We don't need no education
Hola! A long fun weekend is coming! So I am preparing myself with a big cup of coffee!
Education is important. I assume that we agree in this and I don't have to bring valid reasons on why this is important. So, sticking to the point, there are several methods:
- Self-teaching. Reading, writing, webinars, researching, attending meetups for instance... the world is not enough!
- "Microwave-teaching". While working is another way if you are under a company that has a nice "try" and "fail" culture in the atmosphere. "We can make the invest of trying something that nobody knows what it is, but we can assume the loss in learning and trying, no matter if it doesn't help us". The action of stimulating your creativity is indeed a success by definition although it is just you alone in the dark.
- Training (external or internal). No discussion on how useful they are. Just a comment. You may have spent your last 8-10 years on a topic that you are quite experienced. However, you are internal! You will find more difficulties to reach people's hearts than an external. Unavoidable!
- Attending conferences. This is overall, the most satisfying activity from all the possible ones and I will tell you why:
This year I had the opportunity to do it. I attended Agile Cambridge 2014.
These were 3 days of continuous learning back in October 2014 and to sum-up we found:
- Variety of topics/areas discussed. From how to get better with distributed teams, and how to scale scrum, to how to resolve conflicts between people or how playing makes team great!
- Variety of experiences. "We can measure how many builds we did last year, how many were successful, anything.. so we can observe, inspect and improve". This is an example. So the main driver to attend the conference was to bring something back to your company and you can feel in the environment how other experiences can make your team better! It wakes you up. We should implement this!
- Stimulates the creativity (indeed) and my brain. Surrounded by so many experienced people, having interactive sessions, informal chats, lunches... "That idea is amazing, I have never thought of something like that.".
What happens normally in companies is that we demand more education on a certain area. Training sessions are quite focused on a particular area since we try to resolve a problem via education on that solution. "We are doing Scrum so the team needs Scrum Training." The difference from a conference is that the latter is not company-oriented. A conference will bring a bunch of ideas, thoughts, mechanisms to think and approach problems which are not necessary related to your company now. What about the future? What if you were wrong in addressing the solution in the first place? Would you like to miss the outside influence?
To me this represented like a huge Big-Bang, a big change, Kaikaku. Everyday was an amazing surprise.
I am looking forward to attending my next one.
Education is important. I assume that we agree in this and I don't have to bring valid reasons on why this is important. So, sticking to the point, there are several methods:
- Self-teaching. Reading, writing, webinars, researching, attending meetups for instance... the world is not enough!
- "Microwave-teaching". While working is another way if you are under a company that has a nice "try" and "fail" culture in the atmosphere. "We can make the invest of trying something that nobody knows what it is, but we can assume the loss in learning and trying, no matter if it doesn't help us". The action of stimulating your creativity is indeed a success by definition although it is just you alone in the dark.
- Training (external or internal). No discussion on how useful they are. Just a comment. You may have spent your last 8-10 years on a topic that you are quite experienced. However, you are internal! You will find more difficulties to reach people's hearts than an external. Unavoidable!
- Attending conferences. This is overall, the most satisfying activity from all the possible ones and I will tell you why:
This year I had the opportunity to do it. I attended Agile Cambridge 2014.
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| Yummy! |
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| The Odd Couple |
- Variety of experiences. "We can measure how many builds we did last year, how many were successful, anything.. so we can observe, inspect and improve". This is an example. So the main driver to attend the conference was to bring something back to your company and you can feel in the environment how other experiences can make your team better! It wakes you up. We should implement this!
- Stimulates the creativity (indeed) and my brain. Surrounded by so many experienced people, having interactive sessions, informal chats, lunches... "That idea is amazing, I have never thought of something like that.".
What happens normally in companies is that we demand more education on a certain area. Training sessions are quite focused on a particular area since we try to resolve a problem via education on that solution. "We are doing Scrum so the team needs Scrum Training." The difference from a conference is that the latter is not company-oriented. A conference will bring a bunch of ideas, thoughts, mechanisms to think and approach problems which are not necessary related to your company now. What about the future? What if you were wrong in addressing the solution in the first place? Would you like to miss the outside influence?
To me this represented like a huge Big-Bang, a big change, Kaikaku. Everyday was an amazing surprise.
I am looking forward to attending my next one.
Do we or don't we need education?
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