Part #3 How to run an agile training course

We’ve all attended training session which were death by power point. There was little interaction from the attendees and the trainer seemed determined to get through everyone of his/her dozen or so bullet points that appeared on the numerous amount of slides that they had.

I attended a six day 1st line management training course sometime ago – and was dreading the thought of having to sit through a zillion power point slides and hearing the droning of some poor trainers voice for a the rest of the week. However I was presently surprised. The agility of the trainer was quite refreshing and the participation from the attendees was second to none. Here’s how he approached the session.

1. The introductions: who you are what you hope to gain from the course – all jotted down on a flip chart.
2. Quick survey of participants to see if there were any “challenging issues” they were currently facing that they need to resolve.
3. Merge the participants’ expectation with the course content (the two were pretty close). This could be considered the backlog items
4. Short problem solving exercise to get us to think out of the box and wet our appetites.
   Run a series of exercises and tasks.
5. Open discussion / feedback on the tasks
6. Periodically visit the “challenging issues” previously raised and discuss in conjunction with the feedback from exercises and tasks that were set.
7. At the end of the day review the backlog items and tick off the backlog items that had been covered.
8. Ask attendees if they need any more input on a given backlog task.
9. Review the course at the end of the six days referring to the backlog items that have been covered.

No power point slides, very little use of projector or plasma screen. Lots of writing on flipcharts, constant inspecting and adapting through out the day to ensure participants needs were met. A real agile approach to a training course.
Benefits:

• Managers and leaders are better trained based on emerging needs as opposed to a rigid inflexible curriculum.


• Teams stand a better chance of improving their performance because real life issues are being addressed.

Next time you attend a training course that is "death by power point" and you get a feedback form asking... "how it was for you" - point the training to this article and suggest they adopt training the agile way.