeper into so when I'm done with my current book I can immediately jump to the next.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Recommendations</h3></div><div>A few books I love:<br /><ul><li>Thinking fast and slow, Daniel Kahneman<br /><i>Understand your thinking</i><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey<br /><i>Take control over yourself, focus on mindset</i><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Illusions and solutions, Kjell Enhager<br /><i>Take control over yourself, focus on exercises</i><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Perfect Software, Gerald M. Weinberg<br /><i>Why stuff breaks</i><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Are your light on?, Gerald M. Weinberg<br /><i>Problem solving</i><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Fish!, Stephen C Lundin et al.<br /><i>Creating a better workplace</i></li></ul><div>Perfect Software is mostly for people working in the tech industry (role doesn't matter) but the rest are excellent reads for anyone in my opinion.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div></div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-90701876010068597682019-01-31T11:00:00.000+01:002019-01-31T14:19:59.895+01:00My Learning - Part 8 - People<h3>Great people: Definition</h3>I use the term "great people" a lot in this post but when I tried to define what I mean with "great people" it turned out to be harder than I thought.<br /><br />I ended up with:<br /><i>People who make me greater when I spend time with them</i><br />or<br /><i>People who teach and/or influence me to act in a way I want to act</i><br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Great people: Common attributes I look for</h3><ul><li>Passion for learning</li><li>Positive attitude</li><li>Curios</li><li>High standards</li><li>Passion for teaching their skills</li><li>Not accepting excuses (neither from themselves nor from others)</li><li>Action-oriented</li><li>Open and including personality</li><li>Not money-driven (but may have been)</li><li>Thankful</li><li>Not necessarily talkative but&nbsp;communicative</li><li>High energy</li><li>Eager to interact with other great people</li><li>Have experienced success as a result of hard work</li><li>Devoted to understand rather than being right</li><li>Self-aware</li><li>Humble<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Why I value great people</h3><ul><li>Reminders<br />I see the great people having fun as they learn and I see how they use those learnings to accomplish amazing things. This inspires me to do the same.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Routines and standards<br />When I'm with passionate learners I learn from, get inspired by and pick up these people's routines and standards. These routines and standards are often cornerstones in maintaining a high level of effectiveness, motivation and energy.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Learning as the social norm<br />When learning becomes the social norm I feel more comfortable performing learning activities that might otherwise seem strange or eccentric. It also builds a healthy expectation on myself to learn: "Everyone else does, so I probably should too".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Reaction to not learning<br />Mental blocks, bad luck or distractions can make me lose interest in my learning. A bad combination is that when this happens I'm usually the last one to have the energy necessary to get back on track. When I'm surrounded by passionate people there will always be someone who reacts though: "I haven't heard much from you lately, is it for a good or a bad reason?". This is usually the first step on my way back.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Learning becomes a healthy distraction<br />When I'm exposed to other people's learning their work becomes a healthy distraction meaning if I'm bored I might go and read that book my friend recommended or write a blog post rather than play a video game or watch a Netflix series.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Never running out of options<br />Being exposed to many passionate people's learning means I have an abundance of content recommendations, topics I can explore or interesting, creative activities I can try.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Clearing blocks<br />Sometimes I run into a challenge I just can't manage on my own. Having people around me who have run into the same block or know others who have, means I got plenty of people who can help me remove or move around it which lowers the risk of me losing interest due to the block.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>More opportunities<br />I mentioned how opportunities guide my learning more than goals in <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/01/my-learning-part-2-me.html">part 2</a>. What's interesting with opportunities is great people tend to get exposed to great opportunities. Having plenty of great people around me means I get access to many of the great opportunities they get.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Fame rubs off<br />If I "succeed" is something I can impact but not control. What's interesting though is if I "succeed" (get a great job offer, get recognized by some important person etc.) my "fame" kinda rubs off to the people around me. The same is true the other way around. An example of this is my super-peer: Helena Jeret-Mäe. When she has been presenting at big conferences I have a few times been getting new followers on Twitter and/or seen the interest in my blog increase which positively impacts my own chances of success.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Efficient learning<br />Having a passionate friend share the things they think will be the most useful to me is the closest thing I know to beating the 24h/day limitation; I get the best of all those hours they've spent studying delivered in just a few minutes.</li></ul>To summarize:<br />Greatness is contagious!<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>3 golden rules</h3><ol><li>Put myself in positions where I can meet great people</li><li>Take initiative</li><li>Give everyone a chance but after that be selective<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ol><h3>How I find people</h3>The easiest way for me to meet great people is to put myself in positions where great people are.<br /><ul><li>Attend local meetups and events</li><li>Attend conferences</li><li>Attend courses</li><li>Organize events</li><li>Offer mentoring</li><li>Let friends introduce me to their friends</li><li>Participate in public exercises and challenges</li><li>Create or join special interest groups on social networks</li><li>Post in public discussions</li><li>Use "social hubs" (people with large networks) to help me find new interesting people</li><li>Ask for mentoring and coaching</li></ul>I also try to make myself visible so that people can more easily find me.<br /><ul><li>I blog</li><li>I comment on blog posts and articles</li><li>I do public speaking</li><li>Some of my public speaking&nbsp;engagements are recorded and available online</li><li>I try to be a good, helpful person making others more willing to recommend me</li><li>I accept challenges thrown my way as long as I can fully commit to them<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><ul></ul><h3>Make it happen</h3>I can meet millions of great individuals but if nothing happens I'll be forgotten by all of them; so I try to take initiative.<br /><br />I'll once again give you a bunch of examples since they're applicable in different situations: <br /><ul><li>I introduce myself </li><li>I attend the same events as the other person (create an opportunity to meet again)</li><li>I invite them to a lunch or dinner</li><li>I ask if they want to do some exercise or activity together with me</li><li>I try to sit next to them/near them when we're attending the same event</li><li>I ask them questions</li><li>I challenge them (in a polite and respectful way)</li><li>If we have a common friend, I can ask that friend to introduce me</li><li>I do some quick social stalking (check Facebook, LinkedIn or similar) to see if there are any relevant overlaps; maybe we've worked for the same company before. This helps me communicate better with them.</li><li>If the person has a professional blog, podcast or YouTube channel, I check the content so I can comment or give feedback; it also helps me pick relevant topics when we talk.</li><li>If I'm at a workshop and we're suppose to form groups I'll be the first to stand up and ask the people I want to meet if they care to form a group with me.</li><li>... or I just go: "You seem like an interesting person, care to join me for a chat?".</li></ul>It seems to me that most people <i>want</i>&nbsp;to meet new passionate people, they just don't <i>dare</i>&nbsp;to take the first step, which is something I can help them with.<br />&nbsp; <br /><ul></ul><h3>Value</h3>This is <i>by far</i> the <i>most important</i> point I'll make in this blog post!<br /><br />I focus on what I can bring to a relationship and let this dictate my behavior.<br /><br />Let me repeat:<br />I focus on what <i>I can bring to a relationship</i> and let this <i>dictate my behavior</i>.<br /><br />Here's a short list of things I can provide in a "learning relationship": <br /><ul><li>Mentoring or teaching</li><li>Coaching</li><li>Give the other person the opportunity to practice coaching or teaching</li><li>Inspire and/or&nbsp;energize the other person</li><li>Practice/conduct an experiment together</li><li>Share ideas or experiences</li><li>Organize something together</li><li>Help them solve a problem</li><li>Help them create something</li><li>Make them feel smart and/or valuable by showing genuine interest</li><li>Give them honest, constructive feedback</li><li>Make them laugh</li><li>Share a contact</li><li>Offer my time and/or expertise, for instance I can review one of their articles</li><li>Share a recommendation (book, video, pod etc.)</li></ul>Obviously I have limited amounts of time so I have to prioritize and the value I think I can get back (long term) impacts who I'll prioritize (spend time with).<br /><br />Finally: This doesn't mean I won't suggest topics/activities, ask for help, ask questions, ask for favors, stop conversations or take initiative; for a person to be able to know what kind of "stuff" I'm interested in I need to be open about it (what's the value of a conversation where we have no common interests) and it can even relieve the other person of responsibility that person might not want anyway (that awkward situation when two people look at each other waiting for the other to take initiative). What it does mean however is if I sense that the other person isn't interested in the topic or in me (right now), I won't force a conversation even if I'm interested.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Interacting with my heroes</h3><ul><li>They're a person just like me, so I try to treat them like any other person I know:<br /><i>Joke, show interest, allow myself to be vulnerable etc.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</i></li><li>I try to come prepared:<br /><i>Time is often limited so I need to prepare what questions I want to ask, what I want to share etc.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</i></li><li>Focusing on what I can bring becomes even more important:<br /><i>Usually I'll get plenty of great stuff back but even if I don't; if I've focused on providing (not forcing) value to the other person I've likely strengthened our relationship and great relationships with great people = Great.</i></li></ul>It's about being helpful and friendly, not about trying to impress or getting something back.<br /><br />At the end of the day any hero is just a passionate human being trying to have a good time. Any way I can make that happen is a reason for them to later help me or a way for me to thank them for help they've already provided... it's really that simple...<br /><br />... and yes, I sometimes I want to make a good impression in a very short amount of time which leads to stupid shortcuts (e.g. bragging) but I genuinely try to follow these guidelines.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Show appreciation </h3>(this is a reminder to myself, feel free to skip it)<br /><br />Something I want to do more frequently is showing appreciation to people who've helped me. For instance when I've listened to a great podcast I want to tell the podcast host that I sincerely appreciate her work or I want to tell an author that her book made a great impact on me and what that impact led to. There are some learning benefits to this as well but listing them feels silly because the real value is helping a great person understand their greatness and I know way too many great people who doesn't...<br /><br />"Giving is the best gift of all", like some wise person said...<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Thank you!</h3>Finally, this is an opportunity for me to thank some of the great people who've meant more to this blog post than they'll ever take credit for:<br /><br />♥ Helena Jeret-Mäe<br />♥ Göran Bakken<br />♥ Magnus Hübsch<br />♥ Lukas Bergliden<br />♥ Robert Gistvik<br /><br />I would be nowhere close to where I am today without you!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-75234096384998203072019-01-28T11:00:00.001+01:002019-01-28T11:00:12.061+01:00My Learning - Part 7 - My hourglass model<h3>Overview</h3>When I start to learn a new topic I try to go broad (many sources) just to figure out the recurring themes, get the key concepts described in many different ways and to get a basic understanding of how big the topic is. It's also a process to identify: "Who are the heroes in this area that everyone refers to".<br /><br />Later, when I've "mastered the topic", I also go broad just to discover new ideas, to challenge my current understanding and to expand my core.<br /><br />A recent insight however relates to the period in between; a period where I often struggle. What I've noticed is after I've identify the most important recurring themes and heroes I need to narrow down my focus and <i>only</i> learn from these heroes and from well established basic resources. This is where I build my own foundation and if I spread out at this stage things tend to get blurry because I neither have a clear structure to tie new concepts to nor the ability to filter out what's important.<br /><br />To put this in different terms; to be able to create a core to which I can tie all other information later I need to&nbsp;learn from a small number of resources that together paint&nbsp;<i>one</i>&nbsp;clear picture&nbsp;<i>not many</i>.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>The model</h3>This broad to narrow to broad fits the image of an hourglass:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zwOG0Nw-SoM/XCky58iMk-I/AAAAAAAAWDE/tWwO9Mr0jEMFwMLGmo-8NwtrbvbN9mbHACLcBGAs/s1600/blog%2B-%2Bhourglass.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1332" data-original-width="1600" height="531" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zwOG0Nw-SoM/XCky58iMk-I/AAAAAAAAWDE/tWwO9Mr0jEMFwMLGmo-8NwtrbvbN9mbHACLcBGAs/s640/blog%2B-%2Bhourglass.png" width="640" /></a></div><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zwOG0Nw-SoM/XCky58iMk-I/AAAAAAAAWDE/tWwO9Mr0jEMFwMLGmo-8NwtrbvbN9mbHACLcBGAs/s1600/blog%2B-%2Bhourglass.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zwOG0Nw-SoM/XCky58iMk-I/AAAAAAAAWDE/tWwO9Mr0jEMFwMLGmo-8NwtrbvbN9mbHACLcBGAs/s1600/blog%2B-%2Bhourglass.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zwOG0Nw-SoM/XCky58iMk-I/AAAAAAAAWDE/tWwO9Mr0jEMFwMLGmo-8NwtrbvbN9mbHACLcBGAs/s1600/blog%2B-%2Bhourglass.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><h3>Applied to my learning</h3>To tie this back to my software testing and coaching education:<br />My "level of mastery" in coaching I think is near the green cross in the picture, so right now I'm already quite narrow in my focus but will probably have to get even more narrow before it's time to broaden again. In comparison my level of mastery in software testing has declined a bit but is still in the bottom half (the red cross).<br /><br />I don't know if this model fits "everything" I teach myself (sports, tech, whatever) but it makes sense so far. As a tool it has for instance helped me control my urge to delve into new and shiny resources about coaching and instead focus on the ones I'm already using to build my core.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Move back up</h3>Outdated knowledge and new insights can move me back up again, or at least suggest that I should revisit an earlier stage. To give you a couple of examples:<br /><br />I've focused primarily on other areas than software testing the last few years, this means that when I try to improve my ability to test; reading all those newly published blog posts or testing all those new tools may be the wrong strategy. Instead I might need to revisit the experts, figure out if there are new heroes and learn how their ideas impact my understanding. For those of you familiar with the topic of software testing: For insance continuous delivery, AI and microservices have made some of my old learnings obsolete.<br /><br />Another example is now when I learn about coaching. After narrowing down I sense that NLP is a more fundamental concept than I initially thought. This means I have to go back and restart some of my research of coaching with this in mind.<br /><br />The more I think about it the more I realize how important the iterative aspect is. As I build my core, going back to the first stage can help me improve my map and that map greatly impacts which resources I should focus on. Same thing with going back to that narrow process of building my core late in my development. If I don't there's a big risk I'm watering a dead tree (adding ideas to an outdated core)...<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Budget</h3>While writing this I also realize there might be a useful connection between paying money and the hourglass model.<br /><br />Generally I think paid resources are a bit of a gamble/waste early on since I can't tell good from bad at this point. In the narrow section however it seems to me paying money to get access to as much content as possible from my heroes should be essential. Finally when I've reached a high level of mastery I should be able to better find and identify the gems among the free content as well as have the necessary network to be able to discuss topics with experts without paying (it should be in both's interest at this point)... So there might be an inverted version of the hourglass that represents "value in spending money". But this is still an ongoing though process.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-89001942336320761422019-01-28T11:00:00.000+01:002019-01-28T11:00:10.671+01:00My Learning - Part 6 - SourcesBefore I go into how I find, select between and get the most out of individual sources. I want to go over some basics related to source selection in general.