January 15, 2025 • 37 mins
Unlock the secrets to thriving in the AI era with the help of Victoria Morgan-Smith, a respected organizational coach and consultant. She joins me to unravel the transformative power of shared learning in today's dynamic work environments. Discover how innovative platforms like internal conferences and hackathons can create fertile ground for ideas to flourish, moving beyond the limitations of traditional training methods. As organizations strive to keep pace with rapid technological advancements, fostering a culture of experimentation and collaboration becomes imperative.
We also explore how to make conferences more inclusive for introverts, ensuring that everyone has a chance to shine. Introverts can often feel sidelined in typical conference settings, but by offering diverse participation options such as quiet spaces and structured formats, their unique perspectives can enrich discussions and outcomes. Whether through prepared talks, panel discussions, or insightful note-taking, the inclusion of all personality types enhances both the conference experience and organizational innovation.
Finally, navigate the world of AI-driven organizations by understanding different engineering archetypes. Identifying these mindsets helps in tailoring engagement strategies. Learn the importance of fostering shared learning across diverse teams through regular internal events and open conversations. Victoria shares practical insights from her co-authored guidebook on organizing successful internal tech conferences, offering listeners a roadmap to nurture collaboration and drive growth in the AI space.
Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriamorgansmith/
Read Victoria's book, "Internal Tech Conferences : Accelerate Multi-team Learning":
https://www.amazon.com/Internal-Tech-Conferences-Accelerate-Multi-team-ebook/dp/B08PDS9KMQ
Follow us on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-within
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
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(00:29):
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That's impactagilityco.
Well, welcome back to the AgileWithin.
This is your host, as always,mark Metz.
I hope you're having anabsolutely fantastic day out
there.
I have a guest for today'sepisode, and her name is
Victoria Morgan-Smith.
Victoria, welcome to the AgileWithin.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, so great to have you.
Yeah, thanks for coming on theshow.
So Victoria resides inWinchester, england.
If I were coming to Winchesterfor a day and I've never been
there before what's one thingthat Victoria would say that I
couldn't miss doing?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I'm not very good at sticking to rules, so I'm going
to give you two things.
So one is the cathedral.
Everyone, if you go toWinchester, it's the one most
obvious thing.
But get a tour of the roof.
It's spectacular.
If you go to look at thecathedral, look at the roof.
But the other thing is just togo for a walk along the rivers.
We've got the Ixchin River andthe Test River and they are
chalk streams Because the chalkunderneath it is the most clear
(02:35):
and very clear and clean-lookingwater and very, very beautiful
to walk along.
So that would be the otherthing I would do.
They're very rare, these chalkstreams, and they're unique to
the area.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Are they big enough to take a ride on a boat or a
small canoe or something likethat?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'd go walking along the side, maybe a bicycle and
structures off it, but they'renot typically big enough to go
riding on.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I see, All right, very good.
Well, thank you for that.
Let me introduce Victoria.
Victoria is an organizationalcoach, consultant and co-author
of a book on running internaltech conferences.
She coaches teams and seniorleaders to effectively deliver
outcomes within a culture ofinclusion, collaboration,
(03:18):
curiosity and generosity.
The title for our episode todayis why the Time for Investing
in Shared Learning is Now.
So, Victoria, tell us aboutshared learning.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So what I mean by shared learning is learning that
happens in a shared space whereit's your bouncing ideas
between people so you get thatcross pollination.
So it might be an Intelconference, it might be a
hackathon, it might beexperiment, design sprints, but
whatever it is, it's a sharedspace where it's not just an
(03:51):
individual taking in knowledgeand holding it and then possibly
forgetting about it.
It's where the ideas get tobounce a bit and it's the
organizational learns, not justthe individual.
So that's what I mean by sharedlearning.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So I'm gathering there's lots of different
exercises that you could employin shared learning.
There's not some framework thatis intrinsic to the idea of
shared learning.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Exactly, exactly.
It's anything that enablesideas to flow around the place,
so that they can flow and thenthey can grow as a result of
people connecting dots withother information that they have
previously, or theorganizational context.
It's the ripple effect thathappens when information flows
around, so that can be in amultiple of different types of
(04:37):
ways.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I like the way you describe that the ripple effect.
That does give a great visual.
Well, the title for today iswhy the Time for Investing in
Shared Learning is Now.
Why now, victoria?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So that came up for me when I was thinking about AI.
So if we thought that Agile wasa big industry shift and then
DevOps was a big industry shift,AI kind of knocks those to the
side.
It's a landscape which ischanging all the time.
It's so fast and it's notsomething where you can be
sending people off to a trainingcourse to go and learn this
(05:13):
expertise and come back andapply it in their daily job.
It's a constant, constantlearning, and so the only way to
enable everyone that you needto to cut to learn this stuff
together, for the organizationto figure out what it means in
their space and how to actuallysurvive and thrive with that as
a company, means bringing yourhumans along with you and doing
(05:36):
that in a shared learning spaceso that everyone can actually
benefit from that learning andthey can throw their own ideas
and challenges into the mix.
That means lots of experiments,and so in order to enable
experimentation, which iscritical at the moment, I think
if you want to have any kind ofchance, then having a way of
coming together, a habit ofcoming together kind of an
(05:57):
attitude of being able to shareideas and experiment in an
environment where it's okay ifyour experiment doesn't work,
etc.
All these things.
It's right now for AI.
It's the only way, I think, tomake sure that the learnings
happen quickly enough.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And so I'm unpacking that a little bit and thinking
because typically you thinkabout corporations, and at least
the ones that I have been tothey're much more apprehensive
to invest in group training.
And when you're saying sharedlearning, that's what I'm
hearing, because you're bouncingideas off of each other and
you're learning together.
(06:34):
When it's investing, it's morelike well, let's invest in one
person and if that person getssome value out of it, then maybe
they can teach some of theothers.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthe investing side of that and
why that's so important andmaybe how we can position
ourselves and our departmentsand our companies to actually do
(06:56):
that investing.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
This investment is.
There's many different types ofinvestment, I think.
So there's this sort offinancial investment.
Maybe you've got a trainingbudget and you think how am I
going to spend this trainingbudget?
Maybe you've allocated thattraining budget per individual
and everyone wants their bit oftraining budget to go on a
training course.
That is quite individual andsiloed thinking which in some
(07:19):
situations maybe works.
So people who've got individualskills gaps and they need to
learn those things to bringthemselves up to speed with the
learning of the people, thatstill you know it has its place
and it's still needed.
But thinking in terms of thatdepartmental training and
learning budget, learning is notjust about training, because
you learn more than just thatskill.
(07:40):
You're learning about theindustry, you're learning about
the business need, you'relearning about the opportunity,
about the threat, and you'relearning about each other and
where the different ideas and soon.
So the shared learning is notjust about that technology skill
and so if they put it in thebucket of just people's training
, then they're going to miss outon a whole ton of the extra
benefit that you get and theobjective really of these shared
(08:02):
learning spaces, which is aboutpooling knowledge and ideas and
getting the kind ofcross-pollination across areas
so that new wisdom can emergeand individual training is just
upskilling a person.
We're talking aboutorganisational learning, which
is different.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So I want to pivot just a little bit because this
is something I've been waitingto ask you what about introverts
versus extroverts?
There are some people that feellike, yes, I learn better when
I'm by myself, I'm in a safeplace, I'm not distracted by
other people.
But then you have other peoplewho are extroverts, that
naturally you see people thatthey work through problems by
(08:42):
talking, and those types ofpeople are very comfortable in a
, in a shared learning space.
But there are others that havethe, the thought process, and
really it applies better to themor they feel like it's more
advantageous for them if theycan think about things
themselves personally andindividually much better than
(09:03):
they can with having thedistraction of having to work
with others.
So how do you balance thatbetween the two types of
personalities?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I think it just comes down to having a variety of
formats in your event.
So if we're talking about aconference, we're not
necessarily talking about a dayfull of workshops and
brainstorms which are just goingto terrify and exhaust
introverts.
We're talking about talks thatpeople get to.
If they want to contribute atalk, then actually the
(09:34):
preparation for it is somethingthat would suit an introvert
really well, because they get toreally get into their subject
and go, go on, really thinkabout this, think about it in
depth, learn some more, boostyour own knowledge because
you've been given explicit anddirect information, permission,
a request to do it, go and learnmore about this thing and share
it with us.
So the preparation for and thelearning and preparing this talk
(09:56):
that bit would suit anintrovert really well.
And in order to make it easierfor them to deliver it, then one
of the things we need to dowithin the organization is
support them.
So can we line up some coacheswho can be sympathetic, practice
ears, who can give them someguidelines and some feedback and
help them rehearse it over andover again, and then just
setting the expectation at theconference that you know what.
(10:19):
No one's going to be perfect.
This is all great.
We're going to really welcomeand applaud.
So just lots and lots ofencouragement would hopefully
help somebody who's moreintrovert in a talking scenario.
But they may also benefit more.
Maybe they might prefer thesafety in numbers if there was a
panel.
If they know the questions inadvance so they could prepare
(10:40):
for them.
They maybe don't need to worryabout being centre stage where
everyone's looking at them.
They're sharing the stage withother people or maybe it's a
discussion that they'd rather bepart of, or maybe it's
something that actually they'vereally enjoyed listening to lots
of talks and taking part insome discussions and observing
things and going you know what,I'm going to go and follow up
(11:00):
with that person and that idea.
I'd really like to be part ofan experiment around that and
that is something where they cango and work off, you know, with
a couple of people to workthrough an idea as a follow-up.
So it's not necessarilysomething that is going to be
prohibitive to somebody who'sintrovert, because they just
find their own way to contributeand the organization hosting it
(11:20):
.
There's sort of the onus is onthem to create an environment
that does feel safe and doesfeel supported and supportive
and and and give people thatkind of courage to to express
themselves and perhaps, you know, leave the hugely performance
type things to somebody whoenjoys that more so what I'm
(11:41):
hearing is giving people options.
Yeah yes, options.
I think that gives people,gives people a little bit of
control and maybe there's adifferent time of day where
their energy is a differentlevel.
Just you know how would theylike to contribute and work with
them to find a way that works Iwas part of.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
This was a conference , so it wasn't necessarily you
could call that shared learning,but they did an interesting
experiment.
What they did was they had abrainstorming session where they
put people together in smallgroups around tables but then
they had this safe space thatwas a separate part of the large
(12:20):
room organized that if youdidn't feel like it was
comfortable for you to hey go upand find three people that you
want to form a triad with, youcould go over there and
brainstorm individually and thenwhen they came back corporately
to share ideas, then they couldcome back and if they wanted to
share, they could share.
If not, like you say, if theywere just a listener and wanted
(12:41):
to reflect on what ideas thatthey had, like you say, if they
were just a listener and wantedto reflect on what ideas that
they had.
And I thought that was prettynovel and you know, again, it's
about giving people options.
Maybe it's the kind of thingwhere you know, starting out, I
don't feel safe, I want to be anindividual thinker, and all of
a sudden you start hearing theseconversations across the room
and it's like you know, maybe Ido want to go be part of that
(13:03):
conversation, so I wasn't.
I wasn't signing up for thisimmediately, but now maybe I
might be brave enough to go togo listen in.
So just having an open formatso that people can contribute
how they feel instead of forcingeverybody into the same format
seems like a good thing yeah, Ireally like that idea of a quiet
space as well, where to givepeople.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You know, those conferences I've been to where
they've had explicitly had aquiet room.
You know if people go andrecharge their batteries, if
they're finding, if they'refinding the event a bit too much
, and also there's, you know,these events don't need to be
one-off.
Maybe they they experience oneand they get to see what it's
like, and they and then well,maybe the next one I'll take
part in.
Sometimes what you need atthese events that's really
(13:47):
useful is to have somebody who'sa bit of a note taker, a scribe
, who can write a reallythought-provoking blog post that
comes out of it that caninspire other people Go.
This was really interestinghere with some takeaways.
Maybe that's how they'd like tocontribute.
So there's different ways, allthese different types of events
hackathons, where you'reexperimenting, so you're just
coding.
Maybe you're doing some mobcoding or pair programming or
(14:08):
something, just trying an idea.
It's not all about the talking.
Some of it's about the doing.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Oh, wow, you just really.
You really hit me square in thechest with that one, because
it's always a struggle for me to.
I've always excelled at being ascribe and it helps me to
retain information, because I'mconstantly trying to organize
information and put bulletpoints together.
No, okay, I want to put thissection under here and that just
(14:36):
helps me to process, but I'mnot really present as part of a
discussion when I'm doing thatbecause I'm so focused on doing
this, the act of scribing myself.
And that's always been aninteresting balance for me of
feeling that tug of okay, I needto put the notepad down and I
need to actually contribute,versus oh gosh, I know I'm going
(14:59):
to forget this.
So trying to find that rightbalance has been tricky for me.
So, victoria, I want to ask you,when it comes to selling our
leadership on providing eithertime or a budget for shared
learning.
So, even though you may bedoing a shared learning exercise
internally within a company andyou're not hiring anybody to
(15:21):
come in, you're just doing ityourself, but you're allocating
the time to do that, I haveactually been at places where
senior leadership looks in in aconference room and sees 10, 15,
20 people and have made thecomment boy, this is an
expensive meeting.
What are we really getting forthis?
Shouldn't people be working?
(15:41):
How do we convince leadershipthat it is worth the time, it is
something valuable, and how dowe demonstrate that?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I think, to begin with, you need to be able to
answer for yourself as well asanyone else.
Why are you doing it in thefirst place?
Know your goal, because if youknow your goal, not only will
you have a better, moreeffective event, but you'll be
able to justify it to yourselfas well as to anyone else.
If you're trying to organizesomething, anything you do, you
should know why.
So you know.
Perhaps what you're trying toachieve with this is to
(16:13):
accelerate learning.
So if there's, if there'sinformation that you want to
have things or spread around andpeople to learn more quickly to
some, get some new pathwaysopened up for ideas to be
flowing.
You know, speeding up learningin an environment where
everything is changingconstantly and it really is
right now, that seems like agood reason for doing this.
(16:36):
If this is going to speed upthe ability of the
organization's learning, that'sa good outcome.
So being able to express howthis is going to do that it
might be about trying to justbreak down some silos.
Maybe there's some silos thatexist in your organization that
means that people are going offin totally different directions
and there is no alignment Interms of how people are looking
(16:56):
at things.
This is a great way to dealwith that to cross some silos,
to get people aligned so thatthey're not pulling in different
directions.
That could be our goal, and itmight just be about trying to
create an atmosphere in itselfof where experimentation is a
way of doing things or wherepeople develop a habit of we're
(17:19):
going to try our idea, we're notgoing to worry if it's going to
fail because no one's going toblame us.
If it's going to fail becauseno one's going to blame us if
it's going to wrong, it doesn'tmatter.
If someone knows more than I doabout this, maybe what you're
trying to do is create somepsychological safety so that
experimentation can thrive.
That cultural shift might besomething you're trying to do.
It can be an explicit goal, acompletely valid one, or it
(17:41):
might be something else whereyou're just trying to build some
social cohesion and connectionacross the organization.
But but know what the goal isand then you can sell it because
you can design it.
You can.
You can directly draw theconnections between what you're
structuring in the day and whatyou're hoping to get to get out
of it, and then, when it comesto the next one hopefully you've
got some stories to tell thathelp, to illustrate how it
(18:03):
helped, and but it's not, it'snot a, it's not a bang for buck
kind of easily measurable thing.
