Virtual Training

Virtual Training
7 virtual facilitation and training tips to increase interactivity and engagement for your learners

We have now ushered in a world where everyone from a Saturday Night Life (SNL) show, Netflix episodes, Schools, Trainers, Consultants, and everyone is using Zoom and so many more tools to bring everyone together virtually. As I experience this new normal, it took me back to my technology role where we have facilitated many global hackathons and cloud adoption events virtually using video conferencing, collaboration, and messaging tools. So this new way of working came naturally to me. As a trainer though, it was different, I was so used to delivering an engaging experience in-person. I learned several skills co-teaching with some of the best trainers in the industry. Designing engaging training slowly started becoming second nature. Having delivered great in-person experiences it was hard to go back to boring slides and sharing screens virtually, there had to be a different way. This article is the first of its series of my virtual learning journey as I lead myself and others through this journey.

 

Liberating Structures (LS), Training from the BACK of the Room (TBR), Bikablo, and facilitating virtual cloud adoption events with over 250 participants that are all working from home came to my rescue. Of course, being adept with online tools and virtual facilitation ideas shared by Kriti Jaising really helped.

 

As I started my journey, I started attending some amazing virtual training delivered by trainers from all over the world. One I would like to highlight was by Anna Jackson and Fisher Qua on virtual liberating structures. I also joined forces to re-design and deliver the two-day scrum and product owner training with great trainers like Valerio Zanini, re-designing TBR for virtual delivery with trainers from all over the world and co-delivering a virtual design workshop for Covid-19 charity and sharing with trainers globally as we learn. This opened up so many opportunities to re-design and deliver many different topics including User Stories, my agile leadership game, and my hands-on culture and delivery pipeline DevOps training. So here is what we learned:

In the first of its series I would like to share 7 tips for delivering virtual workshops and training:

 

Split 2 day in-person (6-8 hour) training into multiple days of 2-3 hours of virtual training

Online collaboration tools like Miro, Mural, Mentimeter, Socrative, and tons of techniques from LS and TBR can keep your audience engaged, learning, and have fun. A two-day in-person is exhausting for learners, convert that in the virtual environment means being completely engaged while learners have people at home, remembering to put up a card or press a button, being aware all the time when to speak giving others a chance to do so as well as engaging on these collaborative tools can be much much more exhausting. We know from brain science that the brain needs frequent breaks and time to absorb new concepts. Teaching in smaller segments and enabling learners to get back to work or to their families increase the ability for the brain to learn more.

Consider having a co-facilitator/ wing man

I have always believed in partnering with great trainers to co-teach in-person training and workshops. Both trainers learn from each other as well as your learners get invaluable experience. Of course, this would mean calendar coordination and sharing revenues. In the virtual environment, co-teaching becomes a necessity. A good trainer can help both in facilitation as well as navigating technology and gotchas: zoom breakout rooms, Miro/Mural issues, chat windows, admitting participants who drop off, uploading your Bikablo drawings on the iPad to share with your learners, etc.

Get help from audience on keeping an eye on the chat window, admitting participants, etc.

Just like in-person classes, invite your learners with setup and group management in the virtual world. Learners instead of being distracted become able participants to partner with you create an amazing learning experience

Make your start memorable: Invite attendees to change names and add locations, Playing music as attendees are joining

As learners join, share how they can rename their name and share their location on their zoom video window, this instantly connects them with their virtual environment and makes them feel comfortable to share how they would like to be addressed/called during the entire workshop. As learners join consider playing some light and welcoming music. In these times of stress, these small auditory and visual techniques help make everyone feel safe and comfortable.

Create a chat storm with everyone press enter at the same time

Invite your learners to share something in the beginning, as a review activity or at the end using a chat storm. Ask a question and invite them to type in the chat window but wait for you to press enter. Once everyone has a chance to type, ask them to press enter at the same time creating a storm. Give everyone some time to review everyone’s answers and learn from each other. This is another technique to have learners connect with each other and feel safe and not have one answer to influence another

Special characters to share Instructions and questions in chat window

Sharing instructions are hard when you deliver in-person training, now consider trying to share instructions verbally in the virtual environment. Is everyone listening or having the same understanding of the instructions? Checking for understanding (a technique used in TBR by Sharon Bowman) can help and I would add a few other ideas. When you share instructions verbally, also add the same instructions in the chat window prefacing them with 3 or 4 forward slashes. for e.g.: ///You will have 5 minutes in a breakout room to discuss …

Invite your learners to preface questions with a question mark at the beginning and end with a question mark while you are teaching a concept so that they don’t forget and give you a chance to read and answer once you are done. For e.g:?How does the ScrumMaster help the organization?