<br /><br />First a couple of terms and I what I mean with them:<br />Source = E.g. books, podcasts or conferences.<br />Resource = E.g. a <i>specific </i>book or a <i>specific </i>conference<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>A realization</h3>Spring 2012 I asked myself:<br /><i>Which sources do I prefer when learning something new?</i><br /><br />The immediate answer was "books and blog posts". I then asked myself:<br /><i>Why books and blog posts?</i><br /><br />This question made me realize something quite uncomfortable:<br /><i>I read not because that's what works best for me but because it requires the least amount of effort.</i><br /><br />... so I started questioning which sources I used and for what purpose.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Easy vs Valuable</h3>Easy sources are simply sources with very low requirements:<br /><ul><li>Low amounts of effort required</li><li>No "difficult" dependencies (like other people)</li><li>Won't bother anyone around me</li><li>Don't require much preparation</li><li>Can be pause if necessary</li></ul>Examples are basically anything limited to listening, thinking and/or watching (including reading).<br /><br />These sources make learning <i>happen </i>even when the conditions aren't ideal and they're often effective at helping me get more information to work with. The problem is most of these sources <i>don't push me to act</i> or are even used <i>instead of acting</i>; and without action there's no "real" progress (my opinion).<br /><br />On the other hand there are sources that typically have a greater risk attached (lose money, hurt my reputation, hurt my ego, cost a lot of energy etc.) but also comes with a much bigger reward. Some examples for me are:<br /><ul><li>Organize a learning event</li><li>Teach at a learning event</li><li>Coach other people</li><li>Practice in public</li><li>Practice that requires a lot of set up</li><li>Hire a personal trainer/coach/mentor</li><li>... basically anything that directly or indirectly forces me to act and/or "be judged"</li></ul>Using these sources sure costs a lot but on the other hand they typically bring much more value and a much stronger feeling of accomplishment.<br /><br />Finally an interesting experience: About a year into my development as software tester I entered a state where I had the energy to start and complete most valuable activities and doing this provided me more energy than it had cost. This put me in a crazy, positive learning spiral which I try to replicate now when I'm learning coaching. The main ingredient for this, I think, was surrounding myself with great people, which I'll come back to later in this series.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Source selection</h3><ol><li>I sometimes, in my head, "rate" resources based on how easy they would be to fit into my life <i>and </i>how much potential value I think they bring. This can help me find cross-overs (fairly easy <i>and</i> valuable).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Sometimes easy is way more important than valuable and vice versa:<br />Easy stuff is great when my motivation is low<br />Easy stuff is great when my learning environment creates limitations<br />High value stuff is great when I need a sense of accomplishment<br />High value stuff is great when I need quick progress<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I like variation, especially when I feel stuck:<br />Sometimes a "great" source becomes "bad" simply because I've used it too much<br />Sometimes a "bad" source can be "great" just because it breaks the&nbsp;monotony<br />Examples:<br /><i>When I look for podcasts, finding the first 1-5 great podcasts for a particular topic is usually quite easy but after that it becomes a lot harder. When I find one of these great podcasts I typically listen to the episodes that sound the most interesting to me first. This means after I've found theses 1-5 podcasts and listened to what I perceive as the best episodes for each of them, podcasts become a much less valuable source.</i><br /><i>Early on when learning testing, reading was great, but at some point I started to feel like I just read variations of the same thing over and over again so I had to find new ways to learn.</i><br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Within a specific topic certain sources are better suited or better utilized than others.<br />Example:<br /><i>There weren't that many great testing books when I started learning software testing instead blogs and articles were the way to go. When learning coaching however there are tons of great books but I've had a hard time finding great blogs.</i><br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ol><h3><b>Research</b></h3>Bad content can create <i>confusion</i> which slows down my progress or <i>makes me lose interest </i>both in the particular topic and, worst case, in learning in general. This means I must allow my selection process to take time <i>even when the resource is free</i> (in terms of money).<br /><br />Examples:<br /><i>Before I pick up a book and start reading I check reviews, read the back of the book and/or research the author.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Before I enroll to an online course I read reviews, check samples and/or research the teacher.</i><br /><br />I'm generally much more relaxed when a resource is either recommended by someone I trust, if it's easy to skim (e.g. an article), easy to bail out of (e.g. a conference presentation) or if more research probably won't help me anyway (e.g. an area I don't know well).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Paying for learning material</h3><ol><li>Question why something has a cost<br />If I find anything with a cost attached my first question is:<i>"is there a cost to this because more effort, skillful work and/or meaningful polish was added to it or just because someone wants my money?"</i><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </li><li>Go for the super-stars<br />A book, course or basically anything else generally costs roughly the same&nbsp;<i>no matter if the content creator is a proven super-star in her field or an "amateur" </i>(in comparison). So I save my money for the super-stars!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Use free sources to find super-stars<br />Finding <i>my</i> super-stars is hard, especially since some crappy creators are good at marketing. So when I find a potential super-star I check free online videos by that person, blog posts, interviews etc. When I start to see a pattern of greatness I have no problem paying for that person's content anymore.</li></ol>To give you an example of all free:<br /><i>During the Udemy sale on Black Friday I found a course by a person named Brandon Hakim. The course title and lecture titles did sound like potential money grabbers (kinda like tabloid headlines) but I researched him and the course (heuristic 3). After some thinking I decided to pay for the course because he seemed like a dedicated person with teaching skills (heuristic 1)... It was amazing! A few days later I picked up one more of his courses after just skimming its description (heuristic 2).</i><br /><br />A clarification: A paid resource isn't bad just because<i> I</i> don't find it useful. For instance there are lots of popular resources where I simply don't like the format, teaching style, content creator's personality or the assumptions made meaning it's not worth the money<i> for me</i> but it can very well be worth the money&nbsp;<i>for someone else</i>. This also works the other way around: Just because others recommend a resource doesn't mean it's worth the money <i>for me</i> so there are very few things I don't research myself, at least a little bit.<br /><br />Finally if a resource could be useful for my employer I sometimes check with my boss. This way I can get access to resources I might not had been ready to pay for myself, or at least now I don't have to, and I saved the company the work to find it. Win-win!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-10991071473552674852019-01-24T11:00:00.001+01:002019-01-24T11:00:02.025+01:00My Learning - Part 5 - Note-taking<h3>Purpose</h3>Taking notes have three purposes for me (in order of value):<br /><ol><li>When I take notes I have to process the new information to find what's relevant and where it fits. This means I repeatedly "make it mine" which helps it stick.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Since I'm deeply focused (processing information and writing it down) I'm much more resistant to distractions than I would otherwise be.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>My memory sucks so when I want to recall something, having it written down is crucial.</li></ol>So the fact I usually takes notes but rarely go back to them later might seem odd but I hope purpose 1 and 2 above can explain this somewhat.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Pen and paper</h3>I prefer pen and paper over a laptop or tablet. There are a few reasons why:<br /><ul><li>Pen and paper don't depend on a battery</li><li>I look, and sometimes feel, disengaged when I have a device in front of me</li><li>There are distractions on a device (notifications, other apps, interface elements etc.)</li><li>I find it much easier to create visualizations quickly on paper</li><li>I type faster on a laptop which tends to make my notes more verbose (bad)</li><li>On the other hand I find it much harder to quickly switch color, add layout elements etc. on a tablet or laptop which makes my notes more bland and boring when digital.</li><li>On paper I find it much easier to adjust my note taking style to e.g. support a very specific flow.</li></ul><div>Some of this will obviously change if I practice but to be fair, I have tried numerous different applications and input methods and so far the only two features I miss with paper is filtering using labels/tags and being able to easily share my notes with others... and I can live without both.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally I should add that I do have plenty of notes in Google Keep but they generally serve a different purpose. These notes can for instance be ideas I come up with on the go and just picking up my phone is quicker. When I add a note to Google Keep however, I'm aware that it will be virtually impossible to find that note a month later so if I want to do anything with it I need to act quick (more like a journal).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><h3>Brands and stuff</h3></div><div>Since I'm sure someone will ask:<br /><ul><li>I use Stabilo point 88.<br />Another pen I like, which my wife uses a lot, is Pilot Frixion Clicker 05. I don't like the look of my notes as much with those pens but having the option to erase is helpful.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Which notebook I use varies but there are some criteria that must be fulfilled</li><ul><li>I aim for 110g/m<sup>2</sup>&nbsp;or thicker paper otherwise the ink bleeds through.</li><li>The pages must be blank (no lines or other annoying stuff).</li><li>Size should be standard A4.</li><li>Each page must be fully accessible to write on and stay open.<br /><i>So not like "a book" since the pages tend to flip over on their own and part of the paper is off limits due to the binding.</i></li></ul></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WWiop2uwUpU/XCklzVOlJQI/AAAAAAAAWC4/rjkbvYUREYwdR74sj_Ijwe80kAMtL3b2ACLcBGAs/s1600/skissblock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="856" data-original-width="590" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WWiop2uwUpU/XCklzVOlJQI/AAAAAAAAWC4/rjkbvYUREYwdR74sj_Ijwe80kAMtL3b2ACLcBGAs/s320/skissblock.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oq8kUxfUjKQ/XCkkVij3igI/AAAAAAAAWCs/mBx5QfgJf9ACuIonkp-QzFaRuTTxQeizgCLcBGAs/s1600/stabilo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="71" data-original-width="1142" height="19" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oq8kUxfUjKQ/XCkkVij3igI/AAAAAAAAWCs/mBx5QfgJf9ACuIonkp-QzFaRuTTxQeizgCLcBGAs/s320/stabilo.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Above is what I currently use</i></div>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Notebooks</h3><div>I keep 3 different notebooks:</div><div><ol><li>Work</li><li>General</li><li>Focused learning</li></ol></div><div>"Work" refers to anything related specifically to the company I work for. Currently I actually keep two different work notebooks: One for my coaching role and one for my software testing role.</div><div><br /></div><div>"General" is the notebook I use for basically anything that doesn't fit the other two categories so my own plans, personal notes, notes from conferences or courses and notes from when I reflect.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Focused learning" is a fairly new concept. I use this <i>only</i> in my <i>focused mode</i> and when I can <i>control </i>the source. So for instance a book or podcast since I can control the pace, the order, take pauses etc. which I can't during e.g. a live event. The idea is to create a notebook great enough to make me actually revisit it and thus I'm extremely picky with what I add to it.</div><div><br /></div><div>On that topic: I always plan to store important pages and trash the rest but instead I usually save notebooks as they are and since my notes aren't ordered in any way it's time consuming to find specific things which is one reason why I rarely go back to old notes. It'll be interesting to see if my new Focused learning notebook will fare any different.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Style</h3>My style is inspired by mind maps but I've diverged quite a lot for various reasons, the main one being that mind maps depend on me dedicating the right amount of space for everything and I find this hard to manage on paper. My notes are instead more like separated sections with enough white space in between so I can add arrows, make small additional notes later etc. Since it will get messy, no matter how careful I am, I try to be selective with what I note down.<br /><br />I generally start with a title; usually placed at the center of the page or at the top. To help me quickly find this title when I later browse through the notebook, I have a specific color, cyan, I only use for the title and some layout elements meant to separate e.g. two distinct sections (e.g. notes from two different meetings on the same page).<br /><br />After that it differs but I've started using the following color scheme more and more when I take notes for learning purposes:<br /><ul><li>Green: Information</li><li>Red: An exercise or experiment I can try</li><li>Black: Something I should do/act on ("action point")</li><li>Orange: Used to highlight specifically important things in my notes</li></ul><div>One problem with this is most of my pages are now just green. Due to that I'm experimenting with using at least two different shades of green so I can get some separation without making the notes messy.<br /><br />When in situations where basically everything is "information" and it's more important to separate one topic from another (e.g. different projects at work) I use the different colors to create this separation instead. I still keep black and cyan though for actions and title. This means my work notes are often more colorful but look more messy.<br /><div><br /></div><div>White space is also something I try to use to help create a more clear structure to a page. In all the examples at the end of this post I think you can see how I use white space to separate the different parts from each other.</div><br /></div><div>How much I visualize varies greatly depending on my mood, the topic, the content I learn from and probably lunar phase, solar activity and all sorts of crazy stuff. But no matter what, my notes use to be filled with small, helpful images/visualizations but for whatever reason this has changed a bit the last few years (which I don't like).</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, I often misplace individual pens or do other things that force me to alter my style but at least the above is what I do when I'm well prepared.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Content</h3>I use to take notes with the intent to accurately retell everything from the resource. Over time I've changed this though and now I aim to only note down what I think is <i>- useful for me - right now</i>. This means I can finish a book and only have one small statement written down but still be perfectly content with the book because that one thing was extremely valuable.<br /><br />I even have a thought process that starts when I observe myself take more notes than usual:<br /><ul><li>Is this so amazing that taking all these notes is actually the right decision?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>... or is it because the content is bad (I don't care to process it, I just write things down)?<br />If yes: Stop reading, turn if off or leave, whatever is applicable... if socially acceptable.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li>Otherwise I assume it's because I'm just not in the right mood. Can I get my shit together? If not I should probably take a break (if possible) or at least stop taking notes since I'm basically just wasting paper.</li></ul><h4><b>Things I typically note down</b></h4><ul><li>Visualizations</li><li>Short models and key ideas/concepts</li><li>Topics I want to investigate </li><li>Quotes (both firsthand and secondhand)</li><li>Bullet lists</li><li>Metaphors</li><li>Comparisons between two or more things </li><li>Actions or ideas for experiments</li><li>Names of people I want to learn more from</li><li>Recommended books, podcasts etc.</li><li>Flows, as they often help me create a structure in my head which I can stick things to</li><li>My own ideas that pop up based on the information I take in </li><li>Questions I want to ask</li><li>If it's a presentation/course I sometimes note down speaker feedback</li></ul><h4><b>Things I typically do <i>not</i> note down</b></h4><ul><li>Stories or lengthy examples</li><li>Information not tied to the topic(s) I'm interested in</li><li>Years, dates and who did what (I just note down the person's name if she seems interesting)</li><li>Reasons why the person has decided to share this information</li><li>Reasons why something is better than something else (I prefer to form my own opinion)</li><li>How someone came to a particular conclusion</li><li>The method used to get some information</li><li>Bragging and accomplishments<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul></div><h3>Language</h3>I normally take notes in the language of the medium so if I listen to a presentation or read a book in English my notes will be in English and if I attend an event or listen to a podcast in Swedish my notes will be in Swedish. If I can choose freely I tend to use Swedish but that can differ too (e.g. all technical terms used in software testing are in English so it's easier to write everything in English).