Games to teach technical practices

Written By Allison Pollard

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Good engineering practices are needed to sustain agility. I’ve been reading Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim; in their research, they found that technical practices predict culture, continuous delivery, job satisfaction, software delivery performance, less deployment pain, and less time spent on rework. Technical practices are incredibly powerful!

It can be helpful to have folks outside of development teams understand the concepts behind the practices so they can better support them. Sometimes stakeholders will surprise you and find ways of applying the concept in their own work. In some cases, holding a workshop with live coding may be a fit—if not, there are games you can facilitate to teach technical practices:

Allison Pollard

Allison Pollard is a coach, consultant, and trainer who brings the power of relationship systems intelligence to go beyond tasks, roles, and frameworks to create energy for change. She engages with people and teams in a down-to-earth way to build trust and listen for signals to help them learn more and improve. Allison focuses on creating alignment and connection for people to solve business problems together. Her experience includes working with teams and leaders in energy, retail, financial, real estate, and transportation industries to help improve their project/product delivery and culture. Allison currently volunteers as program director for Women in Agile’s mentorship program. Her agile community focus is championing new voices and amplifying women as mentors and sponsors for the next generation of leaders. Allison earned her bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), a foodie, and proud glasses wearer. Allison is a prolific speaker at professional groups and international conferences, including Scrum Gatherings and the Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. Allison is co-owner of Helping Improve LLC.

http://www.allisonpollard.com
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