Sometimes, when it comes todollar and cents, it's, it's um
stories but, but I do likeshifting towards.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
you know, this is an outcome that we're trying to get
towards.
What I'm getting out of this iswe're not trying to to have a
solution.
That's looking for a problem,because that problem may or may
not, may not exist, right, it'slike well, let's, let's do
shared learning becauseinherently, the shared learning
is, is good, correct.
What I'm hearing is let's havea goal for that.
(18:40):
I would think coming out of anysort of retrospective would be
a great time to identify someareas that maybe would be
candidates for a shared learningexercise.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Absolutely it's.
You know, asking the questionat the end of your iteration,
your increment, what came out ofthis?
That would be what's a lessonhere that others could learn,
which might be something wediscovered, something that we've
done really badly.
We've learned from it.
That's just as valid.
It's often more interestingactually than the here's a
really cool thing we did.
But asking those questionsregularly to kind of prompt the
(19:13):
ideas for sharing and again,that sharing doesn't have to be
in this big event, it might bethere's an internal blog system
going where people are sharingand writing blogs for each other
and sharing across the teamswhat they're doing.
It might be something that getsfed into another activity.
But asking those questionsregularly what did we learn?
What would be useful for otherpeople?
(19:33):
Maybe they might want to dowhat we've done, or maybe we can
give you a cautionary tale onwhat not to do.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So, victoria, what do you do when maybe you come to
an organization and you startsensing and you really feel some
strong indicators that thereare silos within the
organization and the left handdoesn't know what the right hand
is doing and you really do wantto do these types of
experiments and you startgetting pushback.
(20:00):
You start hearing well, wedon't do that here.
Or oh yeah, we tried that once.
It was a complete disaster, sowe said we're never going to do
that again.
What are some of the steps thatyou do to start moving in that
direction, to get people open tothe idea of learning as a
shared group?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I think.
Well, there's two people you'vegot to convince.
One is the broader team members, who often actually would love
to share if they were given theopportunity to and they were
encouraged to.
But if they don't realisethey're invited to, then they
don't necessarily always lookfor it, but they might are the
(20:44):
management and actually we justneed to convince them to get out
of the way, really to allowothers to get to do the shared
learning, because I think byreally with most people, if
they're encouraged to and giventhe space to, would do, enjoy it
and they get a lot out of it.
It's the fear at the managementlevel of you know what?
I'm not not recognizing the,the potential behind this, not
recognizing the value.
So it's's trying to find waysto demonstrate to them, I
(21:05):
suppose.
So what I would maybe be doingis talking to them about you
know, trying to explain.
You know this is what you'remissing out on.
This is what you need to beafraid of.
If you don't do this, if youdon't enable people to share
their ideas, to be curious, tolearn to be inquisitive, to be
brave to, to be courageous, ifyou don't have an environment
where people feel they can be,they can be.
(21:26):
They can try ideas andchallenge things.
If you're in the very you know,I would say probably quite a
bureaucratic environment, theseare things that you're going to
miss out on and you will missout on that organizational
growth.
And when these ai waves, allthese changes come, you're not
going to ride that wave, youknow.
So I would be, I would betrying to talk to them about why
(21:46):
it is really so important thatthey actually do create the
opportunities.
And then I probably would startwith some smaller events.
How could we do something smallto demonstrate the value, to
demonstrate that it's actuallynot as expensive but it is
higher value?
And then look for some storieswhere we can kind of go well,
okay, this, we noticed this here.
Did you notice these two peoplewho they didn't understand each
(22:09):
other at all before?
We're now seeing this empathygrow?
If we can find some littleglimmers, some nuggets and
things that you can nudge in apositive direction as a result
of these events, you can thentalk about those to encourage
more to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
So Victoria, I think about two groups of people and
these are extremes.
But you think about the type ofperson that's going to play it
safe.
They're going to ask forpermission before they do
anything.
It's like every time you make asuggestion it's like, well, let
me talk to my manager aboutthat.
Things can move really slowwhen that happens.
(22:42):
So that's one extreme.
But then you've got the otherextreme of somebody that's just
goes total rogue right.
They do whatever they wantwhenever they want it.
They just kind of feel likeI'll pay for the consequences
later.
But I'm just going to blaze atrail forward and whatever
happens happens.
Maybe they're a little bitentitled, but oftentimes we
(23:04):
don't find us at either of thoseextremes, it's somewhere in the
middle.
So how do we maybe push theboundaries a little bit if maybe
there isn't quite as much anappetite for, or there's some
resistance to, doing a grouplearning or a shared learning,
without maybe overstepping ourbounds?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So I've had a bit of fun thinking about this recently
be overstepping our bounds.
So I've had a bit of funthinking about this recently.
There was a talk that I gave acouple of years ago where I
identified five cats who couldrepresent different engineering
archetypes, and these archetypeswere shaped by the environment
that they were in.
So we had, on the one hand, wehad the cat I called Peanut, who
(23:44):
is a house cat, doesn't thinkthat anything outside of his
world is real, so he has noconcept of any other reality.
This, as an engineer, is goingto breed a distinct lack of
curiosity about anything.
So if we think about the worldof AI an engineer in this space
who's maybe in a verytraditional environment where
(24:04):
nothing ever changes they'vebeen doing the same thing for 20
years.
This environment is notchanging.
They're not going to see thatAI is something that's going to
come into their space at all.
They're going to be the lastones to even think about it.
And if it was to come intotheir space, they'd probably be
pretty terrified.
Because where is this thing?
They're not used to adapting tochange at all.
(24:27):
If we were looking at what theyneed and actually just having
some conferences or talks orsomething in the organization to
let this engineer know this isa thing that we're talking about
, this thing that's out therethat you thought was just on the
internet.
We're interested in it and juststarting some conversations so
that they realize this mightbecome part of their world.
(24:50):
It might be a thing that mightbe all they need just to help
them feel a little bit safer,that suddenly this, that an
awareness that this thing ishappening, would be a starting
point.
And then I have several othercats in between, and my final
one is is the is rocky the one Icall who is a bit like the 10X
engineer and just does whateverthey want, because they think
(25:11):
that they're awesome and they'revery bold and as a cat, they're
just crossing all theboundaries and terrorizing any
other cat in the neighborhood,but as an engineer, they are
someone who has no regard forthe policies, necessarily, and
they create risk wherever theygo, when they will be pumping
your company's data into trackGPT, unless you get them to
(25:32):
actually think about responsibleAI.
So actually, from that end ofthe scale, you know having
events and conversations wherethey can be part of a
conversation where you talkabout.
You know what is responsible AI.
What are we?
What is our policy?
What is our approach?
What are we going to try andcreate safe ways to play.
So you might be creating, youknow, local LLMs or whatever for
(25:55):
people could try and, butenabling them to be safe.
And then I heard other catsalong the way which are, you
know, and a different where mostengineers probably would reside
.
But there are the two extremeextremes there.
With the the two to cover youthat, I would say that you
referred to peanut and rocky.
(26:16):
Peanut and rocky are the twoends of the two ends of that
extreme you're talking mylanguage now because I'm an
animal person.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I love cats too, so, yeah, I perked up when you, when
you said that.
So I immediately thought aboutRocky and I thought about a
thought process, about this 10xengineer and it's like, well, if
AI is good, then more AI has tobe better, right?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
So why not yes, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
What could go wrong?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, completely fearless.
The did have the other three.
I had a.
I had princess is the cat who'sallowed out but on a lead.
So this cat is is verydisempowered.
They can see that this thingcalled you know ai is out there
but they don't know how to starta conversation about it.
How do I get involved in that?
(27:03):
They might be getting reallyfrustrated because they can see
and they're probably going to bea flight risk because they're
very, very curious about thisthing, but there's no way to be
part of the conversation.
They might leave and you mightlose out on an awful lot of
their energy and enthusiasm ifyou don't invite them.
So, inviting them into a space,a kind of a conference or
something which, which is anopen invitation to get involved
(27:26):
and this is where thepsychological safety comes in.
Creating a space where she'ssafe, she feels she can offer
her ideas, that explicitinvitation will keep her in your
organization and mean that shecan add an awful lot of value to
these ideas and to this shift.
That was my second one.
Do you want me to touch on theother two?
I had a lot of fun with them.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Go ahead quickly.
I love cats.
Let's hear about your othercats.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
The other two because one of them is my cat, so I
have to talk about him.
But the next one that I talkabout is Willow, and Willow is a
cat that can go outside but hasno desire to go beyond the
garden.
You know, you get, these catsare quite lazy and they're very
comfortable in the garden.
They don't need to go anyfurther.
And the reason they don't gofurther potentially is because
they're scared of what's on theoutside, what's beyond those
(28:10):
walls.
So it's possible too, but theyjust have to find the impetus so
they might see that they mightbe quite scared of AI.
They might see, oh, everyone'stalking about this thing, it's
going to change my job, it mighteven steal my job, and they'd
just be afraid.
Creating some cross-silentconversations encouraging her to
broaden her horizons, and itwould help her come along on the
(28:31):
journey towards this and helpher be part of it and not just
sort of sitting quivering withfear in the corner.
So, yes, it's that bit aboutbuilding courage and being
connected to it is what I wouldsay for Willow.
And then my final one is the onepre-Rocky, and this one I call
Squiggle, because my cat iscalled Squiggle and he's amazing
, so therefore, he's the bestcat and he's the.
(28:54):
I see him as a developer in anautonomous team and actually
he's maybe on the cool team whoare getting to experiment with
AI and he's getting to do allthis cool stuff.
Stuff is changing all the time.
It's very chaotic, it's veryfast and potentially a bit
bewildering, because there's anawful lot to learn.
And how can he have all of thatin his head?
How can he have all of thatresponsibility for taking all of
(29:15):
that risk?
And wouldn't it be really niceif everyone around him was also
on that journey and he couldshare and people could ask
questions and offer ideas?
So creating a supportive,supported environment where
everyone is part of it would bereally great for him, so that he
could be part of a biggeradventure than just his own.
So that's where I see it.
So that was my five cats.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
All right, so maybe I'll get to meet Squiggle
someday, maybe.
Yeah, when we talk about sharedlearning, it sounds like it's I
don't know if you call it awin-win-win or you're like
tripling your value, becauseyou're not only learning a topic
, but you're probably learningit faster than individually
because you have multiple people.
(29:58):
So you're not just getting yourideas, but you're getting other
people's ideas.
And not only that, but you havesome intrinsic qualities that
you're building as far asfostering, working together as a
team, being open toexperimentation, generating
ideas and those types of things.
So would you say that, victoria?
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I would say that, yes , it's when there's nothing
there's.
No, not when.
I mean if people are sharing,then AI works.
By information being added toanother pot of information, it
works and makes you can.
Some new thing pops out theother end.
Well, our brains and ourorganizations work the same way.
So we have a context, we haveinformation.
If we can add new informationto it and dots are connected in
(30:41):
all the different directions,then we get a new wisdom that
comes from everyone's wisdombeing brought together, and so
this organizational learninghappens.
It happens more quickly, and sothe organization can grow and
you make the most of the peopleyou've got in your department
rather than siloing off atdifferent areas.
I've seen some people talk abouthow, in the AI space, they're
(31:05):
seeing fractures happening insome organizations in terms of
who's leading and owning AI.
Is it the data team?
Is it the tech applicationdevelopment team?
Is it the business?
You've got the business ideas,and so if you've got those off
going in different directions,then you know what a disaster.
Finding ways to bring thosetogether so that they can, you
know, kind of build and rip andkind of amplify each other's
(31:27):
ideas rather than kind of beingresentful of each other, then
that's got to be healthier, andso yes, win, win, win, win.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So it's a really good point that there is an aspect
of sharing the learning within ateam, but then there's also
across teams, across departments, across the organization as
well.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Absolutely yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So, victoria, in your experience where you're working
with corporations maybe it'sworking with AI on trying to
ride the wave of AI and getahead of the curve but what are
some of your go-to or what aresome of your favorite exercises,
your techniques, your tricks?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
What are some of your favorite go-to items that you
have found to use?
So conferences is the big one,but recently maybe shorter ones
that are more frequent becausethe pace of change is so much
quicker at the moment.
So I used to think of them asbeing something that would be
run once a year.
I would think maybe it's everythree months now, but this would
be a full day of various things.
(32:31):
So either long talks andlightning talks and a panel
discussion and a game at the end, different formats, different
energy levels and then makingsure that whatever questions
people are asking get picked upand followed up on, which might
be a trigger for a hack day, itmight be a trigger for a working
group to go and try somethingand come back, but it's always
(32:53):
the triggers for something elsethat comes after it.
It's more important than theevent itself.
That has worked quite well andin a company that I spent time
with recently who did strugglewith having learning as a thing
Spent time with recently who didstruggle with having learning
as a thing I helped themorganize a conference and worked
(33:15):
with Leith to find successstories where we could shine a
light on where people were doingthings really well that give a
sense of celebration andenthusiasm and get some
motivation going and it createdan appetite for some more.
So that worked.
Just doing something, somethingkeeping it simple and and
making people feel good is aboutit I like keeping it simple.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Sometimes and I've I'm known for this is I can make
something way more complicatedthan it needs to be yeah, we all
can, and, on a smaller scale,some teams I worked with a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
We were trying to get more of a regular cadence of
sharing, so we just had a, aweekly thing that we just called
it's good to talk, that's allit is.
It was fairly informal.
They weren't highly polishedand highly rehearsed talks.
They were three or four minuteseach, interspersed with I don't
know, photographs of people'sholidays or their dinner.
But just to kind of keep itlightweight and non-threatening
(34:06):
and give people some confidenceand practice in sharing the
small learnings, the small wins,and build those muscles and
help them test out somethingthat they might then want to
share in a bigger way.
And because they got topractice it, that worked quite
well, because it was a bit moreimmediate and they felt safer in
that space did you call it igtt?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
it's good to learn, or igtl?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
it's good to talk with.
That.
That's really my, my, my ageand uk-ness, because there was a
there.
Was there used to be an adverton television in the uk where
bob hoskins would say it's goodto talk?
That was okay, interesting youhave to be my age and based in
the UK to get the name at all,but we quite like the name
(34:48):
anyway.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
So, as we're coming to an end of our show here, why
don't you give us a summary ofyour techniques and your
approach to shared learning?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So I would say, start with being clear on what your
goal is for it, what it is thatyou want to achieve, and then,
once you've got that goal, findsome excited people who would
really want to help make ithappen and empower them.
This is potentially a team ofpeople who were your change
agents, who would get excited,who can build some momentum and
connect with people across allof the different teams to rope
(35:21):
them in and encourage them tocontribute.
And then, when it comes down toactually making it happen from
a leadership perspective, justencourage, just nudge.
Show everyone that you are,that you're sponsoring this,
that you're behind it, that youreally want people, that it
matters to you, and then beready to celebrate whatever
comes out and get excited aboutit and follow on with the nudges
(35:41):
.
So if there's things that goodstuff, stuff, good seeds that
seem to be planted in whateverthis you know xm empowered team,
create, be present, be there,notice it, celebrate it and
nudge those positive things intohappening afterwards and and
help make sure that it kind ofcan ripple and expand afterwards
at a very high level.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
that's what I would suggest so, victoria, you've
co-written a book about runninginternal tech conferences.
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
This is a really practical short book on
basically the why and the how todo an internal conference and
how to do it.
Well, and I co-wrote this withMatthew Skelton, who has since
then written a much bigger book,team Topologies, which has
flown off the shelves this oneis a very, very short and snappy
.
It's got guidelines, it's gotcase studies.
