How Collaborative Play & Games can enable Human Resources to better support Business Agility
Several years ago, I began exploring ways to incorporate collaborative practices and activities familiar within the agile community to improve the effectiveness of activities conducted by Human Resources that impact agile teams. What started in 2014 as an optional way for team members to get additional performance review feedback, has grown into a methodology and series of collaborative activities (or do I dare say “games”) to gather feedback and assess necessary skills to improve performance reviews, peer-to-peer feedback and even improve job interviews. Establishing and growing the World Wide Technology innovation practice for the last 3 years, we have hired all staff within a global consulting team using a series of collaborative games that determine if a candidate’s career needs, skills & desires align to the job at hand and most importantly provide a means to assess how well a candidate is able to collaborate with other team members when engaging in knowledge work. Within our innovation team, we use collaborative practices such as story telling, metaphor, and strategy games to exchange constructive feedback and build trust between team members, their customers, and their manager. Stated simply, use of collaborative play and games to enable feedback and provide coaching to peers, managed staff (direct reports), and even senior managers can significantly improve the mindfulness and understanding of feedback/coaching provided while also significantly increasing the psychological safety associated with such performance management activities and discussions. Join us to review what we have learned on our journey to introduce collaborative practices and play to better align Human Resource activities to be supportive of the agile mindset.
Outline/Structure of the Keynote
Session Background
If invited, this will be a NEW overview style presentation created for the Business Agility conference based upon prior work / experience done in this area going back to 2014.
The intent of the presentation will be to share activities we’ve embraced at World Wide Technology that range from the simple (transparent and open peer feedback via collaboration frameworks) to complex (job interviews involving collaborative play) – once shared, this variety of experience should enable conversation regarding what organizations can do to best enable their people (and the activities that are used to assess and/or qualify people) to align to the agile mindset.
Presentation materials that will be created for the Business Agility conference will highlight many of the collaborative activities / games used to support Human Resource activities going back to 2014; however, limited presentation time (20 minutes) won’t allow for an active game play within the session – I will have game supplies with me in the event people at the Business Agility conference are interested in experiencing some of the methods presented outside of the scheduled conference sessions.
20 Minute Presentation – to be created for Business Agility 2018 . . .
- 3 Minutes – Problem statement – How do traditional Human Resource activities challenge the agile mindset?
- 4 Minutes – Recipes, practices and intent/why for improving peer feedback using collaborative activities & games – examples include: Personal Speedboat, Story Telling, Marketplace of Me
- 4 Minutes – Recipes, practices and intent/why for coaching up and providing feedback to your manager – examples include: Structured Feedback Cards, Key Business Concepts
- 4 Minutes – Collaborative practices and games focused on building trust – examples include: Trust Poker, Hot Seat, Feedback Cards
- 5 Minutes – Incorporating collaboration & strategy game into job interviews – examples include: Skills & Aptitude Alignment (skills forecast), Dream Job, Teamwork & Improvement Drills
Participants at the Business Agility conference will receive a reference sheet for materials (recipes & practices) presented to enable follow up and seed follow on discussion in the conference’s working / collaborative sessions.
Learning Outcome
- Participants will learn how collaborative activities and games can improve traditional Human Resources facilitated activities such as job interviews and performance reviews to be supportive of the agile mindset.
- Attendees will learn a collection of collaborative practices and games that can be used to gather feedback from their peers, build trust between team members, and engage more effectively with their manager to receive open and constructive feedback.
- Participants will see examples of how including collaborative practices and play can better assess job fit and future performance moreso than traditional interview questions on past experiences and career aspirations.
Target Audience
Those interested in learning how to make Human Resource activities more supportive of business agility and the agile mindset.
Prerequisites for Attendees
None
Video
Links
Related Links & References:
- Original concept video for collaborative peer feedback from Fall 2014 – https://youtu.be/9FMO8B6VCZg
- Presentation at the Innovation Games Summit on using Collaboration Frameworks for peer feedback and performance review – December 2014 - https://youtu.be/h5Xuwqt9hFk
- Presentation on “Conversation Modeling” to improve performance reviews at Agile 2016 – July 2016 – http://sched.co/6ebk
- Presentation on “Interview Games” to use games & collaboration to hire great people at Agile 2017 – August 2017 - http://sched.co/ATWZ
Past presentation references at multiple agile conferences – recent highlights include:
- Agile2017 – Interview Games – Session Link - http://sched.co/ATWZ
- Agile2017 – Measuring Learning via a Dojo Dashboard – Session Link - http://sched.co/ATWx
- Big Apple Scrum Day 2017 – May 2017 – Let’s Be Awesome 2.0 – https://www.slideshare.net/JasonTice/lets-be-awesome-big-apple-scrum-day-2017-game-objective-guide
- AATC 2017 – Coordinator of the Learning Lounge (self-organized learning area / open space) - http://sched.co/AK62
- Agile Games 2017 – Conference Closing Session – Ideas to Actions - https://www.slideshare.net/JasonTice/ideas-to-actions-overview
- Agile2016 – Let’s Be Awesome – Session Video - https://youtu.be/gVoZhe6_PDw
- Agile2016 – Let’s Be Awesome – Session Link - http://sched.co/6eeD
- Agile2016 – Conversation Modeling for Performance Reviews – Session Link – http://sched.co/6ebk
- AATC 2016 – Coordinator of Fun Over Study (self-organized learning area / open space) – Webcast - https://youtu.be/vAnWmABdVTY
- Agile2015 – FireDice (Flow Simulation) – Session Link - http://sched.co/36R3
Industry involvement & event organization / facilitation:
- Regular contributor to the “ThisAgileLife” podcast – www.thisagilelife.com
- Held Agile Coach Camp US in October 2016 in St. Louis, MO
- Held multiple public open space conferences in the St. Louis, MO area
- Past Track Chair for the annual Agile Alliance conference (2015 Help Track & 2016 Learning Track)
- Program Coordinator to the annual Agile Games conference in Boston, MA (2015-2018)
- Organizer for the Agile Midwest Conference in St. Louis, MO (2016-2018)
Susan Basterfield
Ashok Mohan
Deepti Jain
Prudence Wisdom
Tatiana Feitosa Correa Lima
