UPDATE (June 5, 2011): This was a great workshop! I learned so much about myself and about how I could be communicating to others in order to increase common understanding rather than trying to control the outcome of the conversation. I can really recommend this for everyone interested in improving learning and communication.

I have invited Benjamin Mitchell to do a talk at Avega Group this Thursday, May 26 16:00 to 20:00, at our office in Sturegallerian. We have a couple of spare seats so if anyone out there wants to come please e-mail me at Gmail or leave a comment below.

Increasing effectiveness and communication with the Mutual Learning Model with Benjamin Mitchell

The Manifesto for Agile Software mentions that it values “individuals and interactions over processes and tools”. Most Agile approaches have very little to say about how to help individuals create interactions that produce effective results. For Agile teams to be effective they need to manage the challenge of learning and adopting new practices, working alongside other teams in organisations and managing stakeholder and customer demands. These situations can create tension as it is often necessary to reconcile groups with different views of the world.

This seminar will introduce a framework for helping individuals, working together in teams, realise their creative and problem-solving potential, especially in challenging delivery-focused situations. The framework is based on the sound theory and over 30 years of research on Organisational Learning from Harvard University Professor Chris Argyris and his associates. It provides a practical approach to helping teams improve the quality of their decisions, increase personal commitment to decisions, whilst reducing implementation time and increasing organizational learning. A central idea of the approach is that our beliefs, values and assumptions guide the behaviours that we choose to use to get effective results. In situations of embarrassment or threat most humans tend to act differently than they would tell others they do. At these moments people adopt the Unilateral Control Model, which leads to reduced effectiveness and is anti-learning. Argyris proposes a more effective set of values and beliefs and associated behaviours referred to as the Mutual Learning Model.

This seminar will use practical exercises to help participants reflect on their own mindsets, before introducing the work of Argyris with reference to the speaker’s experience leading teams as a Project Manager and Agile Coach.

About Benjamin Mitchell
I work with leading software product development organisations to assist them to become more effective at achieving their business goals. I do this through helping senior leaders and teams focus on building and validating what the right products are by understanding customer demand and using iterative development approaches. I accelerate learning in organisations by helping them develop productive communication skills that allow them to make better quality decisions. I have practical real-world experience delivering software projects with exceptional results based on practical, implementable advice. I am a highly-rated international speaker on applying innovative approaches, such as Kanban, to software development. Based in London, I work with clients as a speaker, executive coach or team consultant.