I came across a nice post , which explained the “I do, we do, you do “
technique beautifully.
‘But Shirly,’ I
hear you asking, ‘What IS the ‘I do, we do, you do’ technique?’.
The formal
explanation is here:
“Kids internalize concepts through gradual
release: a teacher models a concept or skill while kids observe (“I do”);
kids engage with the concept or skill with lots of teacher support (“we do”);
kids give it a shot on their own (“you do”). “ 3 Quick Wins for Kids Ministry
This is a
common teaching practice used with students, and is also frequently used when
you introduce Agile to teams. The way I see it, kids and families can also
benefit from this concept at home - especially when combined with Agile.
As always, I’ll
keep it simple. If you want to read more, there are links at the bottom of this
post.
In most of the cases the scrum daily meeting is
a new skill that the team needs to learn. This meeting is time boxed for 15
minutes regardless of the size of the team, and looks to review the team work
progress, the team’s commitment, and help the team focus, identify and
eliminate impediments to progress.
Sounds simple?
You need to learn HOW to do it. The team has to
learn how to conduct this meeting in the most effective and efficient manner.
So sometimes I use the “I do , we do , you
do” technique. The first time the team gathers for the scrum daily meeting,
I, as a coach, will take the role of the scrum master and facilitate this
meeting. I will make sure the team and the scrum masters observes (“I do”).
Next meeting, I will ask the scrum master to
facilitate the meeting with me, together, (“we do”) . I will stand next
to the scrum master and let him lead while I fine tune correct if and where
it’s needed. Usually the ‘we do’ part takes no more than one or two sessions
until the scrum master and the team feels they can do it themselves.
In the “we do” stage , its extremely
important to get the team feedback and get feedback from the ‘student’, to
understand if they are confident enough to manage by themselves.
The third step will be the “you do “. I
stand back and let the scrum master and the teams take the lead.
At each step, I will provide the team with
relevant feedback.
If I need to fine tune of a process, or introduce
a new method needed teaching, I may repeat this process.
So where’s the big problem?
Well, the problem starts when we use concepts
that we already know - as managers, as teachers, or as parents, and we expect
new participants to immediately understand what we are talking about and follow
it. In other words, we expect others to start from
the ‘you do’ phase, without going through the other two phases.
For example, Management discusses and learns a
new meeting process, and the developers get an email telling them what to do in
their next meeting. Do we actually expect them to learn a new practice from an email?
One that took the managers the better part of a day to discuss and understand?
Exactly the same thing happens at home with our
kids. You can’t expect them to ‘get’ something that took you a long time to
learn.
Going through these stages is necessary, and
important. It makes sure that even those children who think they are fast
learners follow each step, until they have really learned and understood.
Combine this technique with Agile, and it’s
awesome to use at home.
Among other things, Agile brings the concept of
visibility to the table, as we use the task board to reflect our progress. The
advantages of visibility are widely known to be a powerful for learning and as
a “get things done” tool.
Visualization as a family holds enormous value,
as I’ve written before. It shows the progress, pushes us to perform as a group,
enables us to get feedback, prevents singling out problematic team members, and
so much more!
Agile adds the communication value and the need
to plan and retrospect over our performance.
And it is so simple to implement, like it’s a
quick win
So when we speak about Agile and boards,
specifically about the visualization aspects, we can have several of
visualization and implementation options in this area.
We could just add the following columns to our
board:
I do , we do , you do.
Need to learn a new subject? Make it into a
sticky note, and move it across these columns, with each one representing the
learning phase of a task we are in.
To sum up - the following rules are applicable
in most cases:
1.
Visualize your tasks. Visualization makes it easy to put things in order, get
things done, acknowledge our progress get feedback and gain the feeling of
control. Use a task board. Make sure
every learning task is on the board.
2.
As
always, divide big issues into smaller ones and go ahead. Don’t use
massive learning tasks with massive step as one learning issue. Split it to
smaller ones. But keep the big
picture in front of you. After all, learning is not only about doing small
steps. The big picture is sometimes very important for the child to be aware
of.
3.
Pull one
task, complete it , and then pull the next task in line.
4.
I do – model the step yourself - eliminate “going ahead” just because we think
we know how to do something.
5.
We do - Do it together with your kid. It can be a one-on-one session, or a
class session where we all do it together. At the end – place the card on the
board.
6.
You do -Let them get things done – each child using his card to perform the
task .
8.
If the
child doesn’t succeed completing one of the stages, learn from it. It’s
perfectly OK to try again, to practice some more.
9.
Of course
, don’t forget the communication aspect. Talk things over, retrospect
over your performance and learn
10.
As
always, don’t forget to have fun.
References and reading:
