Mob Learning and Testing

After attending Agile Testing Days (ATD) 2019 it became (even more) clear to me that learning is a trip with better outcomes whenever doing it with someone else in a proactive way. Alone we can do great things; however, we can go farther together.

For me, this where Mob Learning comes to play.

It’s not about learning in a random, unfocused group. First, it’s a group of people with an ultimate shared goal: they want to learn and improve their skills.

For this, they need to have some sort of structure:

• Be committed
• Be present, i.e. available to and for others
• Be open and humble
• Understand that “truth changes”

Learning is a process, an inner one. I’m not an expert in that area but what I’ve seen is that it’s a shared process. We learn with our experiences but also with the experiences of others. We listen and try to understand different points-of-view, so we can refine our own.

But, first of all, it’s important to understand where we come from.

During Agile Testing Days 2019, one afternoon, a group of attendees took a walk and discussed several topics namely the challenges organizations face. At that time, I remembered a workshop I had weeks ago at Agile Connect Aveiro: “Agile MngtBugs & MngtFixes” by Eduardo Espinheira.

Explaining it briefly: the idea behind that concept is that you can actually sum up problems/”bugs” because they’re common between organizations. And you know what? solutions/”fixes” are also common.

There’s more than this but what I wanted you to have in mind is that we are not alone; our problems are common or typical, and our solutions are also common or typical.

In our brief discussion during this walk, I remember saying “for similar problems we may apply similar solutions”. And “similar” is key here; nothing is alike; that also means that we cannot apply solutions blindly. We need to understand the context and what lies behind the problems and solutions we have in our hands.

That’s why solving problems together is easier than alone: because we can make things visible, share, discuss, target and overcome. And each one brings his/her own experience to the table, challenging our own fears and our own beliefs.

The final keynote of Lisi Hocke and Toyer Mamoojee showed precisely this: they started mostly alone, having their own fears but they teamed together and committed to each other and that made them reach much farther, in a consistent way.

They could vocalize their thoughts, discuss them and give feedback based on their shared experiences.

Each one of us is a bag of experiences; sometimes we make it hard to realize it. Our different backgrounds give us different perspectives.

Are they better? They’re different for sure and they complement what we already know.

We may reinforce, re-question or discard what we know. And “truth” changes with time. “Agile”, remember? There are no written truths in stone.

With time, Lisi and Toyer pair evolved into a group, a Power Learning Group where they could support each other, share ideas and collaborate.

By collaborating, as equals, we can improve our knowledge. Each one of us has a different background, different expertise levels in different things. Yet, every single one of us has their own vision of the world.

Knowledge grows at a faster pace whenever it is fostered, facilitated and shared.

An excellent tester has a swiss-knife of skills.

As Damian Synadinos mentioned in his keynote at ATD, we are not T shaped nor pi shaped; each one of us is like a unique comb composed of a different set of skills, having different levels. If we complement each one’s comb with one another, we can ultimately obtain a more perfect comb.

If we look at pair programming, or ultimately at mob programming, there are teams having great results with it as they work together around a common goal by complementing each one skills. The same happening with testing.

So, why not extend it to learning? To my own learning… to your own learning?

Sometimes it may be out of our own comfort zone: it’s hard to get away from there. But if we don’t do it, our progress will be limited. A way of overcoming it, similar to our own daily problems, is to talk about it. Also, recognize our own gaps.

Mob Learning is, in fact, a powerful way of learning.

Coming back to the previous “comb” example, the dynamic of learning in a group has similar characteristics: everyone contributes in their own way, based on their context, with bits and pieces, that stack up together building a unique fingerprint of our comb of knowledge (or “learning narrative” as João Proença calls it). And this is only possible in a group that actively aims to improve.

Thus, we’re talking about learning with a goal and commitment, using multiple-perspectives and feedback to help you grow. It’s more than learning with a group of people, or with someone else; it’s about a continuous way of learning around a common goal, through perseverance, sharing and challenging.

Now that I’m more aware of it, I’ll do my best to put it in practice. It may not be easy to give the first step but you know what? I think it is worth it!

We can start with small things: how we approach a conference? Are we there to attend or to be part of it? Are we inspiring ourselves with what we hear and see? As an example, whenever I saw Abby Bangser’s keynote (slides) on “observability” that made me think about our own cloud-based product and how we can leverage what we have to have true observability, so we can analyze the system in a dynamic way and answer non-predetermined questions. We may have logs, we may have metrics but it’s not enough and now I understand why: we cannot predict what we need to know.

Remember that if we’re aiming to be more Agile, we need to improve, continuously.

We can read, we can observe, we can listen, we can share, we can try, we can challenge, we can overcome, we can learn.

And yes, we can mob learn together. It seems to make perfect sense when it comes to Testing, doesn’t it? So many challenges, so many doubts, so many ideas, so many that we can learn from.

Mob Learning and Testing, two close friends, for sure!