It's just to help you getstarted, and so it's a short
(36:30):
read that should be highlypractical if you want to get
started.
To help you do so.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Awesome.
We'll put a link in the shownotes so our listeners will have
easy access to that.
And if our listeners want toget in touch with you, Victoria,
what's the best way for them todo that?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
LinkedIn is probably the way.
So if you put a link, a message, a link to LinkedIn in the
notes as well, and that's whereI can be found, All right, that
sounds great.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, unfortunately we're out of time here, but,
victoria, it's been greattalking with you, great to meet
another fellow cat lover.
Thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.
This was very interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
All right.
Well, that brings it intoanother episode of the Agile
Within.
We'll see everybody next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the Agile
Within.
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in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin and please spread the
(37:33):
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(00:29):
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That's impactagilityco.
Well, welcome back to the AgileWithin.
This is your host, as always,mark Metz.
I hope you're having anabsolutely fantastic day out
there.
I have a guest for today'sepisode, and her name is
Victoria Morgan-Smith.
Victoria, welcome to the AgileWithin.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, so great to have you.
Yeah, thanks for coming on theshow.
So Victoria resides inWinchester, england.
If I were coming to Winchesterfor a day and I've never been
there before what's one thingthat Victoria would say that I
couldn't miss doing?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I'm not very good at sticking to rules, so I'm going
to give you two things.
So one is the cathedral.
Everyone, if you go toWinchester, it's the one most
obvious thing.
But get a tour of the roof.
It's spectacular.
If you go to look at thecathedral, look at the roof.
But the other thing is just togo for a walk along the rivers.
We've got the Ixchin River andthe Test River and they are
chalk streams Because the chalkunderneath it is the most clear
(02:35):
and very clear and clean-lookingwater and very, very beautiful
to walk along.
So that would be the otherthing I would do.
They're very rare, these chalkstreams, and they're unique to
the area.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Are they big enough to take a ride on a boat or a
small canoe or something likethat?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'd go walking along the side, maybe a bicycle and
structures off it, but they'renot typically big enough to go
riding on.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I see, All right, very good.
Well, thank you for that.
Let me introduce Victoria.
Victoria is an organizationalcoach, consultant and co-author
of a book on running internaltech conferences.
She coaches teams and seniorleaders to effectively deliver
outcomes within a culture ofinclusion, collaboration,
(03:18):
curiosity and generosity.
The title for our episode todayis why the Time for Investing
in Shared Learning is Now.
So, Victoria, tell us aboutshared learning.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So what I mean by shared learning is learning that
happens in a shared space whereit's your bouncing ideas
between people so you get thatcross pollination.
So it might be an Intelconference, it might be a
hackathon, it might beexperiment, design sprints, but
whatever it is, it's a sharedspace where it's not just an
(03:51):
individual taking in knowledgeand holding it and then possibly
forgetting about it.
It's where the ideas get tobounce a bit and it's the
organizational learns, not justthe individual.
So that's what I mean by sharedlearning.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So I'm gathering there's lots of different
exercises that you could employin shared learning.
There's not some framework thatis intrinsic to the idea of
shared learning.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Exactly, exactly.
It's anything that enablesideas to flow around the place,
so that they can flow and thenthey can grow as a result of
people connecting dots withother information that they have
previously, or theorganizational context.
It's the ripple effect thathappens when information flows
around, so that can be in amultiple of different types of
(04:37):
ways.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I like the way you describe that the ripple effect.
That does give a great visual.
Well, the title for today iswhy the Time for Investing in
Shared Learning is Now.
Why now, victoria?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So that came up for me when I was thinking about AI.
So if we thought that Agile wasa big industry shift and then
DevOps was a big industry shift,AI kind of knocks those to the
side.
It's a landscape which ischanging all the time.
It's so fast and it's notsomething where you can be
sending people off to a trainingcourse to go and learn this
(05:13):
expertise and come back andapply it in their daily job.
It's a constant, constantlearning, and so the only way to
enable everyone that you needto to cut to learn this stuff
together, for the organizationto figure out what it means in
their space and how to actuallysurvive and thrive with that as
a company, means bringing yourhumans along with you and doing
(05:36):
that in a shared learning spaceso that everyone can actually
benefit from that learning andthey can throw their own ideas
and challenges into the mix.
That means lots of experiments,and so in order to enable
experimentation, which iscritical at the moment, I think
if you want to have any kind ofchance, then having a way of
coming together, a habit ofcoming together kind of an
(05:57):
attitude of being able to shareideas and experiment in an
environment where it's okay ifyour experiment doesn't work,
etc.
All these things.
It's right now for AI.
It's the only way, I think, tomake sure that the learnings
happen quickly enough.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And so I'm unpacking that a little bit and thinking
because typically you thinkabout corporations, and at least
the ones that I have been tothey're much more apprehensive
to invest in group training.
And when you're saying sharedlearning, that's what I'm
hearing, because you're bouncingideas off of each other and
you're learning together.
(06:34):
When it's investing, it's morelike well, let's invest in one
person and if that person getssome value out of it, then maybe
they can teach some of theothers.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthe investing side of that and
why that's so important andmaybe how we can position
ourselves and our departmentsand our companies to actually do
(06:56):
that investing.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
This investment is.
There's many different types ofinvestment, I think.
So there's this sort offinancial investment.
Maybe you've got a trainingbudget and you think how am I
going to spend this trainingbudget?
Maybe you've allocated thattraining budget per individual
and everyone wants their bit oftraining budget to go on a
training course.
That is quite individual andsiloed thinking which in some
(07:19):
situations maybe works.
So people who've got individualskills gaps and they need to
learn those things to bringthemselves up to speed with the
learning of the people, thatstill you know it has its place
and it's still needed.
But thinking in terms of thatdepartmental training and
learning budget, learning is notjust about training, because
you learn more than just thatskill.
(07:40):
You're learning about theindustry, you're learning about
the business need, you'relearning about the opportunity,
about the threat, and you'relearning about each other and
where the different ideas and soon.
So the shared learning is notjust about that technology skill
and so if they put it in thebucket of just people's training
, then they're going to miss outon a whole ton of the extra
benefit that you get and theobjective really of these shared
(08:02):
learning spaces, which is aboutpooling knowledge and ideas and
getting the kind ofcross-pollination across areas
so that new wisdom can emergeand individual training is just
upskilling a person.
We're talking aboutorganisational learning, which
is different.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So I want to pivot just a little bit because this
is something I've been waitingto ask you what about introverts
versus extroverts?
There are some people that feellike, yes, I learn better when
I'm by myself, I'm in a safeplace, I'm not distracted by
other people.
But then you have other peoplewho are extroverts, that
naturally you see people thatthey work through problems by
(08:42):
talking, and those types ofpeople are very comfortable in a
, in a shared learning space.
But there are others that havethe, the thought process, and
really it applies better to themor they feel like it's more
advantageous for them if theycan think about things
themselves personally andindividually much better than
(09:03):
they can with having thedistraction of having to work
with others.
So how do you balance thatbetween the two types of
personalities?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I think it just comes down to having a variety of
formats in your event.
So if we're talking about aconference, we're not
necessarily talking about a dayfull of workshops and
brainstorms which are just goingto terrify and exhaust
introverts.
We're talking about talks thatpeople get to.
If they want to contribute atalk, then actually the
(09:34):
preparation for it is somethingthat would suit an introvert
really well, because they get toreally get into their subject
and go, go on, really thinkabout this, think about it in
depth, learn some more, boostyour own knowledge because
you've been given explicit anddirect information, permission,
a request to do it, go and learnmore about this thing and share
it with us.
So the preparation for and thelearning and preparing this talk
(09:56):
that bit would suit anintrovert really well.
And in order to make it easierfor them to deliver it, then one
of the things we need to dowithin the organization is
support them.
