Learn and Lead

I have been reading about agile development lately. One of the key components of agile development is team structuring. Typically in large organizations, content development teams are organized either as functional teams or as project teams with larger organizations typically having functional structures in place. Agile methodology suggests a more project structure. Teams work dedicatedly for the project, preferably located close to each other.

Having seen both functional team structures and project team structures, I believe both structures have their inherent strengths.

Advantage Project Teams

• Projects can be completed faster. Decisions are taken faster since the complete team is working only on one project (or a few dedicated projects). There are fewer formal hand offs between functions and therefore fewer opportunities for communication gaps. There is lesser waiting time for functional resources to be available. There are fewer review/approval cycles for each function.
• Project teams are generally more cohesive. There is better understanding between members of the project teams. The team is more aligned to the project. Functional teams are also cohesive but more towards the function than the project.

Advantage Functional Teams

• Utilization is better in functional team structures. This is specially so in larger teams. Functional experts can move from project to project faster without having to wait for one project to complete. They don’t need to be idle while waiting for client feedback, SME inputs, or any anything like that. Number of people required in each function is better optimized and you have lesser redundancy in terms of people required.
• Functional teams are more scalable. Critical skilled resources when available in a functional pool can be better utilized across the projects. Also training and development of new hires is probably easier in a functional team.
• Provides individuals with growth opportunities in functional areas. This is more so in the Indian context. Typically growth is seen as change in designation, preferably when the designation has ‘Manager’ in it. Functional team structures provide more opportunities for individuals to be functional managers. Growth in project teams is fairly hierarchical. You need to become a project manager to ‘grow’.

Both team structures have their inherent strengths. The trick is to leverage the strengths of each team structure and see if best of both is possible. Which one you choose depends on many factors, like the size of the organization, skill level available, maturity of people, scalability required etc.

Whether you chose project team structure or functional team structure, in both cases there are some common things that are a must to have a successful team/project:

• Common goal, vision
• Frequent and open communication
• Mutual respect for each function
• Good project planning and tracking
• Workflow tools (more so in larger projects)

Additional reading:

• Sumeet Moghe: Of Project Spaces and Project Managers, Agile Re-explained
• Harold Jarche: Instructional Design Needs More Agility
• Jay Cross: Agile Instructional Design
• Wikipedia: Agile software development

I came across this video of Thiagi speaking at UMBC Training Forum. This is a longish video, about an hour and 40 minutes, but thoroughly enjoyable. Thiagi is at is irreverent best as always. Definitely worth the time to go through the video fully.

Here’re some of the things he talks about in the video.

What is contextualized learning? Learning that takes place in the real world to achieve objectives with real world relevance. He gives the example of a course with a mid-term evaluation as a non-contextual learning example.

Content is irrelevant. People Google for content now and don’t go to training for content. Essential thing for Instructional Designers is to create ACTIVITIES and not content. An absolutely great example of leadership training. Must go through the video to enjoy the narration. Another great discussion on creating training on preventing sexual harassment courses in the later part of the video.

Consistency is bad. All adult learners have individual difference. So each learner has to be taught differently and to teach each learner consistently in the same manner is stupid. Each learner has to be taught differently. Trainers must be flexible (read inconsistent) while training.

Presentation skills are not the same as training skills. Presentation skills focus on the presenter. Focus should be on the audience.

Resistance is futile. What is “technology” (e.g. Second Life) to us is a way of life to the new generation. Participants today are free agent learners, they will learn on the job, on the go.

The whole baloney about need analysis and various other types of analysis in the ADDIE model is another dysfunctional area. By the time you finish analysis, content is obsolete.

Know your objective. Get your participants involved. Show respect towards your participants. Balance between content and audience.

Design training obsessively compulsively. Time to get ready for today’s session – my entire lifetime.

Tongue in cheek humour: Those who can, do it. Those who cannot, teach. Those who cannot even teach become instructional designers :-P

A four door model approach to elearning. Opening screen has four doors – Library, Playground, Café and Torture Chamber. Go through any door in any sequence and any number of times, except the Torture Chamber though which the learner can go through only twice. The Torture chamber has real life assignments, e.g. create a real proposal about a new client and get it evaluated by the sales manager. The Library is the content library that contains support articles, case studies, and job aids etc. for the course. Playground contains games that measure your mastery of technical terms and concepts learned in the Library. Cafe has open ended question, chat rooms, ask an expert, various other Web 2.0 tools to collaborate with others.

How does one do rapid elearning design for application training? Use inexpensive tools to take screen shots and add narration. Take a video of a SME coaching a learner on how to use the application. Final test is to ask the learners to use the application.

Most important leadership principle – people don’t what you ask you ask them to do, they do what you do!