<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Some examples</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iZAT-eUl0pY/XCkLjl4NnxI/AAAAAAAAWCY/TrR5uUzvDYwmSVMGM8QV2vIpJfPAirFtACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181230_184438.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1392" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iZAT-eUl0pY/XCkLjl4NnxI/AAAAAAAAWCY/TrR5uUzvDYwmSVMGM8QV2vIpJfPAirFtACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20181230_184438.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Example: Book notes</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZskYkT8J9aE/XCkLjQ6DZZI/AAAAAAAAWCc/RmtcA-MOVjAX8qRXsxKKLtFImDmq0MVOwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181230_184508.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1369" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZskYkT8J9aE/XCkLjQ6DZZI/AAAAAAAAWCc/RmtcA-MOVjAX8qRXsxKKLtFImDmq0MVOwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20181230_184508.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Example: Plan</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3i_SVm3LmXE/XCkLjiX-qNI/AAAAAAAAWCU/BqM3sQWVVFom8fONytUDubBNQPt4FAHzQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181230_184545.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1502" height="217" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3i_SVm3LmXE/XCkLjiX-qNI/AAAAAAAAWCU/BqM3sQWVVFom8fONytUDubBNQPt4FAHzQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20181230_184545.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Example: Notes from a course</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-79686832803392607682019-01-24T11:00:00.000+01:002019-01-24T11:00:00.321+01:00My Learning - Part 4 - Learning modes<h3>Backstory</h3><div>In <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2019/01/my-learning-part-2-me.html">part 2</a> I spoke about my inability to multitask and the dish washing observation. In this post I'll expand on that.</div><div><br /></div><div>First, let me explain why this is a fairly recent discovery:</div><div><br /></div><div>When I was at my "time spending peak" as a software tester I read blog posts daily, checked Twitter constantly, software testing was the main topic in basically every work related conversation I had and I prioritized&nbsp;sitting in front of my computer honing my skills on a daily basis. To do this I not only used time I had normally spent on computer games or watching TV but also time I had used to stay in contact with old friends as well as time I had spent on taking care of my body.</div><div><br /></div><div>The point here being: If you spend this much time on something you get pretty incredible results even when you're not that efficient...</div><div><br /></div><div>... but it's not sustainable.</div><div><br /></div><div>The result when I started to shift my focus back to "my life" was a drastic loss in momentum. However, since what I had changed was "time" I assumed the solution was to somehow find more time and finding that time proved to be very hard. This is basically where I was stuck until late 2017.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today I still try to free as much time as I can for learning but the big wins are not in finding more time; the big wins are in making that time count. The idea of two distinct modes, or mindsets if you like, has been one of the biggest improvements in this area for me.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div><h3>Modes</h3><div>I look at myself as being in one of two distinct modes when learning:</div><div><ul><li>Focused mode</li><li>Distracted mode</li></ul><div>When in my focused mode I shield myself from (almost) all distractions and focus my full attention on whatever I'm trying to learn. When doing this I (almost)&nbsp;always&nbsp;have my trusted notebook and colored pencils ready.<br /><br /></div><div>In this mode, information sticks and this is where I take the big strides forward in my learning. The actual activity and environment can still differ quite a bit though; for instance I might be at a conference, do an exercise with someone or just sit in my bedroom reading a book. This mode typically takes a bit of energy to initialize but after that it normally builds energy for me as long as there aren't any distractions I have to actively manage (more on "energy" in a later part).</div><div><br /></div><div>The reason I'm not always in this mode is because everything else stops, as well as the fact that some initial energy is required. Sure, there are sometimes nice by-products created but the clogged water pipe in the bathroom won't get fixed.</div><div><br /></div><div>... which brings us to my distracted mode. In this mode I consider <i>any </i>learnings made a bonus. Examples are when I listen to a podcast while doing the dishes or when reading during a bumpy, noisy bus ride. In this scenario the "learning action" is more a distraction from a boring activity than an actual attempt to learn something. There are perks though: Even though sloooow some things stick (works best with resources I want to just quickly refresh/revisit) and it's a great way to get through tons of different resources without really sacrificing anything which in terms is valuable since it helps filter out resources I want to process later in my focused mode without having to spend precious focused time doing that.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><h3>Why it's important</h3></div><div>I know I'm an ineffective learner when distracted and if I forget that I end up in a scenario where doing the dishes takes an hour just because I spent most of the time looking at some presentation on YouTube even though I know very little from the presentation will actually stick.<br /><br />Same thing with my focused mode: If I forget that I'm a terrible multitasker I easily end up stopping everything around me but instead of using this precious, me-time on learning I waste it on mindlessly watching TV while holding a book in my hands.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><h3>Different sources fits different distractions</h3>Most sources work well in my focused mode; I can have a conversation, read a book, listen to a podcast, do an exercise on the computer or just do regular work while having my notebook ready trying to make sense of the information I take in.<br /><br />Various distractions puts various limitations on my distracted mode however. Let me give you a few examples:<br /><br /><div>Eyes needed, ears free (e.g. loading the washing machine):<br /><i>Great sources: Audio books, presentations I don't need to watch, some meditation exercises</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Ears needed, eyes free (e.g. waiting at the airport):</div><div><i>Read (blogs, books, articles, check old notes)<br />Write (blogging, organize my thoughts, plan, improve old notes)</i></div><div><i>Hands (build something, learning games, make illustrations)</i><br /><br />Dumpy and loud (e.g. bus):<br /><i>Some meditation or mindfulness exercises, reflect, some reading</i></div><div><i>(I love my noise cancellation headphones in these scenarios though)</i></div><br />Frequent interruptions (e.g. anything that involves people around me):<br /><i>Reading blog posts since they're short (not much progress lost), exercises I can jump in and out of</i><br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>Variation</h3>What I'm experimenting with right now is questioning the sources I choose when distracted because I've found myself going back to the same subset of sources over and over again:<br /><br /><i>"Sure a podcast is easy since I have a long list of episodes ready but is it -really- the most useful source right now? Even if I think it is, I should at least come up with a few options just to make sure I'm not answering 'yes' out of laziness"</i><br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>Wrap up</h3></div><div>Obviously the above is a very simplified model and there are tons of nuances to it but I actually do identify which mode I'm in and use that as a guide on how to progress... and the fact you'll see me reference these modes in many subsequent parts, I think is proof of how central they are to my learning.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-90118817288246961162019-01-21T10:16:00.001+01:002019-02-28T14:56:06.594+01:00My Learning - Part 3 - My strategyBefore going into details about how I learn, let's look at my overall strategy and process.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Learning a new topic</h3><div><ol><li>Build a learning foundation</li><ul><li>Find the most influential experts</li><li>Find the most praised learning resources (e.g. books or courses)</li><li>Find the key concepts</li><li>Find the different schools of thought and learn their differences</li><li>Meet people with the purpose to start understanding the playing field<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><li>Build a topic foundation</li><ul><li>Study the most praised learning resources</li><li>Study <i>the one </i>school of thought (if several) that makes the most sense to me</li><li>Use only a few resources that focuses on core concepts</li><li>Make sure the few resources I learn from stick</li><li>Meet people with the purpose to learn from them<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><li>Practice the topic foundation</li><ul><li>Find ways to practice the foundation to make it stick</li><li>Experiment and start to ask more in depth questions</li><li>Meet people with the purpose to get feedback and guidance<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><li>Branch out</li><ul><li>Find blogs, podcasts or other sources where the new and fresh ideas are spread</li><li>Learn "everything there is to learn"</li><li>Gradually question more and more of my foundation</li><li>Meet people with the purpose to mutually challenge each other's ideas</li></ul></ol><div>Important:&nbsp;<i>I&nbsp;don't move&nbsp;</i>from one step to the other, <i>I make additions</i> to my approach meaning early on I only "build a learning foundation" while later on I do all of 1, 2 and 3; not just "practice the topic foundation" but I likely spend most time with the step I most recently added.</div><div><br /></div><div>This strategy is basically the same no matter what I want to learn but different topics and different levels of ambition will alter the time I spend on individual steps, how I move between them and how much time I spend in general.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div></div><h3>Make learning happen</h3><div>How I make myself learn things:</div><ul><li>Describe what I will gain from learning this</li><li>Clearly distinguish between focused and distracted learning</li><li>Make time for it (prioritization, not magic)</li><li>Have the resources ready (e.g. podcast episodes downloaded)</li><li>Surround myself with passionate learners</li><li>Remove unwanted distractions</li><li>Create a rough plan</li><li>Join discussion groups etc. to constantly expose myself to the topic</li><li>Engage friends in my learning (if possible) and/or try to find new peers</li><li>Constantly plan experiments or tasks so I don't get stuck with information gathering</li><li>Keep track of my progress and remind myself of completed milestones (not predefined milestones, see&nbsp;<a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2019/02/my-learning-part-15-motivation.html">Motivation</a>&nbsp;for explanation)<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Key ideas</h3><ul><li>Motivation is my most important tool and must be handled with great care</li><li>People are my second most important tool and must be handled with great respect</li><li>Focus my attention on the most influential experts</li><li>Teacher quality is more important than content quality</li><li>Only focus on the big lessons</li><li>For things to stick, I need to make them "my own"</li><li>When I've already learned something, reflection is more effective when I need to "relearn it"</li><li>A clear direction is invaluable</li><li>Finishing something for the sake of finishing it is a waste of time</li><li>Act on the things I learn (I always know enough to start)</li></ul><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-76966361860719735532019-01-21T10:16:00.000+01:002019-01-21T10:49:48.161+01:00My Learning - Part 2 - MeBefore we go into how I learn, let's look at who I am because that impacts what works for me when I'm trying to learn something.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Impatient</h3>My biggest strength <i>and </i>shortcoming is probably my impatience. I get bored very easily but thanks to that I don't stay with methods that aren't working or other things not helping me to progress <i>fast</i>.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Auditory learner... maybe</h3>I'm a quite sociable person who loves to discuss and debate basically any topic with any person. One reason for that is probably because I take in a lot of information from listening and talking... Yes, I'm quite often surprised by things I say myself and actually learn this way. <br />For this to work I need... people. Due to this I spend a significant amount of time just improving, expanding and pruning my social network (which I'll come back to in later parts).<br /><br />... that being said; the description of a visual learning style actually describes me better. So maybe I'm wrong... or maybe I'm a mix of the two.<br /><br />Anyhow, what I do know is listening and talking is important to my learning...<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Abstractions and visual thinking</h3>My brain is pretty good at abstracting things making them easier for me to understand, summarize and apply to something else. I'm also a quite visual thinker (maybe that's true for everyone?) and adding visuals to something happens naturally. This has a few interesting implications:<br /><ol><li>I'm good at writing summaries</li><li>I'm good at abstracting something into a graph or simple visualization</li><li>I'm good at taking a concept from one thing and applying it something else (e.g. retool heuristics created for software testing and apply them to my learning process)</li><li>I'm good at making sense of really confusing things</li><li>I'm good at explaining something complex by applying it to something easy that the receiver can better understand.</li><li>I think this is a reason why I have quite a vivid imagination; I can create something visible and concrete in my head even from very loose thoughts.</li><li>I'm good at pointing out what's missing in an explanation because when I abstract something in my head any lack of information creates a problem with my model. This also helps me come up with questions in various situations.</li></ol>There are obviously drawbacks as well. Since I quickly try to create abstractions my response can end up too abstract for someone or at least too far away from where that person started. This is especially true when I talk to people who are very concrete and want to discuss the exact example they brought up. <br /><br />On the end of the abstraction spectrum I kinda have to do the abstractions on my own for them to make sense, so speaking with someone who creates abstractions as well can be confusing as I have to reverse engineer that persons abstraction back to its original form to be able to start my own thinking process. This means I often "demand" actual examples from other people so that I can abstract them for myself... which can be weird... sometimes ("you must provide me real examples but I'll respond with abstractions because... reasons"). <br /><br />Implications when I learn:<br /><ul><li>I primarily look for core concepts. These concepts I can then start to apply to all sorts of imaginary things and situation to help me make sense of them.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Secondary I look for the actual scenarios or examples. I want them short and concise to make the abstractions more manageable and closer to the original. If I abstract a very big story I typically end up with something too generic.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Third I look for very skilled people's interpretations and abstractions of things simply because my experience is these are still worth trying to reverse engineer.</li></ul>Implications when I socialize: <br /><ul><li>I have to consciously monitor what I say and the reaction it creates, to avoid becoming too vague or abstract.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I'm at my absolute best when the other person has a complicated thing they need help making sense of.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Motivation</h3>Let's just say discipline and "mental endurance" are not my biggest strengths... To counter this I need to monitor and nourish my motivation while avoiding distractions because my motivation is the tool I use to "fake endurance": I don't endure a long learning session, I marvel at the opportunity to learn something new and exciting. <br /><br />I'll come back to this topic in great detail in a later post; but for now, just understand that my discipline is non-existent but I've learned to work around that challenge.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Competitiveness</h3>I have a strong competitive personality and can prepare myself for hours just to perform well in one particular situation. For instance when I play games (sports, computer or board games) I want to know everything about the game so I give myself the best possible chance to succeed... or rather minimal risk of failing, which seems to be the stronger motivation. This is a trait that can both help and hamper my learning efforts. <br /><br />What I've learned is if I let this competitiveness run free I get bored quickly and start to jump from one project to the next; the reason being that I realize how far away I am from being <i>the best </i>and thus lose interest (remember what I said about my endurance just a couple of paragraphs ago).<br /><br />So what I've deliberately done is decide to compete only with myself when it comes to the big, important areas in my life just to avoid frustration or losing interest: "I want to be the best coach&nbsp;<i>I can be</i>" or "I want to be the best father&nbsp;<i>I can be</i>". However, it takes energy to stop myself from comparing my progress to other's so to up my odds of not running out of energy I let my competitiveness wreck havoc in all the small things where it doesn't matter if I lose interest long before "I'm done".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Competing with myself</h3>One thing I'm currently working on is to improve my ability to gain energy from competing with myself. Finding a way to monitor progress seems like a key factor here (seeing "proof" that I've outperformed myself from yesterday). Another, related journey is to better enjoy the activity itself and not just the end result. This is mostly to help me enjoy, and behave better, when participating in casual activities like board games or sports (I'm a pretty sore loser) but I think it could potentially improve my learning as well.