Co-training can be either a joy or a burden depending on the interaction between the trainings. I’ve been on the receiving end of a few bad experiences, and so I typically prepare for the worst. And so, it was a pleasant surprise when my most recent Sydney ScrumMaster training went exceptionally smoothly.
I was co-training with James Brett and he was a joy to co-train with. I expected James to know his stuff, because he’s been a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) for some time and has been running the Brisbane Scrum Users group for a number of years. What I didn’t expect was that our styles would compliment each other so nicely. James’ low key approach and off beat humor worked nicely with my earnest (and sometime overly serious) approach.
On day two of the training, I let James take full control over the discussion about the ScrumMaster role. He approached it by drawing a mind map. This is something that I’ve never done, but it worked so well I might seriously adopt it going forward. Here’s a snapshot that I took at the end of the day. James also sent me a cleaned up diagram which you can find at the top of this article.
It was a great experience and hopefully something that we’ll get to do again shortly.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
This is really cool, Kane. I may need to steal this approach to describing the SM (and other roles!)
Yeah, I thought so as well … all credit to James. This approach lead to some really great conversations and made redundant my usual exercises at the end of the section.
If you try this, let me know how it goes.
Do you know by any chance what mindmapping tool he used for the cleaned up one?
Hi Guys,
Thanks Kane for the great feedback. I agree it was a great 2 days and i too think we complimented each other nicely. I love the approach you took, very pragmatic, sprinkled with lots of exercises and real world advice, not doubt taken from your coaching experience as a CSC.
The mind mapping software I used was on the iPad and its called iThoughtsHD
you can find it here http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ithoughtshd-mind...
Cheers for now
James
I was there! And I must admit that was a great session.
Thanks for the training Kane, and I enjoyed that mind map – it has helped me define my role.