Build a continuous learning organization

This article is from my translation of the Infoq Chinese station, the original address is: http://www.infoq.com/cn/news/2015/06/continuous-learning-organization

Software development is often considered a knowledge-intensive activity, so organizations will seek ways and means to promote continuous learning. Marcin Floryan that "We need learning organizations and starting with individual learning". However, individual learning can sometimes be difficult, and large-scale individual learning becomes more challenging. So how can you build a continuous learning organization?

At Lean Kanban Central Europe conference, Marcin talked about the learning entropy rule, and Infoq tracked the conference.

Infoq interviewed Marcin on the topic of the value and importance of agile teams and organizations, and talked about how to achieve large-scale learning, how to learn from success and failure, and how to improve your organization's learning ability.

InfoQ: Many of the people I know are eager to learn new things, but in fact, sometimes it can be very difficult, have you ever encountered such a thing?

Marcin: One of the reasons I like software development is that in this field, learning is the basis for achieving specialization. Many of the people I've met have come to realize this, but it's surprising to me that there's a lot of work to be done every day, so it's just a matter of being left behind. I think the main reason for the difficulties is not in the way of learning, many people have not yet arrived at this step, but the lack of learning to become an important part of the daily work of the principle.

In my speech, I asked the audience if they felt "they need to be paid to get them to learn", and few people think so. Of course, the question is a bit inappropriate, and people tend to get rewarded for the skills they already have, not because they are rewarded for learning skills, but I hope this issue will attract attention.

After all, in all of the software projects that I participate in, we always start with some unknowns and go through a series of exploratory processes, which for me is the process of learning, learning domain knowledge, learning needs, learning techniques, learning to communicate with people, learning infrastructure. Jeff Patton said very well "the problem will not change, but the comprehension is improving".

InfoQ: Can you tell us what you think is the value of continuous learning?

Marcin: The question is difficult to answer because it is prudent to look at the problem. Obviously, we work in a changing environment and need an effective means to keep up with the changing pace. Continuous learning is a powerful way. I think it has no value in terms of continuous learning itself. I may have read a lot of books and practiced complex skills, but if I can't do it, it's not really useful. This is not to say that continuous learning is not valuable, but rather as a means of acquiring valuable results, such as the ability to solve increasingly complex problems, provide innovative solutions, evolve business models, accelerate delivery, and so on.

InfoQ: What exactly is it that makes continuous learning so important to agile organizations? What about organizations that want to become agile?

Marcin: The Agile Manifesto begins by saying: "We are working on and helping others practice and revealing better software development methods." I think that the better way is based on learning, and this kind of exploration should be carried on continuously.

Admittedly, although "we can get value in this way", it is only right at some point, and its effectiveness will deteriorate over time, and the emphasis will shift. I think this is the point of today's agile community. change, adoption and evolution are goals that agile teams should target, and I think of them as different ways of learning. This approach is very different from the typical "analytic" and "hybrid" concepts of traditional organizations, and traditional organizations will think that "we already know what to do, we have the skills and experience we need, and we just need to complete the project." In order to fully embrace agility and benefit from agility, organizations need to transform into a growth mindset that acknowledges the lack of knowledge and keeps learning.

InfoQ: In order to build a learning organization, you need to scale individual learning to some extent, is that possible?

Marcin: A lot of people have asked me this question, I think I have not qualified to answer. Chris Argyris and Peter Senge have done a lot of research, and it says it's possible to build a learning organization, but it needs a basic idea and a whole new approach.

For me, to practice this approach, first of all, people can understand the value of learning and the true meaning of learning. Here's a mistake Chris Argyris gives people in creating learning organizations: "First of all, most people will learn to define too narrowly, just to solve the problem, so they only focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment, but if learning is sustainable, Then managers and employees need to see the inside. They need to reflect their behavior, identify the problems they inadvertently bring to the organization, and then change the way they do things. In particular, they need to be clear about the way they define and solve problems that may bring new problems to the organization. "

In short, scale learning is feasible and necessary, and we need to explore how to turn it into reality.

InfoQ: You can learn from failure or from success, so what are the differences between these two ways of learning?

Marcin: This topic is very big, perhaps need to introduce separately. Interestingly, although people feel that way, I don't think we can learn anything from failure. I think it's just an excuse to face failure. We failed, but learned something from it, so time is not wasted. What I want to say is that we can "learn from failure", which actually leads to the fact that failure is not only acceptable, but also quite popular, because it contributes to effective learning.

InfoQ: If organizations want to improve their learning ability, can you give some advice to help them get started?

Marcin: The lack of environment and advice always makes me worry that no one is serious or irrelevant. I have some ideas and hope to help you.

First, organizations need to re-recognize the need for learning. The next step is to try and understand how learning works, and what is the main obstacle to effective learning.

It is a very straightforward means of learning and getting people involved. Organize lunch and learn to communicate, so that people share their knowledge and experience in one area. Start blogging so everyone can share ideas and learn from them. Let people participate in meetings and community exchanges, encourage each other to share. Give everyone some time to practice and spend hours a week hosting coding dojo or programming Kata. Set up a library, buy some books for everyone to read, hold a book club, share reading experiences and learn. These are good ways to improve your interests, and they can lead to progress. If you build a small community and clear the focus of learning, then this is an effective mechanism for everyone to be honest with each other and to treat their progress in good faith.

However, while these are good practices, you need to keep in mind that the ability to learn is enhanced, and organizations must be prepared for their own survival and development. If many people do not want to change the status quo, then how will this proceed? Just like the example of hand washing that I mentioned in my speech. "Semmelweis's pioneering ideas are quite different from what the public has already accepted about medical understanding. For example, some doctors may be furious at the need to wash their hands, and they feel that washing their hands is incompatible with their gentleman's place because it means their hands are unclean. Overcoming this attitude is actually a leverage point, which allows real learning to go on.

View English text: Becoming a continuous learning Organization

Build a continuous learning organization