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Limited motivation to finish things</h3>I often start with grand plans and tons of energy. I then complete the first steps which typically teaches me the vast majority of what I want to learn... and finally I realize (or at least think I realize) that the rest of the trip is mostly repetition or would require enormous amounts of effort for quite limited learning results so I quit.<br /><br />One example is the many unpublished drafts I have in this blog: I wrote the larger portion of them but got bored with the topic or the work to polish them and just left them there.<br /><br />To some this might seem wasteful but to me it's not; I've learned what I wanted to learn, or realized that the learning I wanted wasn't there, at least not fast enough, so I'm done. Also when I feel the need to finish something; such as this blog post or most projects at work; I can but it requires energy and that's once again a precious resource so I need to carefully pick my battles.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Multitask</h3>Up until recently I thought I could multitask and I'm not kidding. For instance I use to watch TV while reading an article, I was listening to a recorded conference presentation while working or watching a YouTube video while writing a blog post. Turns out my ability to multitask is basically non-existent which I came to realize when doing the dishes one day... <br /><br />I had been looking at some online presentations while doing the dishes every evening for about a week and every evening I was surprised by how long it took to get the dishes done. Finally I decided to monitor what was actually happening. Turns out a very small portion was me doing the dishes and a very large part was me standing still watching the presentation. The "funny" thing in all this is I couldn't recall basically anything from the presentation despite the time spent. So the next day I did the dishes as quickly as I could without any distractions and then sat in the sofa fully focused on the presentation... well, the difference was quite significant both in terms of personal satisfaction and in what I could recall from the presentation. A challenge here, for me, is I have no problem "allowing" myself to spend an hour "washing dishes" but to "allow" myself to do the dishes in 5 minutes and then sit in the sofa reading for 55 minutes is much harder... <br /><br />Anyway, since this observation I've conducted more experiments and come to the conclusion that I can only do one learning action at a time and if I do anything else while trying to learn something things just won't "stick"... and I also do the other thing quite poorly. So for instance I can listen to podcasts, audio books or online presentations while e.g. doing the dishes or read while distracted by a TV but I <i>can't have any&nbsp;intention to actually remember the stuff presented to me</i> instead it's more of a passive filtering process: "Meh, this book was not great enough to actually read in a focused manner" or "Wow, I need to listen to this podcast while not distracted later". I'll talk about these learning modes in great detail in a later part but long story short: Being aware of them have had a big impact on my learning!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Stickiness</h3>Related to multitasking is "stickiness". For things to stick in my head, I have three rules of thumb: <br /><ol><li>Focus on only one thing</li><li>Make it my own</li><li>Apply it immediately</li></ol>I've already talked about limiting distractions and focusing on one task at a time so let's focus on the other two. <br /><br />"Make it my own" in this case means I need to use my own words and feelings to describe something, even if it somewhat distorts or modifies the original meaning/intent. Examples are:<br /><ul><li>Do something with it (action)</li><li>Say the thing out loud using my own words</li><li>Write down a summary/take notes using my own words</li><li>Deconstruct the thing and reassemble it in "my way"</li><li>Consciously modify my own (mental) models based on this information</li><li>Apply what I've just learned to a made up situation</li></ul>The last three are best done on paper, not just in my head. If it's something physical, like a badminton stroke, I need to stop taking in information and do the thing myself while focusing on how&nbsp;<i>my</i>&nbsp;body <i>feels </i>while doing it. <br /><br />Often when actively taking in new information (e.g. read a book) I'm content with just taking notes because if I start doing more I'll lose the flow and at that point any microscopic distraction will get me... so to help me stay focused I just take quick notes and move on. I then later go back and act on the notes I took, do the exercises from the book etc. (or at least I wish I did... more on that in a later part) <br /><br />The last one is a work in progress. When I learned my way as a tester, practicing what I had learned came quite naturally. Now when my focus is to improve my ability to coach it's harder because I would prefer to coach other people even early on in my progress and to be fair, that scares the shit out of me and is not as flexible since I'm limited to when that person/those people are available. So I don't have too much to say about this yet but I know acting is important based on my previous learning adventures...<br /><br /><i>(while writing this I realize I could start with coaching myself using the various techniques I learn rather than on other people... just as an easy step one so I start doing it...)</i><br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Questioning</h3>One of the things I appreciate from having worked as a software tester for many years is the focused training and experience in asking questions. When I try making something my own, questions are typically my primary tool: <br /><ul><li>How does this fit my current model(s)?</li><li>If it doesn't, why?</li><li>What assumptions are required for my current model to work? Are they really true?</li><li>What assumptions are required for this new idea to work? Are they really true?</li><li>What does the author mean with...?</li><li>What's the author's intention by framing the idea this particular way?</li><li>In which context is this likely true?</li><li>In which context is this likely <i>not</i> true?</li><li>How can this idea be applied to other areas?<br /><i>(example: How could the concept of "critical distance" be applied to parenting?)</i></li><li>What if I knew this idea was universally true, how would that effect my actions and models?</li><li>...</li></ul>It's quite crowded in my head already so if I just took anything I read for granted and gave it a place to stay I'd be screwed, so questioning is an important tool not only to better understand an idea/concept but also to help filter out what's not relevant -&nbsp;<i>right now - for me</i>.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Goals and direction</h3>I once attended a keynote about "how to become an amazing tester" from a well renowned expert in the field. She talked for 45 minutes and I saw all these people frantically take notes and afterwards there were plenty of questions from curious participants... but I was utterly disappointed! I felt like none of what she had talked about matched my experience... <br /><br />What she was talking about was how to set goals and how important it was to commit to these goals. My strategy so far, and to this day, is to set a direction (call it goal if you want, but a vague one) and run in that direction... and it seems to have worked quite well for me. <br /><br />After the keynote I met a few other participants and expressed my frustration, not that the keynote was bad but because everyone seemed super enthusiastic about it but I couldn't relate at all. A brilliant woman, Fiona Charles, looked at me and said:<br /><br /><i>"I look at it is a continuum. On one end is pure goal setting and for people far out on that side this was gold! On the other side I put the&nbsp;opportunists; I&nbsp;describe them as "having big ears", they're great at picking up various opportunities and are always ready to leave their current path if a new opportunity seems better. For them goals are more like prisons, impeding their creativity and energy. I would guess you're pretty far out on the opportunist side."</i><br /><br />Since then I've altered my view a bit but Fiona's explanation is still the foundation I use. <br /><br />So how have I managed to&nbsp;get anywhere with that attitude? Well, I need a clear direction. For instance my direction right now is to become an amazing coach and an expert in company culture. My approach to accomplish this is a mix of:<br /><ul><li>Find the important people</li><li>Find the existing networks</li><li>Find the often referenced resources</li><li>Find practice methods that work for me</li></ul>I won't go into details on any of these right now but the important thing is I only have a vague idea on how to become great in this case but I'm confident I'll figure out various things to try if I just put enough effort into the four tracks above. So far I've connected with experienced coaches, I've realized a new local meetup/study group is needed so I've taken the first few steps to create one, I have a list of names of people who I want to learn more about/from, I've looked up and read several books some of which I'll read again and so on... I'm not following a clear path, I've not committed to complete any specific activities and I'm not sure what the next step is but I'm confident I have a strong forward motion (I trust my process because it has a great track record). <br /><br />If you want more details on how I keep track of these various paths and opportunities you can read more in my old blog post about <a href="https://erik.brickarp.se/2017/09/introducing-bob.html">BOB</a>. To be honest though; right now I'm not using BOB because I feel like my progression is too fast for BOB to keep up but he has been a trusted friend for a long time and I intend to get back to him when my progression starts to pan out a bit.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-37186816055712628592019-01-21T10:15:00.000+01:002019-01-21T10:49:31.323+01:00My Learning - Part 1 - Background<h3>This blog series</h3><div>In march 2019 Göran Bakken and I will organize a small "expert" conference on self-education. As part of my preparations for that conference I've spent a significant amount of time trying to understand my learning process. One thing led to another and here we are...<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><h3>Why learning?</h3>I hate not feeling proficient in the things I do. In the first job I got after graduating this happened though. I went to work not feeling as competent as my colleagues, in the areas valued by my boss. The job was as software tester at a big telecom company and the thing I was supposed to do was to learn this massive system and check if what was claimed about this system was actually true. After a few years I was actively looking for a way out cause not feeling competent was something new to me and it drained me...<br /><br />One day I saw <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILkT_HV9DVU">a video by James Bach</a>. He was the most well-known tester in the world and I already knew about him but had never heard him talk about <i>the mindset</i> of a tester. I was mind blown! Could testing be something creative and fun where a restless, impatient brain like mine could actually be an advantage?<br /><br />I often credit that video as the start to my "true career", a career where I didn't allow work to be boring because when I'm interested I learn, and when I learn I get passionate and when I'm passionate my work becomes exciting and when my work is exciting&nbsp;I want to learn more and when I learn more I get even more passionate and... yeah, you get where I'm going.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Learning about testing</h3>So I started reading everything I could because I mean... that's how you learn, right? After a while I got bored; books simply didn't make me progress much anymore. But instead of turning my focus to something else, which I had done numerous times before, I decided to try a new path. I soon realized there was actually more people in the town I lived who loved testing and they had even formed a meetup group. I left my isolated learning at home and went there... and got inspired. The inspiration led to blogging because I like writing which led to interacting with even more passionate people because they liked my ideas... which led to a new job... which led me to more even more amazing people. Today I've found&nbsp;dozens of friends in the business, I've competed in testing, I've been teaching testing, I've discussed testing at invite only expert conferences, I've organized conferences, I've been mentoring testers and most importantly: I've loved every day of doing all this!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Figuring out my next move</h3>But nothing lasts forever so after a while I started to get bored and jumped on an opportunity to "progress"; a new title, a new purpose, new expectations and a higher wage ceiling. This was interesting; suddenly I went from knowing where to find (almost) all the answers, knowing (almost) all the people and feeling like an expert, to being something else. The official title was test coach. "Test", even though the expectations went up, wasn't too hard but "coach" was. I felt lost; I didn't know when I was doing a good job anymore and it was suddenly much harder to find that "mesmerizing learning high" I had experienced for several years... I wasn't an expert anymore.<br /><br />It took me a couple of years to find my&nbsp;bearings and I got that old feeling of not being competent more than a few times. It all slowly led to a bit of an existential crisis: What do I want to be when I "grow up"... I had lost a clear sense of direction.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>My next move</h3>Finally I gave myself a deadline and decided I had to figure out at least what I wanted to focus on for the foreseeable future. After plenty of thinking and research I decided to go wholeheartedly into coaching and company culture. As I'm writing this I'm still early in my progression but I've regained that critical motivation to learn, which leads to passion, which leads to more learning, which leads to... yeah, you know the drill.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><h3>Fluctuations</h3>The curve below shows the fluctuations of my passion/easiness to learn over the last few years.<br /><br />Feel free to draw your own, it was a pretty useful exercise...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TaitYt0suCY/XEFuY-Z86MI/AAAAAAAAWFE/zMIJuQdD56gjGHxTV1g-qGjVON-I3uvVwCLcBGAs/s1600/motivation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="856" height="201" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TaitYt0suCY/XEFuY-Z86MI/AAAAAAAAWFE/zMIJuQdD56gjGHxTV1g-qGjVON-I3uvVwCLcBGAs/s400/motivation.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To explain the&nbsp;fluctuation a bit:</div><ul><li>The curve starts with me starting my first job after graduating (2007).<br />X is time.<br />Y is my perceived passion/easiness to learn whatever I'm trying to learn.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Early 2012 I saw that video with James Bach that got me started. Long story short: Wow I had fun!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Late 2015 I was suffering from severe stress which is the reason for the steep drop. My recovery from that episode is still ongoing. The stress wasn't because of my learning ambitions per se but because I had a job where the expectations I put on my working results weren't aligned with what the employer was ready to allow me to do. Since the people actually taking the hit in this case was my students and I care about people a bit too much sometimes, I put a way too heavy workload on myself to sort of mediate the gap between their expectations and what the job allowed me to do. Not a strategy I recommend...<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Spring 2016 I got the job as test coach and that's where the curve starts shifting upwards again. The problem at this point wasn't my progression but rather my inability to see that progression and since I didn't feel like I progressed I had a much harder time generating the energy/motivation needed to make things escalate like they did in 2012.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Early 2018 I finally started taking my own frustration seriously. Later, during the summer, I spent massive amounts of time trying to understand my situation. I'll show some results from that summer in a later post in this series.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Wrap up</h3><div>All in all I'm a human being just like you; sometimes I'm frustrated, sometimes I'm motivated,&nbsp; most often I'm a bit of both. I have friends and family who are more important than "my progression", most of what I do is not related to "learning", I'm easily distracted, I'm sometimes sad... but I still have a passion for learning and an ability to put words on what's going on inside my head. Hopefully that combination will make this series help you learn about your learning as your learn about mine.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/my-learning.html">Back to the overview</a><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div></div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-77301084505685616162018-12-20T08:54:00.002+01:002018-12-20T08:54:29.822+01:00Change of name<h3>Adventure</h3>When I picked the name "Test Adventures" I knew "Test" had to be somewhere in the title since I wasn't very well known and worried people might miss the blog if it wasn't clear what it covered.<br /><br />The problem though was: What else?<br /><br />I remember thinking about this for quite some time and I tried many different names. Some were cool but didn't match "me", some felt too generic and some felt too specific, such as "Test Stories" which the blog was actually named for a very short while.<br /><br />Finally that magic question popped into my head:<br /><i>How do I look at (my learning of) testing because that's what the blog covers?</i><br /><br />The first word that popped up was "journey". It referred to my progression as a tester and the feeling there was still a long way to go... but it just didn't have that "umpf", that feeling of being "me"... but it was close. So I asked another question:<br /><i>Why is journey good but not right?</i><br /><br />Well, it was good because it described my never ending quest to become a better tester and it communicated my view: That this was a journey... but it wasn't just a journey... it was an exciting and daring journey... it was... an Adventure!<br /><br />I changed the name in an instant and never looked back. Now many years later the name is still something I'm proud of because "adventure" truly describes the way I learn and think: I head out with a vague goal, I face hazards, I discover things and these new things lead me to new adventures.