End your training with a memorable technique

Keeping the primacy and recency aspects of your learner’s brain in mind, always end with a memorable takeaway or conclusion. I love to use the virtual ball toss where everyone stands up and tosses a ball to each other while sharing one or two valuable lessons they learned. This is a virtual celebration, a different activity that simulates the brain and both the technique and what they learned becomes memorable for your learners.

So am I done, hell no! If this is the new normal, I am only starting, I will continue sharing my learning journey with you, so watch this space for more tips, videos, tools, gotchas, iPad drawing tricks, my virtual cloud adoption experience and more.

by Anil Jaising

Certified Scrum Master  ·  Virtual Training
5 unique insights from our Virtual Beyond User Stories Workshop

Learners in our Certified Scrum Master and Certified Product Owners always mention that they need a deeper dive into user stories, estimation and planning. How can they provide a date to their organization while keeping true to inspecting and adapting the plan? How can they write and split user stories so that an effective minimum viable product can be created? So we designed a 8 hour 2 day half days course that has the following 5 learning outcomes

  • Develop user personas and identify user proxies where needed

  • Apply effective user stories to product management, development and testing

  • Demonstrate how to split stories to adhere to the INVEST model using 12 different techniques

  • Apply relative estimation techniques to estimate risk, complexity and effort for each user story

  • Plan your sprints and releases based on your user story map

Feedback from our students in our pilot class on Oct 19th gave us deep insights into instructional design for our virtual. Five really stood out

 

1. The interactions drove home the concepts and learning

No slides, no screen sharing, so how do we add to what the learner’s know. A trainer naturally assumes that everyone joining a class is a novice in the topics of the class. Typically a class has a mixed level of knowledge. Using a mix of activities like matching words and images, filling in a sheet with available choices , evaluating powerful questions that a group can analyze and discuss, filling in a jigsaw puzzle, etc. This enables a group to be focused on an activity that they can discover new learning together, learn and teach each other. Teaching others is the best way to learn. Enabling our learners to have those discussions and stepping back as a trainer to observe, facilitate and guide as needed helped us deliver new concepts.

 

2. Collection of user stories and acceptance criteria formats

We started with an example video streaming product, created a collection of user stories and then built an example product backlog with each story having a wide variety of acceptance criteria. The learners had an opportunity in the workshop to explore our user stories. In practicing to write their own user stories, the learners form groups and add features to the existing products and write stories for those features. The rich set of acceptance criteria helps them add a whole suite of new user stories to support those features. By sharing acceptance criteria formats that will help them with scripting their automated tests was powerful. The idea that user stories can drive scripting automated tests which can be converted to actual working tests even without having to write a single line of code using a technique called Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)

 

3. Guidance on splitting stories

We used 16 different user story splitting techniques that the learners discover and adopt to split their own stories. The module on splitting is really powerful, where it starts to dawn how they can now start create a vertical slice of the product that they can release without all the bells and whistles and continue to add a few every sprint to increase their release frequency

 

4. Priming and delivering the workshop into two half days

We used 16 different user story splitting techniques that the learners discover and adopt to split their own stories. The module on splitting is really powerful, where it starts to dawn how they can now start create a vertical slice of the product that they can release without all the bells and whistles and continue to add a few every sprint to increase their release frequency

 

5. Use of highly interactive online tools

We have been experimenting with several virtual collaboration tools and for this workshop we choose Mural for whiteboard collaboration, Zoom for polling and of course video conferencing and finally Socrative for quizzes to confirm knowledge. These tools along with Zoom Breakout rooms give us an opportunity to recreate how we would deliver a class in person where learners are encouraged to work and talk with each other at all times and the instructor becomes a guide on the side instead of a sage in the front

 

If you are interested in one of our Advanced User Stories workshop, reach out

by Anil Jaising

Virtual Training
So why is Training From the BACK Of The Room-VE a must for any virtual trainer or facilitator?
 
 

All training and facilitation has gone virtual, there are so many great programs teaching you how to deliver a virtual event. Then why would you need a workshop like Training from the BACK of the Room-VE (TBR-VE)?

 

Have you ever seen a magician perform his or her tricks? How do they do it?

 
 

All the virtual training programs you usually see focus on sharing virtual techniques and tools that they use. Those are very valuable and can make your training interactive and engaging.

