At #OOPmuc this year – beside sketchnotes and other stuff – I had the pleasure to step Into the Unknow by attending a half-day workshop with Dana Pylayeva. I was so curious to finally learn about her DevOps culture simulation with Lego and chocolate.
As you can see from the tweet below, the workshop itself was a-we-some. Although I knew already a lot about DevOps from my former days as a software crafter I learned a bunch of new aspects. And – most of all – I enjoyed observing and experiencing the group dynamics of Dana’s highly engaging simulation.
So if you want to know more about the simulation, have a look at her slideshare, the book or simply ecosia it.
THE trainer hack of that conference
In the workshop I learned a tiny, little detail from Dana: after the first highly interactive part, Dana used a big wooden pipe with a loud-enough yet very pleasant sound to get the room’s attention (without needing to e.g. shout).
Of course at that moment the whole group then got introduced to the put-your-arm-up-and-close-your-mouth technique [*] used in big room facilitation.
The usage of a pipe small-enough to carry with a pleasant sound for training or workshop facilitation with highly interactive parts totally made my day!
Today I found that little bird pipe back from my children days. Right away I knew: THIS is gonna be MY trainer’s pipe from now on. Thank you Dana for this great inspiration!
As I have a list with more “hacks” and tricks in my drawer which I’ve collected over the years, today is also the time to kick-off a new tag on my blog called #trainerhacks.
Be surprised what I’ll add in the future. And – of course – I am already curious to hear about YOUR #trainerhacks! 🙂
Addendum
[*] While I wrote that blogpost, I asked on twitter for the “right” name of that gesture. I wasn’t aware what abundance unfolded within the anwers to such a “simple” question. Here are my top three suggestions and take-aways:
- read through the answers, experiences, origins, suggestions of the original tweet for inspiration and learning more
- print and distribute the cheat-sheet of hand-signs for facilitating large groups created by Corinna Baldauf (see wall-skills.com, the tweet)
- Some people pointed to Jean Tabaka being the origin of that gesture within the agile world. And I truly love Rob Myers’ suggestion of calling it ‘The Tabaka’ in honor of Jean. Let’s do that! <3
Ha-ha, This blog post totally made my day! Thank you Cosima. I am glad that you found my train pipe sound useful and even more so that you discovered this very unique bird pipe. It will be very special and will carry good energy into your workshops. Can’t wait to attend one in the future