<br /><br />So it's time to change the name of the blog from Test Adventures to Adventures...<br /><h3><br />Promoting "Test"</h3>Let's start with some stats:<br />2012 - 20 posts<br />2013 - 26 posts<br />2014 - 15 posts<br />2015 - 4 posts<br />2016 - 9 posts<br />2017 - 4 posts<br />2018 - 1 posts (this)<br /><br />What happened after 2014? Well I became a teacher and didn't have any time to write anything so 2015 doesn't really count. 2016 I was almost on track for 1 post a month despite starting slow due to spill over stress from 2015.<br /><br />2017 is the year when something happened... looking at the posts from that year two cover "organizing peer conferences", one covers learning and one covers leadership/team building... none of them really covers test.<br /><br />Let's make another list; here I'll try to list my career passions year by year:<br />2012 - Testing!<br />2013 - Testing!<br />2014 - Testing!<br />2015 - Testing and Teaching<br />2016 - Testing and Coaching<br />2017 - People and Coaching<br />2018 - Coaching! and People<br /><br />A big reason why this blog has declined in regards to posting frequency is "Test" is <i>not </i>my adventure anymore so exciting adventures I'm ready to share just doesn't fit this blog. What "Test" is however is a loyal companion <i>I bring on my other adventures</i>. So congratulations to the promotion Test, you're no longer just a word in a heading, you're a trusted friend I need by my side!<br /><h3><br />What does this mean for the blog?</h3>Well, like I said before, it was a while since I actually posted something about "test" (test techniques, test strategy, tester mindset etc.) so what you can expect is more content <i>relevant </i>to testing but <i>not focused </i>on testing. Examples are coaching, learning and culture.<br /><br />2019 is the start of something new and amazing cause there's plenty of stuff piled up, ready to be written!<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic;">Adventure buddies, please say hi to Test!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic;">Test, are you ready for our next adventure?</span>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-53937588068092266122017-09-25T17:18:00.000+02:002017-09-25T17:18:57.521+02:00Introducing BOBAlmost 5 years ago I created my first <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/skill-development-list-old.html">Skill development list</a>. About 7 months later I made <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/skill-development-list.html">a public update of my list</a> and wrote a <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2012/06/skill-development-list-explanation.html">blog post</a> to explain it. Since then I've used the list sporadically but less and less. I've also seen my own education shift quite a bit away from testing and more into software development in general and coaching.<br /><br />But I miss my list and also miss some of the energy I had back then when it came to learning. So it's time to revive an old friend.<br /><br /><h3>A new name</h3>I remember talking about my list on <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2013/09/my-cast-presentation.html">CAST 2013</a> saying something like: "give the list your own unique name to make it truly yours" and well, "Skill development list" just doesn't cut it anymore so meet my new friend: BOB: The Brickceptional Opportunity Bulletin board!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for bob aliens vs monsters" height="400" src="https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/the-mystery-case-files/images/2/29/BOB.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140511135327" width="374" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="http://the-mystery-case-files.wikia.com/wiki/B.O.B">B.O.B</a>&nbsp;!</i></div><br />The new name is not just for the sake of having a new name and/or to include the word brickceptional. Instead it's changed because "list", to me, sounds too much like "stuff I should complete" and "skill development" is sometimes more of a potential by-product rather than the main purpose. So "opportunity" better describes what each of the items represents and bulletin board better describes the idea that this is a collection of things I could potentially look into rather than stuff I'm expecting myself to try/complete.<br /><br />... and brickceptional requires no further explanation.<br /><br /><h3>Updated content</h3>Well, BOB is&nbsp;<a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/bob.html">published and ready</a>.<br /><br /><h3>What's different</h3><ol><li>The confer section is <i>a lot</i>&nbsp;bigger this time. I love conversing with people and since last time I've learned that it's actually quite easy to initiate (you ask people and they typically say yes).<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I have a better idea of what I specifically want to do. This might not be that visible in BOB since I try to keep many of the items open but it's an important change for me personally and makes each of the items a lot more actionable.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>It's more stuff this time partly because I know about more stuff that's possible to do but also because I'm not as concerned about what people might expect from me.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I've removed the "continuous" part as this became way too vague (didn't provide anything). I much rather keep that stuff in a personal manifesto.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>I have more stuff under the read/watch category. Last time I was worried too many "easy" reading, watching or writing items would discourage me from actually seek out and meet people. Long story short: That's not an issue anymore but I think it was a good call the first time around.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Finally a lot more of the items tie back to my actual job. I'm not quite sure why... yet.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ol><h3>What can BOB do for you?</h3><ul><li>Read the items from any of the three versions: <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/skill-development-list-old.html">1</a>, <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/skill-development-list.html">2</a>, <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/p/bob.html">3</a>.<br />Anything that sounds interesting? Try it!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Use BOB or any other resources out there to create your own "BOB". For some additional inspiration, see "Thank you" below.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>If you want help adding some initial items to your "BOB", just leave me a message on Twitter, LinkedIn or anywhere else and I'll do my best to help you.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Thank you</h3><div>Finally: <b>Thank you Ministry of Testing!</b><br /><br />I've added ideas from many different sources but nothing beats your awesome content when it comes to creative, digestible ideas on things you can do to improve yourself (as a tester)!</div><div><ul><li><a href="https://dojo.ministryoftesting.com/series/30-days-of-testing">30 days of Testing</a></li><li><a href="https://www.ministryoftesting.com/2013/07/ebook-99-things-you-can-do-to-become-a-better-tester/">99 Things You Can Do To Become A Better Tester</a></li><li><a href="https://dojo.ministryoftesting.com/lessons/30-things-every-new-software-tester-should-learn">30 Things Every New Software Tester Should Learn</a></li></ul></div><br /><br /><br />Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-80811174307331907402017-04-26T07:44:00.002+02:002017-04-26T07:44:41.287+02:00Peer conferences, part 2, checklist<br /><h3>Intro</h3>If you want to know more about what a peer conference is, general tips and tricks, different formats etc., do read <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2017/04/peer-conferences-part-1.html">part 1</a> first.<br /><br />Notice, this checklist is based around how we run SWET with a conference center, shared costs among participants, experience reports, abstracts etc. but even if you choose a vastly different format I think a lot of this still applies; there's simply stuff you can ignore.<br /><br />Finally: I'm in no way an expert but I couldn't find this kind of information so I basically shared my lessons learned... and since SWETish, EASTish and SWET 8 all felt like great peer conferences this, as a minimum, should be great enough.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Initiate</h3><ul><li>Set the group of organizers (my recommendation 3-4)</li><li>Schedule a startup meeting (e.g. Skype video or face-to-face)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><h3>First meeting</h3><ul><li>Set a date and duration (typically a Sat morning to Sun lunch)</li><li>Set the max and min amount of participants (my recommendation 10-13, incl. organizers)</li><li>List potential locations and start the process of booking one of these</li><li>Set the general format for the conference (see <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2017/04/peer-conferences-part-1.html">part 1</a>)</li><li>Decide if you will have an opened or closed (invite only) invitation</li><li>Start discussing a topic/theme</li><li>Set organizer deadlines (e.g. deadline for invitations to be sent)</li><li>Set participant deadlines (e.g. when they need to confirm if they will attend)</li><li>Set how you will interact with participants (e.g. Slack, email, Facebook or Skype)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><h3>Prepare invitation</h3><ul><li>Book the place where you want to hold the conference</li><li>Decide who you want to invite, if invite only</li><li>Decide where you want to advertise your conference if open invitation</li><li>Practical details (see invitation below), e.g. "when should we start in the morning"</li><li>Send out the invitation (see below)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><h3>Invitation&nbsp;&nbsp; </h3><b>Email (example, personal invitation):</b><br /><i>Hi Helena,<br /><br />April 1st we will host the first iteration of PCSA at Amalias Hus (http://www.amaliashus.se), Gränna and we would love to have you as a participant! PCSA 1 is an invite only, peer conference. The topic for the conference is "Leading testers". In the attachment you'll find an explanation of what a peer conference is, a detailed description of the topic and other useful information related to the conference.<br /><br />Why I want you to attend</i><br /><i>Ever since we met 2013 you've been my main inspiration on how to lead, coach and support testers, so for this topic I think you're the perfect fit. I hope you can bring a very people centered view point to the questions and your broad experience in leading teams should be a valuable compliment/sanity check to some of the more "test lead centered" participants. I also value your ability to respectfully challenge and question people when you want more details on how they came to certain conclusions. Finally your dedication and passion for testing is something I think will inspire others during the conference, which is important to.</i><br /><i>/Erik<br /><br />What happens now?<br />By February 19th we need to know if you'll attend</i><br /><i>By March 31st we need to have your abstract</i><br /><br /><i>Best regards,</i><br /><i>Erik, Göran and Sigge&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><b>Attachment or open invitation: </b><br /><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dnJEdAujFplX4cLWHqkS03wftMLpLD4Z11WT12Mo814/view?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dnJEdAujFplX4cLWHqkS03wftMLpLD4Z11WT12Mo814/view?usp=sharing</a><br /><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </i><br /><h3>Contract(s)</h3>These are the things I find important to establish with external parties such as the conference center, catering etc. Some of these will not be relevant to your setup, keep that in mind.<br /><ul><li>Price for both minimum and maximum number of participants (hotel, food, facility etc.)</li><ul><li>Is tax included or excluded? </li></ul><li>What is included and what is not, in the price above?</li><li>Here's the schedule we suggest, will this work for you?</li><li>When do we need to report food allergies/preferences?</li><li>What food will you serve? (menu suggestion)</li><li>What facilities will be available to us in the evening?</li><li>Will there be a bar/snacks available in the evening?</li><li>When may we check in and when must we check out?</li><li>What equipment (projector, whiteboard, sound, flipchart etc.) will be available?</li><li>Do you prefer if participants contact you upon questions or should I do that for them?</li><li>When is the last date we may change the number of participants? (e.g. cancellations)</li><ul><li>What will we have to pay for after this date? (e.g. only room, only conference or both)</li></ul><li>How do you best get to the location with public transport?</li><li>How much parking space will be available?</li><li>Can you manage the splitting of costs (including cost for the conference room)?</li><li>When will we pay (e.g. on check out) and is there a deposit fee?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Waiting for people to confirm</h3>To keep track of invited people setup some spreadsheet/system.<br />Example: For SWET 8 we had a spreadsheet with the following columns:<br /><ul><li>Name</li><li>Email</li><li>Order; we had a list of 30+ names and had to keep track of who to invite first.</li><li>Who among the organizers invites this person</li><li>Invited (yes/no)</li><li>Response (yes/no/maybe, empty = no response)</li><li>Arrives; we had different prices for arriving late on Friday or early on Saturday.</li><li>Allergies</li><li>Abstract sent (yes/no)</li><li>Comment; e.g. "will answer after the weekend but will probably attend"</li></ul>We later created a separate list with name, arrival day and allergies so that participants could fill this out themselves.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Handling abstracts</h3>When all participants had sent in their abstracts we set up a new spreadsheet (we like spreadsheets) with one column for the participants' names and one column each for organizers. We then scored the abstracts from 1-5 in our respective column and summarized the result.<br /><br />After that we listed the top ~8 abstracts and discussed if we wanted that order or if we wanted to change anything; for instance in the case of SWET 8 we had a couple of fairly similar abstracts so we opted to skip one of them even though it made top 4 and then switched order of a at least two other after considering experience, how much discussion we anticipated etc.<br /><br />Finally we showed the participants the top 5 of our modified speaker list (ranking of abstracts).<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Communication to participants</h3>Here are all the things I can find in Slack and email, which we sent out to participants prior to the conference but after all the registration was done:<br /><ul><li>A detailed schedule (see part 3)</li><li>Food menu</li><li>Asked for suggestions for evening activities</li><li>Clarified the topic a bit and gave more examples</li><li>Feedback to some of the abstracts</li><li>Who would participate and where they were living to simplify car pooling</li><li>Reminder of the abstract deadline ~4 weeks and ~1 week before.</li><li>Kept the participants up to date with our (the organizers) work, e.g. when we planned to set the speaker list etc.</li><li>Sent out all the abstracts to the participants</li><li>Various information about payment etc. given by the conference center (see Contracts)</li><li>Explained the process around the lightning talks</li><li>Contacted the individual speakers to tell them who would facilitate their talk</li><li>Various clarifications and details asked for by participants<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><h3>Summary</h3>This may seem like a lot but let's be clear: What you basically have to look into is:<br /><ul><li>Where?</li><li>When?</li><li>Who will we invite?</li><li>What format should we use?</li></ul>... the rest will come pretty naturally. For instance we (Göran Bakken, Sigge Birgisson and I) had no checklist when we organized SWET 8; basically the first peer conference anyone of us had organized. Most of the details (schedule, food, deadlines etc.) either came from questions/needs that popped up naturally, things that the conference center informed us about and we just forwarded or it was copied from previous iterations of SWET.<br /><br />... but I wanted you to learn from stuff we for instance though of a little late (like the schedule) so that you can do an even better job than us.<br /><br />Good luck!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Part 3</h3>Part 3 will cover the actual conference including things like check in, facilitation etc. Stay tuned!Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-69198968603291178262017-04-24T16:57:00.003+02:002017-04-27T08:12:28.351+02:00Peer conferences, part 1<h3>Warning</h3>This blog series is mainly for people who (would like to) arrange or attend peer conferences (explained below). People not interested in peer conferences will find rather little value in this post. One exception though could be if you want to arrange some workshop/conference at your work and you want inspiration for that. Finally; you can replace testing/software testing below with e.g. "programming", "change management" or something else as the experiences and methods should work for any "topic", I just happen to work with software testing.<br /><br />Finally, these are my thoughts, not "the truth".<br /><br />EDIT: If you want more ideas on the topic of peer conferences, check out <a href="http://qahiccupps.blogspot.se/2015/07/trying-to-be-cewt.html">James Thomas' blog post "Trying to be CEWT"</a> and <a href="http://workroomprds.github.io/LEWT/">James Lyndsay's blog post "http://workroomprds.github.io/LEWT"</a>.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Peer conference</h3><div>A peer conference in this case refers to a small group of experts, gathered to debate a specific topic, based on their own experiences rather than e.g. abstract models and they do this in a focused manner for at least one day. "Small group" refers to something like 6-16 people. "Expert" is harder to define but means something like "a person with a lot of skill, passion and/or experience in software testing". <br /><br />With this definition I realize other events I've attended might qualify but I hope it's good enough to at least understand this article.<br />&nbsp; <br /><h3>Data</h3><div>This section is to help you understand what I base my thoughts on. Feel free to skip it if not interested. Do note that I attend a lot of other "peer conference -like" events such as <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2013/09/transpection-tuesdays.html">Transpection Tuesday</a>, local meetups etc. and I will take that experience into consideration but haven't listed it in this chapter for the sake of your (and my) sanity.