So can we line up some coacheswho can be sympathetic, practice
ears, who can give them someguidelines and some feedback and
help them rehearse it over andover again, and then just
setting the expectation at theconference that you know what.
(10:19):
No one's going to be perfect.
This is all great.
We're going to really welcomeand applaud.
So just lots and lots ofencouragement would hopefully
help somebody who's moreintrovert in a talking scenario.
But they may also benefit more.
Maybe they might prefer thesafety in numbers if there was a
panel.
If they know the questions inadvance so they could prepare
(10:40):
for them.
They maybe don't need to worryabout being centre stage where
everyone's looking at them.
They're sharing the stage withother people or maybe it's a
discussion that they'd rather bepart of, or maybe it's
something that actually they'vereally enjoyed listening to lots
of talks and taking part insome discussions and observing
things and going you know what,I'm going to go and follow up
(11:00):
with that person and that idea.
I'd really like to be part ofan experiment around that and
that is something where they cango and work off, you know, with
a couple of people to workthrough an idea as a follow-up.
So it's not necessarilysomething that is going to be
prohibitive to somebody who'sintrovert, because they just
find their own way to contributeand the organization hosting it
(11:20):
.
There's sort of the onus is onthem to create an environment
that does feel safe and doesfeel supported and supportive
and and and give people thatkind of courage to to express
themselves and perhaps, you know, leave the hugely performance
type things to somebody whoenjoys that more so what I'm
(11:41):
hearing is giving people options.
Yeah yes, options.
I think that gives people,gives people a little bit of
control and maybe there's adifferent time of day where
their energy is a differentlevel.
Just you know how would theylike to contribute and work with
them to find a way that works Iwas part of.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
This was a conference , so it wasn't necessarily you
could call that shared learning,but they did an interesting
experiment.
What they did was they had abrainstorming session where they
put people together in smallgroups around tables but then
they had this safe space thatwas a separate part of the large
(12:20):
room organized that if youdidn't feel like it was
comfortable for you to hey go upand find three people that you
want to form a triad with, youcould go over there and
brainstorm individually and thenwhen they came back corporately
to share ideas, then they couldcome back and if they wanted to
share, they could share.
If not, like you say, if theywere just a listener and wanted
(12:41):
to reflect on what ideas thatthey had, like you say, if they
were just a listener and wantedto reflect on what ideas that
they had.
And I thought that was prettynovel and you know, again, it's
about giving people options.
Maybe it's the kind of thingwhere you know, starting out, I
don't feel safe, I want to be anindividual thinker, and all of
a sudden you start hearing theseconversations across the room
and it's like you know, maybe Ido want to go be part of that
(13:03):
conversation, so I wasn't.
I wasn't signing up for thisimmediately, but now maybe I
might be brave enough to go togo listen in.
So just having an open formatso that people can contribute
how they feel instead of forcingeverybody into the same format
seems like a good thing yeah, Ireally like that idea of a quiet
space as well, where to givepeople.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You know, those conferences I've been to where
they've had explicitly had aquiet room.
You know if people go andrecharge their batteries, if
they're finding, if they'refinding the event a bit too much
, and also there's, you know,these events don't need to be
one-off.
Maybe they they experience oneand they get to see what it's
like, and they and then well,maybe the next one I'll take
part in.
Sometimes what you need atthese events that's really
(13:47):
useful is to have somebody who'sa bit of a note taker, a scribe
, who can write a reallythought-provoking blog post that
comes out of it that caninspire other people Go.
This was really interestinghere with some takeaways.
Maybe that's how they'd like tocontribute.
So there's different ways, allthese different types of events
hackathons, where you'reexperimenting, so you're just
coding.
Maybe you're doing some mobcoding or pair programming or
(14:08):
something, just trying an idea.
It's not all about the talking.
Some of it's about the doing.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Oh, wow, you just really.
You really hit me square in thechest with that one, because
it's always a struggle for me to.
I've always excelled at being ascribe and it helps me to
retain information, because I'mconstantly trying to organize
information and put bulletpoints together.
No, okay, I want to put thissection under here and that just
(14:36):
helps me to process, but I'mnot really present as part of a
discussion when I'm doing thatbecause I'm so focused on doing
this, the act of scribing myself.
And that's always been aninteresting balance for me of
feeling that tug of okay, I needto put the notepad down and I
need to actually contribute,versus oh gosh, I know I'm going
(14:59):
to forget this.
So trying to find that rightbalance has been tricky for me.
So, victoria, I want to ask you,when it comes to selling our
leadership on providing eithertime or a budget for shared
learning.
So, even though you may bedoing a shared learning exercise
internally within a company andyou're not hiring anybody to
(15:21):
come in, you're just doing ityourself, but you're allocating
the time to do that, I haveactually been at places where
senior leadership looks in in aconference room and sees 10, 15,
20 people and have made thecomment boy, this is an
expensive meeting.
What are we really getting forthis?
Shouldn't people be working?
(15:41):
How do we convince leadershipthat it is worth the time, it is
something valuable, and how dowe demonstrate that?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I think, to begin with, you need to be able to
answer for yourself as well asanyone else.
Why are you doing it in thefirst place?
Know your goal, because if youknow your goal, not only will
you have a better, moreeffective event, but you'll be
able to justify it to yourselfas well as to anyone else.
If you're trying to organizesomething, anything you do, you
should know why.
So you know.
Perhaps what you're trying toachieve with this is to
(16:13):
accelerate learning.
So if there's, if there'sinformation that you want to
have things or spread around andpeople to learn more quickly to
some, get some new pathwaysopened up for ideas to be
flowing.
You know, speeding up learningin an environment where
everything is changingconstantly and it really is
right now, that seems like agood reason for doing this.
(16:36):
If this is going to speed upthe ability of the
organization's learning, that'sa good outcome.
So being able to express howthis is going to do that it
might be about trying to justbreak down some silos.
Maybe there's some silos thatexist in your organization that
means that people are going offin totally different directions
and there is no alignment Interms of how people are looking
(16:56):
at things.
This is a great way to dealwith that to cross some silos,
to get people aligned so thatthey're not pulling in different
directions.
That could be our goal, and itmight just be about trying to
create an atmosphere in itselfof where experimentation is a
way of doing things or wherepeople develop a habit of we're
(17:19):
going to try our idea, we're notgoing to worry if it's going to
fail because no one's going toblame us.
If it's going to fail becauseno one's going to blame us if
it's going to wrong, it doesn'tmatter.
If someone knows more than I doabout this, maybe what you're
trying to do is create somepsychological safety so that
experimentation can thrive.
That cultural shift might besomething you're trying to do.
It can be an explicit goal, acompletely valid one, or it
(17:41):
might be something else whereyou're just trying to build some
social cohesion and connectionacross the organization.
But but know what the goal isand then you can sell it because
you can design it.
You can.
You can directly draw theconnections between what you're
structuring in the day and whatyou're hoping to get to get out
of it, and then, when it comesto the next one hopefully you've
got some stories to tell thathelp, to illustrate how it
(18:03):
helped, and but it's not, it'snot a, it's not a bang for buck
kind of easily measurable thing.
Sometimes, when it comes todollar and cents, it's, it's um
stories but, but I do likeshifting towards.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
you know, this is an outcome that we're trying to get
towards.
What I'm getting out of this iswe're not trying to to have a
solution.
That's looking for a problem,because that problem may or may
not, may not exist, right, it'slike well, let's, let's do
shared learning becauseinherently, the shared learning
is, is good, correct.
What I'm hearing is let's havea goal for that.
(18:40):
I would think coming out of anysort of retrospective would be
a great time to identify someareas that maybe would be
candidates for a shared learningexercise.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Absolutely it's.
You know, asking the questionat the end of your iteration,
your increment, what came out ofthis?
That would be what's a lessonhere that others could learn,
which might be something wediscovered, something that we've
done really badly.
We've learned from it.
That's just as valid.