 

In addition to offering 40+ virtual techniques and tools, two aspects makes TBR-VE stand apart

 

1. how the human brain works and how some of the effects are acute in a virtual environment

 

2. Using the 4Cs design how can you string the virtual tools and techniques to ensure that the learning is retained in the long term memory of the learner.

 
 

It took eight months and 12 top trainers from across the world to create a unique program like TBR-VE. Besides being from different geographies, these trainers teach different courses that give each and everyone of them a different perspective. The research and experience that has gone into creating this program has made this the most richest available offering

 

Brain Science: In your virtual class, your learners join from everywhere on a small box in zoom. You do see them but the connection is very impersonal and lacks the warmth of an in-person class. How do you connect with them and make them feel safe. Safe to engage with you and the rest of the class. How can the trainer awaken the visual, auditory and kinesthetic sense of the learners? TBR-VE goes deep into brain science and shares practical solutions for the above questions and much much more

 
 

The 4Cs Map brings the brain science learning and the 40+ techniques and tools together into an instructional design

that goes beyond the traditional class room learning into a series of well thought out discovery sessions to engage your learners as well as confirm their knowledge.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

TBR-VE in September and October. TBE-VE is made up of 5 short modules of 2.5 hours each. Right here as trainers we wanted to use the brain principle of shorter trumps longer. This principle becomes much more acute. The attention span of a virtual learner is much shorter, so how do we engage with them in shorter amounts of time as well as use the time in-between for participants to do exercises that review what they learnt as well as prime their brain for the next class.

 

Finally I like to share testimonials from our participants

 

“I liked how sneaky the course was. We were applying what we were learning without even realizing it until after when the light bulb went off. Usually you apply your learning after but doing it while you were learning was pretty darn cool.”

 

“Consider psychological safety/how you design the module is key/death by lecture/use the tools and techniques/start from the end & objective/remember need to have vs nice to have”

 

“To learn you must Teach! I absolutely loved this concept. This has helped me understand the C2 (Concepts) and challenge my original way of teaching. The liberating structures and tools have helped me already in my retros and regular scrum ceremonies. Needless to say I have a lot of take aways and I’m so thankful.”

 

“How to design a great training using several powerful techniques that engage learners and incorporating brain science principles to make learning stick.”

 
 

Want to learn more, reach out to me. If you like to sign up, please join us in our December 1st or January 15th class

by Anil Jaising

Virtual Training
Create an Engaging Virtual Sprint Planning with Liberating Structures – Part 2
 

Imagine being in a sprint planning event, everyone is virtual. The product owner welcomes everyone and shares his/her power point or a tool like Jira in a screenshare. Each candidate product backlog item is evaluated by each team member and the scrum team together have a discussion on each one of them and they go through the what and how of sprint planning. What can possibly go wrong?? Are you sure every member of the team is fully engaged? Are all cameras turned on? Does every team member get an opportunity to provide their input? How long will the entire meeting take? Will the product owner be engaged and available for the entire duration? Are we going to have a marathon planning event? Will the team be able to collaborate on creating a sprint goal?

 

Continuing our exploration of Liberating Structures (LS), what if we use a string of LS to facilitate a sprint planning event? I like to share one possible design, but before that we should revisit the purpose of sprint planning and what happens in the two topics, the what and the how.

 

Purpose:

 

The sprint planning event is the first event in a sprint, and the entire Scrum team attends. The output is a sprint backlog (containing a forecast and a plan) and a sprint goal that the team can self-organize around.

There are two topics in the discussion

  1. The What: What are we building? – The product owner presents candidate product backlog items (PBIs) with an objective in mind to the development team. the The scrum team collaborates on what to build using past performance and capacity as inputs and crafting a sprint goal

  2. The How: How are we going to build it? – As the development team forms the sprint backlog, they discuss approaches to the how they will build each of the PBIs. This helps them to create a forecast and a plan that can achieve meeting the sprint goal.

So what could be a flow we can consider for a two week sprint?

 

Flow to facilitate a virtual sprint planning session:

  1. The product owner shares candidate PBIs using a collaborative visual whiteboard which every one can collaborate and add their input. The PBIs have been refined in the past by the scrum team and are ready. The product owner shares any changes to the PBIs between the last refinement and now. Assuming sprint planning – timebox – 10-15 minutes

  2. The scrum team uses Impromptu Networking to share what they know about each PBI and uncover any new unknowns. If a PBI has to be re-estimated they consider that in the various groups. The groups are in pairs and then in groups of 4 – timebox – 30 minutes

  3. The development team discusses the PBIs, estimates and evaluates past performance and capacity to pick the PBIs they believe they can deliver in this sprint. Every team member shares their 15% solutions using the 1-2-4-All micro structure while sharing their solutions on the whiteboard for each PBI for it to be visually available for all. Together they decide which PBIs they will add to the sprint backlog and the scrum team craft a Sprint Goal – timebox – 60 minutes

  4. In the How, the development has a set of product backlog items (PBIs) which they use What? So What? and Now What? micro structure to go over each PBI to decide how will they build each PBI and create a forecast and plan that can achieve the sprint goal – timebox – 60 minutes

 

Preparations:

1. Use a collaborative whiteboard to share the ready candidate PBIs which can be edited or added to by the entire scrum team

 

2. Create a video conferencing solution like zoom with breakout room functionality for the event to create the various space and group configurations

 

Flow in detail:

 

1. Product Owner welcomes everyone in the virtual call and shares the candidate PBIs – (10 – 15 minutes)

 

2. Impromptu Networking: In three to five rounds, team members pair up to review each PBI and take 5 minutes to respond to the following invitation – (30 minutes)

 

Invitation: “What can you share what you know about the PBI? What questions, considerations and estimations come to mind?”

 

3. Each development team member share their 15% solutions if each PBI can be included in the sprint backlog in a 1-2-4-All micro structure using past performance and capacity as input and discuss a possible sprint goal. When the team come together they craft a sprint goal and pick a set of the candidate PBIs for their sprint backlog – (60 minutes)

 

Invitation: “Based on the Sprint Goal, past performance and capacity can the PBI be be included in the sprint backlog?”

 

4. The development team engages in What?, So What?, Now What? rounds for each PBI to evaluate how each can be built? – (60 minutes)

 

Invitation: Round 1: What have you observed in the discussions you have had that stood out for you to build the PBI?

Round 2: So what tasks will be required to build the PBI?

Round 3: Now what can we do to plan this PBI?

 

Closing: Once the forecast and plan is constructed the team closes sprint plannings and starts working on the PBIs in the sprint backlog

 

What questions come to mind when you envision the flow? What would you change or add to my design?

by Anil Jaising

Virtual Training
Small changes to make big differences to your virtual calls that fill your calendar – Part 1

Is your calendar full of virtual interactions that bore, steal time, and are not-inclusive? Let me share some examples:

12 Managers around the world meet with the global department head on a bi-weekly basis to discuss performance goals, share accomplishments, and review strategic plans for their respective teams. The meeting stretches for an hour with most of the time taken by the department head and a couple of managers. The others have spent several hours preparing are asked in the last 5 minutes to upload their work to a shared document folder due to lack of time.

 

The next virtual call is an update from an expert in the workplace delivering a mini-training on best practices in leading teams. The person promises an inclusive session with plenty of engagement. He then shares a PowerPoint slide and drones on for the next 30 minutes. He then stops for a small brainstorming exercise for 5 minutes based on what he has shared and on and on… Not once in that session, I find myself included and the 5 minutes of brainstorming is a disaster with all the participants speaking at the same time… I could go on, instead, let’s look at what can we change?

 

Would you like to get back the time back from these meetings, would you like to involve everyone in a training? Would you like to know what companies like Capital One, Merck, Microsoft, and the World Bank are doing differently? If so please read on…

 

Let’s look at the above examples, the intent is, of course, to involve everyone and in order to do that the department head or the trainer fell back on conventional structures like status updates, presentation and brainstorming.

 

If you look at the picture below these techniques excel when a single person is involved or a few involved. Liberating Structures is a simple yet powerful set of techniques that distributes control and ensures that everyone’s voice is heard. Liberating Structures can be scaled up or down depending on the number of people.

 
 
 

“Liberating Structures introduces tiny shifts in the way we plan, decide, and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in the hands of everyone” – According to Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, the founders of Liberating Structures.

 

Liberating Structures is a repertoire of 33 and steadily growing microstructures (techniques) that if used in a string (combination) can unleash amazing conversations, decisions, and innovation.

 
 

Depending on what you like to achieve you might consider picking 3 or 4 techniques and using them in a series of invitations to engage the participants. Here is a great matrix of the techniques you can use to design for everyday solutions, notice patterns together, unleash local action, draw out prototypes, or spread innovation.

 

There are 5 design elements that the facilitator needs to ensure for the success of these techniques both in person or on a virtual meeting or training.

Make an invitation – Craft an invitation that will resonate with them deeply so that they can conduct meaningful conversations

Distribute participation and roles – Always consider who is your audience and what roles are participating

Configure groups – Configure members in different groups based on criteria like affinity, types of departments, etc.

Arrange space – Make it easy to create white space, have participants not worry about the tools used, and make the experience seamless, especially in the virtual environment

Sequence and allocate time – This is the most important aspect where things might fall apart. Sequencing the invitations and ensuring that there is enough time for the participants in each sequence.

 

Curious to know more about how LS will work for you to help you to facilitate effective meetings and training and get more time in the day for yourself and your participants? here are a few concrete steps you can start with

  1. Download the LS android app or apple app

  2. Join the conversation LS conversations on Slack where you can find some amazing participants help and receive help on Liberating Structures

  3. Use the Liberating Structures website or the app to learn more about each technique

  4. Practice design, get help, and experiment. Then practice, practice, practice.

In part 2 of this blog, I will share some example LS designs to add a new suite of facilitation and training techniques to your toolbox

by Anil Jaising

Virtual Training
Signals

Signals is defined as a hand, body motion or a choral response, used by learners to answer a question or demonstrate their understanding of a concept.

Training from the BACK of the Room uses tools and techniques based on the cognitive and brain science principles. A balance is maintained at all times. Teaching concepts in ways that learners are totally & completely ‘present‘ without sacrificing time or information.

Checking for understanding is a must whenever we are teaching, sharing or presenting. A simple thumbs up or down or yes or no can become mundane and boring. Adding kinesthetic element, different unusual sounds, musical instruments bring novelty. By now we all know Different Trumps Same.

Signals also help learners to think what they have heard and cross check if they interpreted correctly, repeating the information thus shifting it to long term memory path.

What is your favorite signal to check your learners understanding of important material?

Please share.

by Kriti Jaising

Virtual Training
Dot Voting – A Democratic Facilitation Tool

A beautiful example of democracy. Dot Voting a simple yet a very powerful tool in a trainer’s tool bag.

Simple because you just show your choice by putting a color dot sticker on your preference.

Powerful because dot voting has science behind it. Trainers print or write learning outcomes on a worksheet or posters or chart paper. Learners read them, analyze them, weigh them, prioritize them and then put the colored dots on the outcomes most important to them.

Trainers are using a psychological technique called ‘Priming’ – without conscious guidance letting the learners assess and decide what is important to them. Also getting their brains ready for what they are about to learn in the classroom.

Trainers gets a sense of ‘What learners are expecting‘ thus managing, matching expectations by customizing and delivering the content based on the ‘Learning Outcomes’

How do you use Dot Voting in your trainings? Do share.

Happy Weekend

 

Published By Kriti Jaising

by Kriti Jaising

Virtual Training
Neuroscience of Mindfulness & Learning

In this world of multitasking, checking emails, liking or commenting Linkedin posts, tweets or managing kids homework or folding laundry. Planning our day while preparing breakfast or driving to work. In this haste of ‘Doing’ we are loosing connection with the ‘Being’ that is our inner self.

Mind is constantly running on the loop of thoughts of past or future and we miss the only truth the ‘Present’ or the ‘Now’. Have you notice that you are beaming with happiness and true joy when you do an adventure sport like Rock Climbing, Sky diving, Bungee Jumping or a boot camp in the gym or after attending TBR Practitioner class :). This peace stems from the freedom of our thoughts, we are completely in the ‘Now’. So if ‘Being’ in the ‘Now’ is so blissful, how can we replicate the same feeling to the rest of our day and life.

‘Mindfulness’ is the practice of focusing your attention on the ‘Present Moment’. ‘Being in the Now’ is accepting this moment without resistance, judgement and attachment.

In the year 2020, I’m focused on bringing trainings based on Neuroscience of Learning and Mindfulness. All our Training from the BACK of the Room Practitioner Classes delivers the original content based on Brain Science principles as created by @Sharon Bowman and learning’s from Eckhart Tolle Books ‘Power of Now’ and ‘A New Earth’ that both @Anil Jaising and I practice in our lives as well.

 

I’m thrilled to see the prestigious academic institutions like Bergen County Academies, Hackensack, NJ, Englewood Cliffs School district and many others have included mediation & yoga in their daily schedules and after school programs. Shifting the focus from external / materialist life to internal /mystical way of living.

As trainers / teachers, the more we are aware and present the better we will connect, understand and give back to our learners. At Concepts & Beyond we are collaborating with like minded trainers who share our beliefs and philosophies.

by Kriti Jaising