</div><ul><li><a href="http://blog.johanjonasson.com/?p=547"><b>SWET 4</b></a><br />15 attendees<br />James Bach present, lot's of well known names overall<br />I was very inexperienced (compared to the other participants)<br />Language: English<br />Setup: <a href="http://lawst.com/?page_id=15">LAWST</a>&nbsp;inspired<br />Topic: Models in testing<br />Location: Sweden, fancy conference center<br />Length: 1½ days (+optional 1/3 day before), Saturday morning to Sunday lunch<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li><b><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2014/04/swet-7-peer-conference-on-test-coaching.html">SWET 7</a></b><br />10 attendees<br />James Bach present, very inexperienced group<br />I was one of the most experienced attendees<br />Language: English<br />Setup:&nbsp;<a href="http://lawst.com/?page_id=15">LAWST</a>&nbsp;inspired<br />Topic: Test coaching<br />Location: Sweden, fancy conference center<br />Length: 1½ days (+optional 1/3 day before), Saturday morning to Sunday lunch<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li><b><a href="https://kristjanuba.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/pest-6-gaining-consciousness/">PEST 6</a></b><br />9 attendees<br />Michael Bolton present, the best of Estonia (which is pretty awesome btw.)<br />I was an "international attendee" so a bit different<br />Language: English<br />Setup:&nbsp;<a href="http://lawst.com/?page_id=15">LAWST</a>&nbsp;inspired<br />Topic: Gaining&nbsp;consciousness<br />Location: Estonia, at Nortal (company)<br />Length: 1½ days, Saturday morning to Sunday lunch<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li><b><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2016/11/swetish.html">SWETish</a></b><br />10 attendees<br />"regional peer conferences" with attendees mainly from Linköping and Örebro<br />I was one of the most experienced attendees and co-organizer<br />Language: Swedish<br />Setup:&nbsp;<a href="http://lawst.com/?page_id=15">LAWST</a>&nbsp;inspired<br />Topic: Exploratory testing<br />Location: Sweden, fancy conference center<br />Length: 1½ days, Saturday morning to Sunday lunch<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li><b>EASTish</b><br />8 attendees<br />Only attendees from Linköping, mainly from two specific companies<br />I was one of the most experienced attendees and co-organizer<br />Language: Swedish<br />Setup: People brought their own topics so no "formal presentations"<br />Topic: Any<br />Location: Sweden, at Sectra (company)<br />Length: 1 day (optional evening), Saturday<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; </li><li><b><a href="https://testinpeace.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/swet8-a-brief-summary/">SWET 8</a></b><br />11 attendees<br />Experienced group, rather mixed skillsets<br />I was one of the more experienced attendees<br />Language: Swedish<br />Setup:&nbsp;<a href="http://lawst.com/?page_id=15">LAWST</a>&nbsp;inspired<br />Topic: Testing that's not testing<br />Location: Sweden, fancy conference center<br />Length: 1 day (+optional 1/3 day before), Saturday morning to Sunday lunch<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </li></ul><h3>Size</h3><div>So far my experience is ~9 is the minimum; below that the amount of conflicting ideas and experiences, which are important, starts to become an issue. EASTish was still a great peer conference but I think that conference would had gotten even better with a couple more attendees. PEST was right at the minimum limit but I personally did not feel the amount of people negatively impacted the quality of the conversations. Of course the people matter a lot in this case; more experienced people with more diverse experiences having a lot of passion and willingness to debate will likely mean you need fewer attendees and vice versa.<br /><br />My personal upper limit is ~13; beyond that it seems like every single person gets too little time; especially if there are a few very talkative individuals in the group.<br /><br />I would typically aim for 13 and since people will get sick, can't attend in the first place etc. that might make us end up with 11-12 which seems great. Notice that "aim" in this case does not mean "invite". For SWET 8 we had, for instance, at most 18 invitations out simultaneously but ended up with 12 who accepted and in the end 11 attendees as one had to cancel.<br /><br /><h3>Language</h3>I didn't think of language as much of an issue until I attended SWETish, my first peer conference in Swedish. It helps <i>a lot</i> even in a country where people generally speak pretty good English. To me, using the attendees' native language seems to help people "dare" to share more ideas, there seems to be way fewer misunderstandings and the overall flow is much better.<br /><br />But it's a balance as using attendees native language rather than a language more broadly spoken (such as English) will limit who can attend... a problem we have in Sweden as well as several top notch testers here don't speak Swedish or at least not well enough (yet) to attend a fast paced peer conference in Swedish.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Experts</h3>I have huge respect for people like James Bach and Michael Bolton; they always add a ton of value to a conversation about testing and especially given a format like the one typically used at peer conferences. Also seeing how James really helped a bunch of less experienced testers elevate during SWET 7 was awesome... however...<br /><br />In Sweden it impacts the language, which I think is a problem (see Language). We also have a lot of talented testers so giving a spot to an expert will naturally stop someone else from attending and/or give some people less room to express themselves. Finally my experience is it steals a bit of focus as some people, knowingly or not, try too hard to impress the expert and/or not look stupid, hurting their overall performance at the conference.<br /><br />I think inviting someone like James or Michael is amazing if the language is English anyway and/or the group is very experienced (hopefully lowering the "need" to impress) and/or it's hard to attract enough attendees so giving away a spot is not an issue while the expert can act as a motivation for other people to attend... but it's not necessary, you can have an amazing peer conferences without international, or even national, "experts" (e.g. at work, in your city or in you "region")... and I say this from the context: Linköping, Sweden; a city where we have a fairly active and skilled test community, just to make that clear.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Attendees</h3><br />Experience (as in how much "testing" and "software development" the person has experienced/seen/participated in) helps as we base the discussions on experience. But mixing in a few rather inexperienced people can really add some interesting new points of view, as long as these inexperienced people feel safe sharing their thoughts. To summarize: Having a lot of&nbsp; experience helps but lack of it is not a deal breaker.<br /><br />Skill (as in your actual ability to test and understand testing) is, for me, key. Some people might not be known anywhere outside their own company, they might not have much experience neither as testers or in talking about testing but place them in a situation like this and they will provide value, as long as they themselves understand that their skill level is on par with everyone else's.<br /><br />So on the topic of "experts", how much experience and skill does the average attendee need to have to make the peer conference amazing? My personal experience is: "a lot less than many seem to think".<br /><br />Two other interesting attributes to me are passion and (verbal) communication skills.<br /><br />Passion helps a lot but I think that usually comes naturally with wanting to spend a weekend (during which peer conferences or often organized) "just talking about testing"... be careful though about attendees who just think "it'll look good on their resumés" or who want to attend to advertise their own services or hire skilled testers.<br /><br />Communication skills are important in general but do <i>not</i> mistake this for "talkative" attendees. The <a href="http://testingthoughts.com/blog/26">K-card system</a> often used at peer conferences, for instance, can help less talkative people gather their thoughts and help them get into otherwise intense conversation and it can stop people who think in an extroverted way ("while talking") from filling all "the space". Instead, much more important is having attendees who can express something in a concise way, who respect the facilitator/format (primarily who won't speak when they shouldn't) and who can understand when their comments won't help a conversation forward/add value as well as dare to speak up when their comments will.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; <br /><h3>Invitation</h3>My first ever peer conference, SWET 4, had an invite only format. My second had an open invitation (first 15 to sign up), my third had an open invitation (everyone may send in an abstract but a program board will select who will actually get an invitation among those) and later I also attended a "semi invite only" where ~15 people got a few days head start (personal invitation) until an open invitation was sent out. Long story short: You can do it in many different ways.<br /><br />Invite only is great when you know exactly who you want to invite and want control over the group. I also find this to be most efficient as people feel selected and thus prioritze the conference more. It also helps to get those crucial first two or three attendees you need to start a buzz about the conference. There's also a risk that the group becomes too homogeneous; resulting in fewer conflicting ideas/experiences and thus fewer opportunities for people to challenge their own models.<br /><br />Open invitation is great when you don't know the people you want to invite and/or who you want to come. It also relieves you from some "why did she get an invitation but not be" comments and allows you to better talk about the conference before it actually starts. However, it may make it harder to get those first attendees to sign up as they don't know if the group will be good; this can be somewhat helped by e.g. make in open invitation in a large group (e.g. a Meetup group) but where all the members should be good candidates. Also, there's a risk "the right people" will ignore the invitation because they don't understand they qualify or they, for whatever other reason, don't feel like they are the ones you're looking for.<br /><br />I personally prefer invite only, even when I don't get an invite myself. I think that allows the organizers to better create a group that's suitable for the topic at hand... but that's my personal preference.<br /><br />There are like I described in the beginning of this chapter many hybrids between the two but I think that should at least give you and idea. Finding the right format to send out the invitations is pretty straight forward for invite-only (email is pretty good for this) but depends completely on your context if it's an open invitation.<br /><br />In the next part I'll share a checklist and example of what I think you should consider adding to an invitation, so stay tuned for part 2. <br /><br />P.S.<br />For SWET 8 we wrote a personal note in each invitation explaining why we wanted that particular person to attend. This was definitely a win-win:<br /><ul><li>Participants better understood our expectations</li><li>Participants got to feel good about themselves</li><li>It seemed to make more people accept the invitation</li><li>For us, the organizers, it felt good to tell awesome people why they were awesome and it didn't cost much time or effort.</li></ul>I'll provide an example of this in part 2.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Organizers</h3>My preference so far is "as many as possible but not more than 4" (so I guess 3-4). Communication and taking decisions become a problem as soon as you're two but to me it's still worth the benefits (see below) until you're around 4 to 5. Some benefits of having more organizers are:<br /><ol><li>There are simply fewer people (easier) you need to invite to get a full group</li><li>The first person to accept the invitation will join an already established group</li><li>You are much less fragile, if one gets sick/life happens the work can still move forward</li><li>Larger personal network, key to avoid too many like-minded attendees when using invite only</li><li>Greater presence in social medias etc., key when using an open invitation</li><li>You have more options considering location, food etc.</li><li>More people mean each person needs to do less... and I'm lazy</li><li>It's easier to identify who you want to invite since you better know what's missing in the group</li><li>Each organizer can relax more during the conference (less pressure on each)</li><li>A lot less risk as with one sick organizer a peer conference might collapse if only having one or two organizers but it's much easier to handle if 3 or 4. </li></ol>If the organizers can meet in person I think it's a benefit but having a good communication platform (e.g. Slack, Skype etc.) should be sufficient. For SWET 8 the only physical meeting we had together was the evening when we decided we wanted to organize a test conference, everything else was handled via Slack.</div><div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </div><h3>Format</h3>All peer conferences, except EASTish, I've attended have used basically the same format:<br /><ul><li>All attendees prepare ~20 min presentations <i>based on something they've experienced</i>.</li><li>A few attendees will actually present, usually 2-4, for a 1½ day peer conference.</li><li>After an experience report there's a facilitated discussion around that presentation. The discussion will continue until the group feel done with the topic (usually 1-6 hours).</li><li>At some point there's time for lightning talks: ~5 min talks including open season. </li></ul>While I think this is a great format I think other formats could work just as well and potentially even better as they have been explored less.<br /><br />Two suggestions:<br /><ul><li>Discussion topics and dot voting instead of presentations</li><li>Solving an actual problem (doing something); with one or more debriefs</li></ul>At EASTish rather than presentations, attendees got to write down a few topics each (typically in the form of a question or short scenario) and then we dot voted. This basically turned it into a prolonged <a href="http://agilecoffee.com/leancoffee/">lean coffee</a>. There were some cool benefits to this format:<br /><ul><li>People got help/got to discuss the exact topics/questions they were interested in</li><li>Much less time to prepare for attendees</li><li>People who feel uncomfortable to present didn't have that distraction&nbsp;</li></ul>Drawbacks could potentially be more abstract content rather than focus on experience (not my experience from EASTish), if attendees think the format means they don't have to prepare that may negatively impact the topics covered and the presentations (or rather preparation work needed) may act as a useful gate keeper; scaring off people who want to attend for the "wrong reasons". I don't know if any of these drawbacks are actually valid but no matter what; this is a format I would love to try at a peer conference fairly soon; with or without a specific topic/theme, but probably with.<br /><br />The other suggestion is something I have tried at a local meetup where we split into smaller (mixed) groups, tested a specific application and finally spent a long time debriefing our testing including why we did the testing we did, how we organized ourselves, differences between individuals in the team etc. The idea has also been used at at least one peer conference before: <a href="https://thepainandgainofedwardbear.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/pest-4-5-workshop-on-visualization/">PEST 4.5</a>, where they tried to visualize various reports in testing in new and creative ways. I highly recommend reading about PEST 4.5 and ever since I heard about it I've wanted to attend/arrange something similar.<br /><br />If you have ideas on other formats that could be useful, please comment and I'll add them to the post. This is one of the areas where I think we could really take the concept of peer conferences to a whole new level! <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Topic/theme</h3>Peer conferences typically have a topic/theme. This topic/theme is important to keep discussions focused, to get the right people interested in the conference and to help people prepare before the conference.<br /><br />Generally topics should be broad enough to include some diversity but narrow enough so that we can actually get deep into the topic. You have several examples in the Data chapter and if you search for "peer conference software testing" you'll find more. One issue though is that the one liner rarely tells the full story as there are usually specific aspects you're interested in (the one-liner is too broad). To get a better idea what I mean, do check out <a href="https://kristjanuba.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/pest-6-gaining-consciousness/">the invitation for PEST 6</a>, it explains their topic "Gaining&nbsp;consciousness" in a great way.</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><h3>Presentations</h3></div><div>This is relevant if you let people present, skip if you want a different format.</div><div><br /></div><div>First of all, set a clear deadline for when you want attendees to inform you what they want to talk about. Informing you about what they want to talk about is typically done in the form of an abstract (~1 page description of the talk).</div><div><br /></div><div>When you know what they want to talk about establish a speaker order and if possible, set who will facilitate each talk. You can read more about facilitation in <a href="http://testingthoughts.com/blog/26">the story behind K-cards</a>. I'll try to share how I do this in some later part but if I forget, feel free to ask me.</div><div></div><div>If your peer conference looks anything like the ones I've attended you'll likely fit 2-4 presentations into a 1½ day conference, so my advice is to inform the top 5 participants (1 extra to deal with a potential cancellation) and let the rest focus on lightning talks.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also recommend having appointed mentors (typically organizers, e.g. the facilitator) available for each speaker. This can help both experienced and inexperienced speakers present the "right thing" (an actual experience rather than some abstract concept).