It's often more interestingactually than the here's a
really cool thing we did.
But asking those questionsregularly to kind of prompt the
(19:13):
ideas for sharing and again,that sharing doesn't have to be
in this big event, it might bethere's an internal blog system
going where people are sharingand writing blogs for each other
and sharing across the teamswhat they're doing.
It might be something that getsfed into another activity.
But asking those questionsregularly what did we learn?
What would be useful for otherpeople?
(19:33):
Maybe they might want to dowhat we've done, or maybe we can
give you a cautionary tale onwhat not to do.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So, victoria, what do you do when maybe you come to
an organization and you startsensing and you really feel some
strong indicators that thereare silos within the
organization and the left handdoesn't know what the right hand
is doing and you really do wantto do these types of
experiments and you startgetting pushback.
(20:00):
You start hearing well, wedon't do that here.
Or oh yeah, we tried that once.
It was a complete disaster, sowe said we're never going to do
that again.
What are some of the steps thatyou do to start moving in that
direction, to get people open tothe idea of learning as a
shared group?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I think.
Well, there's two people you'vegot to convince.
One is the broader team members, who often actually would love
to share if they were given theopportunity to and they were
encouraged to.
But if they don't realisethey're invited to, then they
don't necessarily always lookfor it, but they might are the
(20:44):
management and actually we justneed to convince them to get out
of the way, really to allowothers to get to do the shared
learning, because I think byreally with most people, if
they're encouraged to and giventhe space to, would do, enjoy it
and they get a lot out of it.
It's the fear at the managementlevel of you know what?
I'm not not recognizing the,the potential behind this, not
recognizing the value.
So it's's trying to find waysto demonstrate to them, I
(21:05):
suppose.
So what I would maybe be doingis talking to them about you
know, trying to explain.
You know this is what you'remissing out on.
This is what you need to beafraid of.
If you don't do this, if youdon't enable people to share
their ideas, to be curious, tolearn to be inquisitive, to be
brave to, to be courageous, ifyou don't have an environment
where people feel they can be,they can be.
(21:26):
They can try ideas andchallenge things.
If you're in the very you know,I would say probably quite a
bureaucratic environment, theseare things that you're going to
miss out on and you will missout on that organizational
growth.
And when these ai waves, allthese changes come, you're not
going to ride that wave, youknow.
So I would be, I would betrying to talk to them about why
(21:46):
it is really so important thatthey actually do create the
opportunities.
And then I probably would startwith some smaller events.
How could we do something smallto demonstrate the value, to
demonstrate that it's actuallynot as expensive but it is
higher value?
And then look for some storieswhere we can kind of go well,
okay, this, we noticed this here.
Did you notice these two peoplewho they didn't understand each
(22:09):
other at all before?
We're now seeing this empathygrow?
If we can find some littleglimmers, some nuggets and
things that you can nudge in apositive direction as a result
of these events, you can thentalk about those to encourage
more to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
So Victoria, I think about two groups of people and
these are extremes.
But you think about the type ofperson that's going to play it
safe.
They're going to ask forpermission before they do
anything.
It's like every time you make asuggestion it's like, well, let
me talk to my manager aboutthat.
Things can move really slowwhen that happens.
(22:42):
So that's one extreme.
But then you've got the otherextreme of somebody that's just
goes total rogue right.
They do whatever they wantwhenever they want it.
They just kind of feel likeI'll pay for the consequences
later.
But I'm just going to blaze atrail forward and whatever
happens happens.
Maybe they're a little bitentitled, but oftentimes we
(23:04):
don't find us at either of thoseextremes, it's somewhere in the
middle.
So how do we maybe push theboundaries a little bit if maybe
there isn't quite as much anappetite for, or there's some
resistance to, doing a grouplearning or a shared learning,
without maybe overstepping ourbounds?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So I've had a bit of fun thinking about this recently
be overstepping our bounds.
So I've had a bit of funthinking about this recently.
There was a talk that I gave acouple of years ago where I
identified five cats who couldrepresent different engineering
archetypes, and these archetypeswere shaped by the environment
that they were in.
So we had, on the one hand, wehad the cat I called Peanut, who
(23:44):
is a house cat, doesn't thinkthat anything outside of his
world is real, so he has noconcept of any other reality.
This, as an engineer, is goingto breed a distinct lack of
curiosity about anything.
So if we think about the worldof AI an engineer in this space
who's maybe in a verytraditional environment where
(24:04):
nothing ever changes they'vebeen doing the same thing for 20
years.
This environment is notchanging.
They're not going to see thatAI is something that's going to
come into their space at all.
They're going to be the lastones to even think about it.
And if it was to come intotheir space, they'd probably be
pretty terrified.
Because where is this thing?
They're not used to adapting tochange at all.
(24:27):
If we were looking at what theyneed and actually just having
some conferences or talks orsomething in the organization to
let this engineer know this isa thing that we're talking about
, this thing that's out therethat you thought was just on the
internet.
We're interested in it and juststarting some conversations so
that they realize this mightbecome part of their world.
(24:50):
It might be a thing that mightbe all they need just to help
them feel a little bit safer,that suddenly this, that an
awareness that this thing ishappening, would be a starting
point.
And then I have several othercats in between, and my final
one is is the is rocky the one Icall who is a bit like the 10X
engineer and just does whateverthey want, because they think
(25:11):
that they're awesome and they'revery bold and as a cat, they're
just crossing all theboundaries and terrorizing any
other cat in the neighborhood,but as an engineer, they are
someone who has no regard forthe policies, necessarily, and
they create risk wherever theygo, when they will be pumping
your company's data into trackGPT, unless you get them to
(25:32):
actually think about responsibleAI.
So actually, from that end ofthe scale, you know having
events and conversations wherethey can be part of a
conversation where you talkabout.
You know what is responsible AI.
What are we?
What is our policy?
What is our approach?
What are we going to try andcreate safe ways to play.
So you might be creating, youknow, local LLMs or whatever for
(25:55):
people could try and, butenabling them to be safe.
And then I heard other catsalong the way which are, you
know, and a different where mostengineers probably would reside
.
But there are the two extremeextremes there.
With the the two to cover youthat, I would say that you
referred to peanut and rocky.
(26:16):
Peanut and rocky are the twoends of the two ends of that
extreme you're talking mylanguage now because I'm an
animal person.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I love cats too, so, yeah, I perked up when you, when
you said that.
So I immediately thought aboutRocky and I thought about a
thought process, about this 10xengineer and it's like, well, if
AI is good, then more AI has tobe better, right?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
So why not yes, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
What could go wrong?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, completely fearless.
The did have the other three.
I had a.
I had princess is the cat who'sallowed out but on a lead.
So this cat is is verydisempowered.
They can see that this thingcalled you know ai is out there
but they don't know how to starta conversation about it.
How do I get involved in that?
(27:03):
They might be getting reallyfrustrated because they can see
and they're probably going to bea flight risk because they're
very, very curious about thisthing, but there's no way to be
part of the conversation.
They might leave and you mightlose out on an awful lot of
their energy and enthusiasm ifyou don't invite them.
So, inviting them into a space,a kind of a conference or
something which, which is anopen invitation to get involved
(27:26):
and this is where thepsychological safety comes in.
Creating a space where she'ssafe, she feels she can offer
her ideas, that explicitinvitation will keep her in your
organization and mean that shecan add an awful lot of value to
these ideas and to this shift.
That was my second one.
Do you want me to touch on theother two?
I had a lot of fun with them.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Go ahead quickly.
I love cats.
Let's hear about your othercats.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
The other two because one of them is my cat, so I
have to talk about him.
But the next one that I talkabout is Willow, and Willow is a
cat that can go outside but hasno desire to go beyond the
garden.
You know, you get, these catsare quite lazy and they're very
comfortable in the garden.
They don't need to go anyfurther.
