Cultivating Space for Learning
Our understanding of how humans learn has grown tremendously in the last 20 years. Providing an environment in which people have room to think, and the safety to experiment and adapt is key. We will review fundamental concepts of neuroscience and how they intersect with organizational behavior. We will also review how the agile mindset takes advantage of these concepts. From there, we can begin to envision the conditions that will provide the greatest opportunity for learning and continuous improvement. Together, we will share ideas on how we can start to transform our environments into safe spaces where teams can grow and thrive.
Outline/Structure of the Workshop
We know so much more about how our brains take in, interpret and retain information than ever before. Yet we still rely on outdated notions of how learning works, and what it looks like. For example, I often hear my management clients lament that their enterprise training budgets are not robust enough to the support the education opportunities they would like to offer to their teams. Yet, they deter day-to-day learning by not supporting teams with encouraging the mental space to think, discuss, and experiment. In this talk, we will explore what it means to create psychologically safe spaces where teams can question, experiment and explore, as well as incremental changes they can make to help create those environments.
Session schedule:
05: Introduce myself and my passion for neuroscience, organizational behavior and fostering learning
05: Meet the attendees to understand what challenges they are facing in cultivating learning environments
10: Experience what learning looks like - individual exercise in learning a new skill, with group discussion to identify how we work through new/unfamiliar concepts
15: Understand what learning in a knowledge work environment looks like, and how an agile mindset can suppor an environment of learning
10: Reflect on our current environments - table discussions about what opportunities for learning we are taking advantage of in our workspaces already
10: Recognize negative spaces, e.g., environments which deter growth
10: Reflect on current environments - table discussions about what we are doing to get in the way of learning
10: Bridge the gap – table discussions to identify where we have gaps in our environments and define initial incremental steps we can take to improve
10: Summary of changes that can be taken back to workplace immediately following conference
05: Wrap-Up/Final Thoughts
Learning Outcome
- Understand how we learn, and what learning looks like in the workplace
- Recognize organizational infrastructures that are impeding learning and experimentation
- Design environments that support learning and continuous improvement
Target Audience
Anyone interested in growing and working in a learning environment
Prerequisites for Attendees
None
Links
You may see me co-present and experience report on self-organizing teams here:
https://www.agilealliance.org/resources/sessions/yes-you-can-let-your-teams-self-organize/
You may hear me participate in the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast here:
https://scrum-master-
You may hear me participate in the Agile for Humans podcast here:
https://ryanripley.com/afh-076-agile-2017-with-faye-thompson-markus-silpala-and-amitai-schleier/
Prior speaking engagements:
2018 Scrum Gathering South Africa
2018 Agile Midwest
2018 Agile2018
2018 Cincinnati Day of Agile
2018 Music City Agile
2018 Agile DevOps East
2018 Agile Maine Day
2018 CodepaLOUsa
2017 Columbus IIBA Professional Development Day
2017 AgileAfrica - Keynote & Track Session
2017 CodepaLOUsa - Workshop & Track Sessions
2017 CodeMash
2016 Business Analyst World Chicago
2016 Columbus IIBA Monthly Evening Meeting
2016 Better Software Conference West
2016 AgileIndy Conference
2015 Central Ohio PMI Professional Development Day
2015 Columbus IIBA Professional Development Day
2015 Columbus IIBA Monthly Evening Meeting
2015 AgileIndy Conference
2015 CodeMash
2013 Columbus IIBA Professional Development Day
schedule Submitted 4 months ago
Recent Activities
- description Naresh Jain updated proposal Cultivating Space for Lea... 4 Timesschedule 3 months ago
- verified_user Program Committee accepted proposal - "Cultivating Space for Lea..." by Faye Thompsonschedule 3 months ago
- reply Faye Thompson replied "Tathagat -- Thank you for..." on the comment Thanks for your proposal...schedule 3 months ago
Public Feedback
Thanks for your proposal Faye. No doubt, how is learn is an extremely important and yet unfortunately quite frozen in outdated ways. I am sure a session such a yours would be very relevant and useful for attendees.
We have had several workshop proposals, and we are trying to finalize the same. What others ways coudl you deliver the key meesages. For example, instead of a 90min workshop, would you be able to deliver the key messages but shorter version of exercises in a 45min talk that has some interaction? I am trying to understand to explore any/all ways to build a right agenda for the conference.
Tathagat --
Thank you for the feedback. Yes - I have presented several versions of this material, in varying lengths, including a 45-minute talk. My presentation style is rather conversational, and I try to encourage interaction and sharing among attendees.
Within that time box, the schedule looks more like what I have outlined below. I use facilitation techniques that encourage each attendee to share individually, then in small groups, and then together as one large group. In this way, we can share as many ideas as possible and learn from each other in this short time.
05: Introduce myself and my passion for neuroscience, organizational behavior and fostering learning
05: Meet the attendees to understand what challenges they are facing in cultivating learning environments
15: Understand what learning in a knowledge work environment looks like, and how an agile mindset can support an environment of learning
10: Reflect on our current environments - table discussions about what opportunities for learning we are taking advantage of in our workspaces already, and what in our environments might deter growth
05: Summary of changes that can be taken back to workplace immediately following conference
05: Wrap-Up/Final Thoughts
Please let me know if you have any other questions or would like additional detail.
Thanks,
Faye