<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </div><h3>Duration</h3>Every time I've attend 1½ day peer conferences, I feel like half the group says "This sucks, I would like to continue" and the other half says: "I loved this, but now I need some sleep/think for myself" at the end. I don't know if that means the length is perfect or too short (or even too long) but I think it's a sign the length is quite good.<br /><br />However, to avoid stagnation (few new ideas/low energy) when going beyond a day my experience is you need a larger group than ~10 and/or very passionate/skilled/experienced attendees. I for instance felt a bit of stagnation during SWET 7 but not during SWET 4 and SWET 8.<br /><br />I would love to try a full 2 day version but when trying to find a good schedule I run into problems. If you want to avoid missing too much time from work (problem typically for consultants) you could either start by lunch on Friday and end by lunch on Sunday, this would cost one extra night (compared to the typical Saturday morning to Sunday lunch setup) and interfere with working hours especially for people with a long ride to the conference... or you could start Saturday morning but end Sunday evening instead, so you basically end after dinner (say everyone leave ~21:00). This would not cost an extra night but add quite a bit of conference time. Would suck though for people having e.g. a 3h+ drive home (common in Sweden)... Maybe end at say 17:00 or 18:00 and skip the extra dinner as part of the conference... I need to think about this a bit more.<br /><br />The other option: Shorter, means you can cut costs (e.g. no nights) and make it simpler for people to "spare the time". We did this in Linköping (city with ~140k population) and it work out nice. I don't think shorter is an option when attendees have more than say 30mins to the conference but worked great if you want to introduce the concept of peer conferences to a more local group.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Facility and food </h3>Facility and food are actually quite important since attendees will like sit for long durations and be exposed to a lot of information. When selecting a place to host the peer conference, take into consideration: costs, food, quality of the conference area, how much you have to fix yourself and facilities to use in the evenings.<br /><br />For the evenings it seems like you want one of two things: An inspiring area to sit in (beautiful, unusual/creative, enough space etc.) or a relaxing pool area; e.g. a large outdoor jacuzzi... some alcohol (like a beer or two) also helps.<br /><br />Being in an area that's great for taking a relaxed walk or jog also helps in my experience as people need some air after more or less a full day in a conference room. For this, choosing a location that's somewhat remote seems to help; this also has the benefit of helping people to fully commit to the conference as there are fewer distractions.<br /><br />A conference center will greatly up the costs but also significantly lower the amount of work for the organizers. I've attended peer conferences hosted both at conference centers and at someones company, both work equally good to me as long as the organizers, in the latter case, have a good plan for e.g. food, evening location, some energy refillers (=candy/sweets) for the breaks etc.<br /><br /><h3>Schedule</h3><ol><li>Make sure there's a schedule</li><li>Make sure the conference center, food catering etc. agree to your schedule</li><li>Be flexible; not interrupting a good discussion is more important than sticking to the plan</li><li>Schedule regular breaks but remember to not interrupt good discussions (see previous)</li></ol><br /><h3>Evenings</h3>During the evening(s) a lot of important processing, bonding and follow up discussions take place. Make sure there are good facilities for these, that attendees stay (except for the need of sleep or handle social overload) and that there are some "conversation/activity help".<br /><br />"A good place" and "making attendees stay" were described in the "Facility and food" chapter above so let's focus on "conversation/activity help". A lesson learned (for me) during SWET 8 was I think the group benefits from being split up a bit in the evening. One simple example is having one or more tables devoted to e.g. the dice game, coin game, Test Sphere or Set as this will split up the group. If there's a pool area the size of the jacuzzi and the fact not everyone like spending time in a pool will automatically split up the group (not necessarily in an optimal way though, but hopefully good enough).<br /><br />Other examples could be to actually schedule activities in the evening. One way would be to split into smaller groups doing some task, challenge or activity and then, in a simple and informal way, let the groups debrief their results to the rest of the attendees (either in the evening or the next morning). Another would be to set specific topics/tasks at different tables so people can rotate and discuss/do different things with different attendees. Be careful about ambitious plans though; it seems like as long as you provide a somewhat quiet area where people can easily split up into smaller groups themselves; you're basically set... but <i>some help</i> rarely hurts. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><h3>Summary</h3>I think we can take the concept of peer conferences even further if we dare to challenge the current common setup by e.g. trying new formats, longer/shorter conferences, tinkering with the group we invite, try new locations etc. For instance my view of the "minimum viable product" for a peer conference (location, setup etc.) was significantly altered after I had attended PEST 6 which was the first peer conference I attended that wasn't hosted in a fancy conference center. PEST 6 then became important inspiration for how we arranged EASTish here in Linköping.<br /><br /><h3>What's next</h3>Part 2 will be a checklist for organizing a peer conference including an example of an invitation etc. The goal with this post was to help people learn new ways of organizing a peer conference, part 2 will hopefully inspire new people to organize them as they learn it's not that complicated.<br /><br />Part 3 will deal with stuff related to the actual execution of the conference e.g. facilitation, check ins/check outs etc.<br /><br />Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-5037989317186826792017-01-26T22:00:00.002+01:002017-04-25T13:55:44.980+02:00How do you help a team become awesome?<h3>Background</h3>I raised a question, first during a Transpection Tuesday, then in the <a href="http://testsverige.se/">TestSverige Slack chat</a>&nbsp;and finally with all sorts of people I've met; mostly software testers. The question was:<br /><br /><i>How do you help a team become awesome?</i><br /><br />Awesome in this case refers to the kind of team where everyone seems comfortable; they laugh, they communicate, they do silly things but don't seem embarrassed and at the same time they seem productive, motivated and ever evolving with low employee turnover rate. <br /><br />This is my summary of those discussions.<br /><br />Before we start: This is <i style="font-weight: bold;">not</i>&nbsp;specifically for managers, team leads, scrum masters etc.; it's everyone's responsibility and opportunity; anyone can improve a team's "mood".<br /><br /><h3>Personal attributes/attitudes</h3>Personal attributes and attitudes came up a lot during the discussions and they seemed to be the foundation on which you can add helpful activities. All of these work as self reinforcing systems so if you start to set a positive direction others will (eventually) follow. The same applies if you set a negative direction though, as this will start to create a deeper and deeper hole to get out of.<br /><br />So why don't we just act "good"? Because we're imperfect, also known as being human: We're scared, we sense injustice, we want revenge, we get stressed, angry or sad, we're sometime egocentric and so forth.<br /><br />For these reasons there are a few things you need to consider for each of the attributes listed below:<br /><ol><li>It'll take courage to set a new direction and you might get hurt... sometimes a lot</li><li>You'll need to consciously monitor yourself to avoid stress etc. getting the better of you</li><li>You'll need to nurture these attributes in the team primarily by making positive examples visible</li></ol><br />So, without further ado; <b>dare to...</b><br /><ul><li><b>Be vulnerable</b><br /><i>"My uncle used to say that we like people for their qualities but we love them for their defects."</i><br />/John Myers, Hellboy<br /><br />Share your struggles, admit you're scared, open up, allow people to come close and dare to be imperfect (aka. human) in general.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Be transparent</b><br />Share what you know and do, that's relevant to others even though this might make them question your decisions, force you to (temporarily) stop something or even use the information to personally attack you.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Be accountable</b><br />When you've messed up, take responsibility, apologize if appropriate and accept the consequences. Sometimes it's even beneficial to take responsibility for things you weren't responsible for just to get out of a negative loop.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Appreciate</b><br />Make it a habit to register when someone makes something good and tell them this. Make sure you're sincere, empty flatter is not helping. Another nice way to appreciate people is to be a proxy for appreciation e.g. "<i>Just so you know, Bob gave a two minute speech this morning about how great he thought your design was</i>".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Trust people</b><br />People want to do good so do trust them. Sometimes they'll let you down, sometimes you might even get stabbed in the back but keep trusting them. With that being said, of course bad behavior should be dealt with, e.g. see "be sincere" below, but as soon as you stop trusting people you're heading in a bad direction. After all, if you don't trust people they'll never be able to show you they can be trusted starting a rather destructive loop. Also people grow with responsibility. Finally: trusting people does&nbsp;<i>not</i>&nbsp;mean not helping them and/or helping them realize they need help.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Be sincere</b><br />Integrity is sexy; if you think someone, including yourself,&nbsp;is being singled out, is getting unfair criticism or for other reasons aren't treated in a fair way: Speak up! Especially when people aren't given a chance to defend themselves.<br /><br />However, stick to your observations not your interpretations. You don't know for sure if "this person is actively trying to hurt you" but you do know for instance that "the person was told to give you the latest version but you never got it". Sincere != Judgmental, quite the opposite actually.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Care about people</b><br />Caring about people costs very little and the main risk you face is simply to be creepy. Do notice that care does not mean micromanage, instead it's about genuinely trying to create a good situation for others. Carita Jansson Tsiantes gave a lovely example in the TestSverige Slack chat that went something like:<br /><br /><i>When you boil water to make a cup of tea, don't just think about yourself; prepare water for your colleagues who might want tea as well.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</i></li><li><b>Help and support</b><br />This can shortly be summarized as:<br />"If someone has a problem, we have a problem".<br /><br />When asked for help do help and if people express frustration or confusion offer to help. Few people ask questions if they don't need to so rather than telling them "<i>you</i> should know that" try to help them learn how they can find the answer themselves; e.g. by introducing them to the right people, help them get access to some information system, help them get invited to a certain meeting/mailing list etc. An attitude to avoid is "it's not my job to help...". Sure this is sometimes true and you need to work too but then again: help the person help herself rather than ignore the request.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Respect everyone</b><br />No job, role or person is more important than any other. Of course some tasks might be more important to finish but then focus on getting them solved as a team. A key aspect in this is understanding your colleagues' tasks, challenges, frustrations and talents. Andreas Cederholm brought up a great example of how to nurture this attitude:<br /><br /><i>We run team test sessions where the whole team test together. Add some cookies and laughs and it'll work even better.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</i></li><li><b>Try</b><br />If you want to challenge status quo you'll have to try new things. Trying comes with an increased risk of failing and potentially making a fool&nbsp;of yourself but that's necessary and typically a great way to learn. Sometimes trying something you don't really believe in might still be beneficial simply to acknowledge that ideas are appreciated and that you trust in peoples judgement even when you might not agree with them.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Auto forgive</b><br />A psychiatrist once told me a very smart thing about eating disorders and how to react when people have not been able to fight the decease (generally applicable of course):<br /><br /><i>Guess who'll feel worst when this has happens? You? No, the person who just "failed"! You don't need to remind them they "let you down", they'll know and they'll feel terrible about it.</i><br /> <br />People mess up, people take bad decisions, people have bad days. You rarely need to remind them, it's typically much more constructive to say "don't worry, shit happens, let's fix this" and move on. This is also important to nurture previously mentioned attitudes such as "try" and "be transparent"; if people are scared about potential consequences (including reactions) the only thing they'll try is to cover stuff up.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Smile (and laugh)</b><br />Being met with a calm, warm smile is great medicine when you feel down or nervous about some bad news you have to deliver. Smiling also helps at least me stay calm making it a useful tool to manage feelings of anger or frustration.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li></ul>I get the feeling all the attributes/attitudes above point back to some basic principle like "get unhelpful frustration off the table fast; both yours and others" or "always trust in peoples willingness to do good"... but I can't really put it into words. Feel free to help me.<br /><br /><h3>Activities</h3>If the personal attributes/attitudes are the foundation the various activities below represent important tools to speed up the process. Notice though that the activities by themselves are not silver bullets and overusing them or using them at the wrong time can actually have a negative impact. Focus on the list above first!<br /><ul><li><b>Social activities outside of work</b><br />E.g. cook together, sports or boardgames. Activities where everyone is active which is not necessarily true for e.g. your typical after work.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li><b>Quirky things</b><br />E.g. quote book, silly competitions, fun/silly "rules" or internal titles.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li><b>Retrospectives taken seriously</b><br />Not specifically the meeting, can be e.g. a continuous, everyday team reflection activity. All problems brought up are dealt with. Problems are taken seriously even by members not personally impacted.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>One on ones</b><br />Allows people to raise concerns in a safe environment (assuming the person meeting members one on one has earned the members' respect).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li><b>Do each others work</b><br />An example of this is Team Test Sessions where the team test together (suggested by Andreas Cederholm, TestSverige) or move the other direction and try mob programming with testers included. Everyone (product owner, developers, testers, designers...) together attending e.g. courses in security or usability could also help support as this kind of activities creates some common ground. Yet another suggestion is team members meeting customers, accompanying sales/support people etc.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Discussions about values</b><br />E.g. take the "personal attributes/attitudes" list above and talk about each one described. Is this something you want to strive for in the team; can you change something to help nurture this behavior etc. Make it a team goal to improve and nurture the "mood" in the team in general.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li><b>Personal values</b><br />Most of the personal attributes and attitudes require consistency. An activity where you sit down an state you personal "manifest", goals or values can be important. For instance it might be hard to treat yourself in a fair way without some guidelines; either turning you into an asshole demanding more from other than yourself or a "victim" never treating yourself well enough.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li><b>Clarify your attentions to your boss</b><br />If you want to invest quite a bit of time in this, go to your boss, explain your intention and ask for her/his support. Making your boss, or if necessary, your boss' boss, an ally can provide access to several powerful tools (e.g. see "Supporting context" further down).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Symptoms</h3>The list below represent "symptoms" that your team (or even company) is moving in the right direction:<br /><ul><li>People laugh.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>You're met with a smile, even in bad times.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>You know what your colleagues like, both at work and outside. E.g. their hobbies,interests, spare time activities, important life milestones, work and private goals, "hidden talents" and previous experience.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>People talk about hobbies, spare time activities and the other things listed above.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Conflicts are taken seriously and navigated swiftly.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>People blame themselves, if anyone, not others.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>High level of motivation.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>You rarely feel stupid (in a bad way).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Stuff that "should be done", gets done.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Ideas are taken seriously, people try new things and experiments are run frequently.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>People admit mistakes and challenges early as they're not afraid of the consequences.