And the reason they don't gofurther potentially is because
they're scared of what's on theoutside, what's beyond those
(28:10):
walls.
So it's possible too, but theyjust have to find the impetus so
they might see that they mightbe quite scared of AI.
They might see, oh, everyone'stalking about this thing, it's
going to change my job, it mighteven steal my job, and they'd
just be afraid.
Creating some cross-silentconversations encouraging her to
broaden her horizons, and itwould help her come along on the
(28:31):
journey towards this and helpher be part of it and not just
sort of sitting quivering withfear in the corner.
So, yes, it's that bit aboutbuilding courage and being
connected to it is what I wouldsay for Willow.
And then my final one is the onepre-Rocky, and this one I call
Squiggle, because my cat iscalled Squiggle and he's amazing
, so therefore, he's the bestcat and he's the.
(28:54):
I see him as a developer in anautonomous team and actually
he's maybe on the cool team whoare getting to experiment with
AI and he's getting to do allthis cool stuff.
Stuff is changing all the time.
It's very chaotic, it's veryfast and potentially a bit
bewildering, because there's anawful lot to learn.
And how can he have all of thatin his head?
How can he have all of thatresponsibility for taking all of
(29:15):
that risk?
And wouldn't it be really niceif everyone around him was also
on that journey and he couldshare and people could ask
questions and offer ideas?
So creating a supportive,supported environment where
everyone is part of it would bereally great for him, so that he
could be part of a biggeradventure than just his own.
So that's where I see it.
So that was my five cats.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
All right, so maybe I'll get to meet Squiggle
someday, maybe.
Yeah, when we talk about sharedlearning, it sounds like it's I
don't know if you call it awin-win-win or you're like
tripling your value, becauseyou're not only learning a topic
, but you're probably learningit faster than individually
because you have multiple people.
(29:58):
So you're not just getting yourideas, but you're getting other
people's ideas.
And not only that, but you havesome intrinsic qualities that
you're building as far asfostering, working together as a
team, being open toexperimentation, generating
ideas and those types of things.
So would you say that, victoria?
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I would say that, yes , it's when there's nothing
there's.
No, not when.
I mean if people are sharing,then AI works.
By information being added toanother pot of information, it
works and makes you can.
Some new thing pops out theother end.
Well, our brains and ourorganizations work the same way.
So we have a context, we haveinformation.
If we can add new informationto it and dots are connected in
(30:41):
all the different directions,then we get a new wisdom that
comes from everyone's wisdombeing brought together, and so
this organizational learninghappens.
It happens more quickly, and sothe organization can grow and
you make the most of the peopleyou've got in your department
rather than siloing off atdifferent areas.
I've seen some people talk abouthow, in the AI space, they're
(31:05):
seeing fractures happening insome organizations in terms of
who's leading and owning AI.
Is it the data team?
Is it the tech applicationdevelopment team?
Is it the business?
You've got the business ideas,and so if you've got those off
going in different directions,then you know what a disaster.
Finding ways to bring thosetogether so that they can, you
know, kind of build and rip andkind of amplify each other's
(31:27):
ideas rather than kind of beingresentful of each other, then
that's got to be healthier, andso yes, win, win, win, win.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So it's a really good point that there is an aspect
of sharing the learning within ateam, but then there's also
across teams, across departments, across the organization as
well.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Absolutely yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So, victoria, in your experience where you're working
with corporations maybe it'sworking with AI on trying to
ride the wave of AI and getahead of the curve but what are
some of your go-to or what aresome of your favorite exercises,
your techniques, your tricks?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
What are some of your favorite go-to items that you
have found to use?
So conferences is the big one,but recently maybe shorter ones
that are more frequent becausethe pace of change is so much
quicker at the moment.
So I used to think of them asbeing something that would be
run once a year.
I would think maybe it's everythree months now, but this would
be a full day of various things.
(32:31):
So either long talks andlightning talks and a panel
discussion and a game at the end, different formats, different
energy levels and then makingsure that whatever questions
people are asking get picked upand followed up on, which might
be a trigger for a hack day, itmight be a trigger for a working
group to go and try somethingand come back, but it's always
(32:53):
the triggers for something elsethat comes after it.
It's more important than theevent itself.
That has worked quite well andin a company that I spent time
with recently who did strugglewith having learning as a thing
Spent time with recently who didstruggle with having learning
as a thing I helped themorganize a conference and worked
(33:15):
with Leith to find successstories where we could shine a
light on where people were doingthings really well that give a
sense of celebration andenthusiasm and get some
motivation going and it createdan appetite for some more.
So that worked.
Just doing something, somethingkeeping it simple and and
making people feel good is aboutit I like keeping it simple.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Sometimes and I've I'm known for this is I can make
something way more complicatedthan it needs to be yeah, we all
can, and, on a smaller scale,some teams I worked with a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
We were trying to get more of a regular cadence of
sharing, so we just had a, aweekly thing that we just called
it's good to talk, that's allit is.
It was fairly informal.
They weren't highly polishedand highly rehearsed talks.
They were three or four minuteseach, interspersed with I don't
know, photographs of people'sholidays or their dinner.
But just to kind of keep itlightweight and non-threatening
(34:06):
and give people some confidenceand practice in sharing the
small learnings, the small wins,and build those muscles and
help them test out somethingthat they might then want to
share in a bigger way.
And because they got topractice it, that worked quite
well, because it was a bit moreimmediate and they felt safer in
that space did you call it igtt?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
it's good to learn, or igtl?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
it's good to talk with.
That.
That's really my, my, my ageand uk-ness, because there was a
there.
Was there used to be an adverton television in the uk where
bob hoskins would say it's goodto talk?
That was okay, interesting youhave to be my age and based in
the UK to get the name at all,but we quite like the name
(34:48):
anyway.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
So, as we're coming to an end of our show here, why
don't you give us a summary ofyour techniques and your
approach to shared learning?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So I would say, start with being clear on what your
goal is for it, what it is thatyou want to achieve, and then,
once you've got that goal, findsome excited people who would
really want to help make ithappen and empower them.
This is potentially a team ofpeople who were your change
agents, who would get excited,who can build some momentum and
connect with people across allof the different teams to rope
(35:21):
them in and encourage them tocontribute.
And then, when it comes down toactually making it happen from
a leadership perspective, justencourage, just nudge.
Show everyone that you are,that you're sponsoring this,
that you're behind it, that youreally want people, that it
matters to you, and then beready to celebrate whatever
comes out and get excited aboutit and follow on with the nudges
(35:41):
.
So if there's things that goodstuff, stuff, good seeds that
seem to be planted in whateverthis you know xm empowered team,
create, be present, be there,notice it, celebrate it and
nudge those positive things intohappening afterwards and and
help make sure that it kind ofcan ripple and expand afterwards
at a very high level.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
that's what I would suggest so, victoria, you've
co-written a book about runninginternal tech conferences.
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
This is a really practical short book on
basically the why and the how todo an internal conference and
how to do it.
Well, and I co-wrote this withMatthew Skelton, who has since
then written a much bigger book,team Topologies, which has
flown off the shelves this oneis a very, very short and snappy
.
It's got guidelines, it's gotcase studies.
It's just to help you getstarted, and so it's a short
(36:30):
read that should be highlypractical if you want to get
started.
To help you do so.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Awesome.
We'll put a link in the shownotes so our listeners will have
easy access to that.
And if our listeners want toget in touch with you, Victoria,
what's the best way for them todo that?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
LinkedIn is probably the way.
So if you put a link, a message, a link to LinkedIn in the
notes as well, and that's whereI can be found, All right, that
sounds great.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, unfortunately we're out of time here, but,
victoria, it's been greattalking with you, great to meet
another fellow cat lover.
Thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.
This was very interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
All right.
Well, that brings it intoanother episode of the Agile
Within.
We'll see everybody next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the Agile
Within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin and please spread the
(37:33):
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
This has been your host, markMetz.
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