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>People meet outside work because they want to, not because they feel obligated to.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Few taboos.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Very limited "bullshit" or backtalk in the team.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>You know what's happening in the team and rarely get "unpleasant surprises".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><div><h3>Supporting context</h3></div><div>These things might be hard for you to actively influence but be aware as they do seem to have an important impact:</div><div><ul><li><b>Reasonable pace</b><br />People need time to do supporting, long term activities and when under immense pressure/unreasonably high pace this is quickly forgotten or down prioritized. These lost activities help you become faster tomorrow than today meaning they're long term, multiplicative&nbsp;investments.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Stable organization</b><br />Adding or losing team members can in worse case force the team to start over in their attempts to be awesome. If you're the manager; try not to change teams that work great together even though it might be tempting!<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li><b>Ethics</b><br />A product you believe in and feel ethically good working with, helps. The same goes for the company's actions: If it feels like the company acts in an ethical way that seems to help people "invest" in the company in a way that's helpful.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Good social (especially empathic) skills</b><br />Having team members who like the social aspect and are good at nurturing positive social behavior (not to be mixed up with people "talking a lot") helps.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Previous friends</b><br />Not always true as the previous friends may create a "sub team" within the team but seems to sometimes help as the friends most likely have a healthy relationship towards each others which can spread.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Management accepting problems</b><br />Having a manager/management asking for "solutions, not problems" can suppress people's willingness to bring attention to important problems or make the company accept suboptimal solutions. The intention to focus on what's constructive is not bad but the message delivered can be. It's of course okey to ask the person if they have any ideas themselves on how to solve the problems they bring up but don't make the solutions a "requirement".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><b>Culture awareness</b><br />Manager/management that genuinely cares about the company culture and how to improve it helps.<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li></ul></div><div><ul></ul><div><h3>Misc</h3></div></div><div>Some "quotes", all loosely translated from Swedish:</div><div><ul><li><i>"I ask myself: How can I make this person feel like I want her to feel?"</i><br />Carita Jansson Tsiantes<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li><i>"It's professional to be personal"</i><br />David Högberg<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li><i>"It's not unprofessional to have fun but to do something in a boring way when it can be achieved just as well in a fun way, that's unprofessional"</i><br />Klas Hallberg, from his book: <a href="http://www.bokus.com/bok/9789197913348/ycdbralai-arbeta-mindre-fa-mer-gjort-you-cant-do-business-running-around-like-an-idiot/">YCDBRALAI</a>&nbsp;(Swedish).</li></ul><div>Finally a comment I didn't know where to place:</div></div><div><ul><li>"If I say I can't talk about it, you know and accept this". Transparency is important but some information you mustn't share for various reasons. However, sometimes the mere knowledge you know some secret information can be enough to help people prepare for a big change, avoid unpleasant surprises etc. One example could be: "We will get a new boss, I know who it's most likely gonna be but I can't tell you until papers are signed; however, I can tell you I think this person will do a terrific job, so don't worry too much about it".<br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><h3>Conclusion</h3></div><div>It makes perfect sense but didn't really occur to me when I first asked the question:</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Making a team awesome is basically the same thing as making any relationship awesome and it starts with you and all the small decisions you make every day.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Good luck!</div>Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219026541353044094.post-72112731779328191432016-11-29T08:34:00.002+01:002017-04-25T14:02:37.813+02:00Learning about learning by teachingI've undergone a tough education in software testing:<br /><ul><li>15 months long</li><li>Tests 3 times a week, 7 hours each and in front of a crowd</li><li>If you skip a test you'll have to do it again, typically within 5 days.</li><li>The expected level of competence is: "Good enough to teach others"</li><li>Little or no chance of "redo:s", you better do it right the first time, every time</li></ul>In other words: <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2015/03/testing-education-curriculum.html">I've been teaching a class in software testing</a>.<br />The intense experience of teaching testing like this has of course taught me tons of things and with this post I want to share the positive effects this particular job had on my own learning. Each benefit (of teaching) comes with a "why I find it useful" and "how you can apply this knowledge in a more everyday context".<br /><h3>Benefit: Curriculum</h3><h4>Why?</h4>I'm not a fan of committing to a plan, especially not when it comes to my learning. However, the education's curriculum did force me to look into many topics/material I would otherwise had skipped due to laziness, lack of interest or lack of understanding (not thinking it was useful to me). Some of these have definitely made me a more complete/skilled tester such as test framing, deeper understanding of test techniques and a better understanding of bias.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Use&nbsp;<a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2015/03/testing-education-curriculum.html">this existing curriculum</a>&nbsp;in your own self-education.</li><li>Complete the <a href="http://www.testingeducation.org/BBST/">BBST courses</a>&nbsp;(just for reference: I haven't done this myself)</li><li>Create your own list of topics and focus on these in whatever order you prefer.<br />Important though: It's easy to do this in a shallow way, go deep to learn something new!<br />Some good resources to guide you:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/wp-content/files/James_Bach_Self-Education_for_Testers2.pdf">James Bach - Self-education</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.satisfice.com/presentations/certified.pdf">James Bach - My view of testing professionalism</a>&nbsp;(especially page 7) and <a href="http://www.huibschoots.nl/wordpress/?p=2466">Huib Schoots - A road to awesomeness</a>.</li></ul><h3>Benefit: Go deep</h3><h4>Why?</h4>I've read tons of articles, watched hundreds of hours of presentations/videos and spent a lot of time practically practicing testing. However, I often end up looking at topics in a quite shallow way especially when I find the topic a bit boring (may still be very useful). When you are to talk about a specific topic for just a couple of hours, you're okey, there's little "need" to go deep. When you have to prepare several weeks of study material though, that's a whole different beast! Being forced to go deep into topics has enables me to better question, improve, explain and argue for the various choices I make (for example why I chose to place my testing mission at the top in a certain status report).<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dig deep into fundamental questions e.g. what is testing, why do we test, what is an oracle etc.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;">Look into related topics. Say you want to improve your written reporting skills then look into e.g. rhetoric, design, how people read printed and digital documents, how people interpret colors or tutorials for your word processor/mind mapping tool/whatever. The point is: don't limit yourself to articles specifically about test reporting.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;">Set a "topic of the month" and try to become as skilled as you can in this topic. Don't stop because you feel "done", continue beyond that.</span></li></ul><h3>Benefit: Giving feedback</h3><h4>Why?</h4>An important part of my job is helping students understand what they do well and what they might need to improve. To do this I have to observe and analyze what they've done, what they think they've accomplished, what actually made them accomplish what they've accomplished etc., all this I have to do rather thorough in order to be able to explain it to them. This helps me create an understanding that is beyond "do this or do that because it works better".<br />An example of this is when grading various assignments and projects as students, at least on a general level, need to understand what they did good and what they would had to do to get a better grade. If they get the highest grade they need to know why, so they both know what to continue doing and what to improve. As testers we need these kinds of observation and communication skills all the time when working with developers, project managers etc.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Study your own testing and try to explain why it was good and how it could be improved.</li><li>One area where I've found this pretty easy to practice (can't prove that the practice translates to other parts of testing but I think it does) is watching presentations (e.g. YouTube) and try to give feedback to the presenter. What specifically did she/he do good and bad?</li><li>Study other testers and try to figure out why you find them good/bad testers. Be as specific as you can.</li><li>When testing, try to find positive and negative patterns: "The log entries are (almost) always relevant and well described making my work so much easier" or "The UI components often have poor vertical alignment".</li></ul><h3>Benefit: Teaching</h3><h4>Why?</h4>Teaching in itself is a great technique for learning. You have to rephrase the content to match your own language, you hear yourself speak about the topic and you get questions pinpointing gaps in your understanding and/or explanation.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Do teach colleagues and friends about the various topics you've practiced.</li><li>Write an educational article/blog post about what you've learned (you don't need to publish it to anyone to still get many of the benefits).</li><li>Talk at a local test meetup and if there isn't one, arrange one.</li></ul><h3>Benefit: Peer</h3><h4>Why?</h4>Working with Maria Kedemo and Martin Nilsson have allowed me to get feedback on the ideas I'm about to share, feedback on my interpretation of various topics and someone to speak with when I feel stuck. It has also allowed me to learn from their knowledge and experience of testing.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Speak with a colleague</li><li>Join a local tester meetup</li><li>Go to a test conference</li><li>Join the active community on Twitter</li><li>Try your own version of Transpection Tuesday (<a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2013/09/transpection-tuesdays.html">my post</a>, Helena's post: <a href="https://thepainandgainofedwardbear.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/the-roaring-success-of-the-first-ever-transpection-tuesday/">1</a>, <a href="https://thepainandgainofedwardbear.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/transpection-tuesdays-still-going-strong/">2</a>)</li><li><a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2014/07/peers.html">More ideas...</a></li></ul><h3>Benefit: Observe testing</h3><h4>Why?</h4>I've spent a significant amount of time both observing testers test (as a group), observed testers test (the actual testing done by an individual) and listened to testers speak about their testing. All three exposed me to new ideas and made me question my own approach. It's also interesting because you get to see a specific problem solved in many different ways which helps you understand what actually impacts the result; e.g. "what is the common denominator in these solutions, is there anything I can learn from that?" or "they all had different ways to setup but all ended up with the same solution, which setup worked best/most efficient and can I learn something from that?".<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Pair testing</li><li>Look at other testers' notes, reports etc.</li><li>Do call for and attend <a href="http://www.satisfice.com/sbtm/debrief_checklist.htm">debriefs</a> no matter if you use <a href="http://www.satisfice.com/articles/sbtm.pdf">the concept of test sessions or not</a></li><li>Offer to review things</li><li>Volunteer to mentor/coach another tester; this will enable you to observe another tester as well as get several of the other benefits mentioned in this post</li></ul><h3>Benefit: Consistency</h3><h4>Why?</h4>To sit down and learn about various topics every day for over a year has definitely added some welcomed consistency to my self-education.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Create a routine, such as the already mentioned <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2013/09/transpection-tuesdays.html">Transpection Tuesdays</a>.</li><li>Follow a <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2015/03/testing-education-curriculum.html">curriculum</a></li><li>Create your own <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2012/06/skill-development-list-explanation.html">skill development list</a></li></ul><h3>Benefit: Questioning basic assumptions</h3><h4>Why?</h4>Explaining fundamental concepts is incredibly hard but rewarding! As an experienced tester I take quite a few things for granted and explaining concepts built on these assumptions to someone without experience lead to wonderful questions like "but why do we need testing at all", "what does it actually mean to test something", "why can testers find bugs if developers who know the code can't (as in why do bugs happen at all)?". Answering these questions without being able to rely on "experience based assumptions" has led to more than a few epiphanies (and a lot of frustration of course).<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Talk testing with people having a different frame of reference (developers, management etc.)</li><li>Talk testing with people who don't work in the industry; for instance try to explain what you do to a relative.</li><li>Teach new testers at the company or teach e.g. developers in testing</li><li>Talk testing with new, inexperienced testers</li></ul><h3>Benefit: Ask yourself "how do you train this skill"</h3><h4>Why?</h4>Reading and listening is nice but sometimes you need to actually practice skills to be able to learn them. When teaching I've spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out exercises pinpointing a specific skill I want the students to practice or just exercises/projects in general helping students practice relevant testing skills. This experience help me now both when less experienced testers want help learning a skill, when I try to explain/teach something and when I try to teach myself something.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>After e.g. a blog post, YouTube video or book; think about how you can incorporate the new concepts you've just learned about into your own work.</li><li>Try various exercises and try to replicate various experiments yourself; such as: <a href="http://thesocialtester.co.uk/what-can-you-do-with-a-brick/">1</a>, <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2014/11/exercise-critical-thinking-in-software.html">2</a>, <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2012/10/practice-1-note-taking.html">3</a>, <a href="http://erik.brickarp.se/2013/07/observation-exercise-experiment.html">4</a>; to help kickstart your brain.</li><li>Whenever you're asked to explain something; try to come up with an exercise or experiment that helps demonstrating whatever you are to explain.</li></ul><h3>Benefit: Getting questions</h3><h4>Why?</h4>I've already touched upon this but getting questions from the students on anything that's not clear to them is incredibly challenging but rewarding. It has helped me realize flaws in my own understanding, forced me to question my own assumptions and challenged me to find new ways to explain certain concepts in.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Explain concepts to others</li><li>Ask for feedback</li><li>Ask questions yourself; this both inspires others and help you ask questions "to yourself"</li><li>When reading/watching e.g. a book, presentation (video) or article; pause periodically and ask yourself: "what did I just read/watch and what of that is unclear/seems strange to me?"</li></ul><h3>Benefit: Having the time and expectation to learn</h3><h4>Why?</h4>When in the middle of deadlines, huge backlogs and conflicting priorities it's easy to forget learning. Having the explicit expectation to learn new things has been an interesting experience and I feel confident saying I leave the teacher assignment as a much more competent tester. Spending as much time as I did on learning is not possible in most working contexts but I think "expectation to learn" is the key concept here as it helps making it happen at all.<br /><h4>How?</h4><ul><li>Ask your boss: "How much time am I expected (or at least allowed) to spend on education?"</li><li>When doing backlog grooming (if you do this); add learning stories as dependencies e.g. "before we implement the new video player we need to learn a bit about streaming, video formats and performance testing related to streaming". If you end up never having time for these learning dependencies, try timeboxing them to make the expected time invested in learning more explicit.</li><li>Remember learning is a fundamental part of testing.</li><li>Differentiate between the learning that's necessary to solve your current task and learning with more long term, strategic value (e.g. learning more about testing in general, about web security, about test planning etc.). The "strategic learning" is often important to keep you and the company progressing but can easily be forgotten if put in the same "budget" as the task solving learning.</li></ul><h3>Final word</h3>I removed several additional benefits I had initially included just to finally get this blog post published (it's been stuck in "draft" for over a year) so just to be clear: You can learn so much more about learning by teaching; this is just a mere introduction.Erik Brickarphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14683331276140830508noreply@blogger.com0