Explaining planning poker

Willy explaining planning poker

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The day we visited Ashram, we had the pleasure of experiencing what goes on in the classroom. One of the classes got introduced to estimating backlog and doing planning poker. It was just the second class in the morning, first class had left the room. And we were discussing what we observed in the first class while we were waiting.

Some moments later a new class entered the room. Willy was a little more firm on this class, no bags on the table, but same setting, all groups joining together. This time we got some more insight; this class went through the first two lessons. This, we learned, was basically about:

▪   having a short introduction in eduScrum, the basics and principles

▪   dividing in groups of four based on qualities

▪   breaking down their first assignment, some chapters in their class book with an end assignment

Willy continued and explained they now had to estimate the backlog, they work they had broken down the previous class into tasks with post-its. Willy distributed planning poker cards and said the first tasks, the first page of a book was 2, they had to estimate accordingly. Class looked puzzled, so he continued: “I am going to explain you something about relative comparison. I am 50 Kg,” (which I have to tell you is a little off reality), “no I am 50 Apples, no I am 50 A, how much are you?” looking at one of the girls sitting in front of the class. A little hesitant she admitted she wouldn’t know, so he asked again: “I am 50 A, how much are you?”, “40 A?”, she said. “Thank you for the compliment! but accepted, so how about you?” looking at another student. “30 A?”, she replied. “Excellent, you get the idea. Just throw away the dimensions, but if I am 50 A, you are perfectly able to estimate your are less, and you are even lesser. So let’s continue,” and he walked to a group handing them cards, taking two activities, one he declared 2 and the other was obviously more complex. “Now,” he said, “take your cards, give your estimate, and on the count of three give me your number, 1, 2, 3,…. Too slow guys, once more and all at the same moment, 1, 2, 3 ….” We saw 8,2,5, 8, 2.”Can’t be, they cannot be same as the previous task do it again, 1,2,3 ..” and 8,8,8,5,8 popped up. He declared it eight and you say some students in the other groups making sound they start to understand. He told once again the relevance of the relevant comparison, waiving away the need to be exact and stressing the importance of coming to understanding in a double blind proposal.

Some few moments later he had the impression students in all groups would understand and invited them to start estimating the complete backlog of the previous lesson. Some half hour passed, few questions, but most of all we just had time to watch and observe. And in the final minutes Willy invited everybody to add all numbers and call out the total: 250, 178, 320, 380, 290. 356, some were a little reluctant, but that would stop him.

“Now I take one of these numbers, 380, forget if it is right or not, it is the number of this group. If this is your estimation I just plot it here. We have ten lessons to go, forget about this and the previous lessons. We just take the 380, according to your estimation based on 2 for reading the first page, you need to do 380 points in 10 lessons. So 38 points per lesson (writing 38 p/l, introducing dimensional calculation at the same time again). We take the graph putting 380 on x=0 and drawing a straight line down to 0 at x=10″, basically drawing the burndown chart.

“Now next lesson you will come. It will be lesson zero and you do work. The next lesson you will come and put work from todo to done and count the numbers. It is expected you do 38 points work. That your will write done here. The next lesson you will come again doing the same. We will have two points and we know what your velocity, meaning points per lesson is.” he continued, “Now I do not care what your are doing, when you are doing it, where you are doing it. But you are expected to do 38 per lesson. If you are doing more, you are ok, having free time the last lessons. doing some french exam or something. It is up to you. If you do less however, I will ask and we will have to find a way together to go faster, ” he said, “However I do not expect you to do, since nobody ever did less”. “My experience is, ” he continued, “that first and second graders are right on the spot, eager as they are. Sixed graders however are like this, doing nothing the first two lessons and then catching on, but you will all make it on time, maybe even earlier if you just follow your own planning.”

“So it is up to you,” he said. And the buzzer went of, kids picking their bags, running of, “you just do whatever you like, but remember, ” as they went out the door, ” you listen to me and do as I tell you” and he showed a big smile because he just knows after two year, they all get it. Do their work, spent less on homework, hardly ever has to interrupt himself and they would all have higher grades.

Ilja Heitlager, Posted on September 13, 2013

Jeff meets Ashram

Jeff Sutherland visit the Ashram College in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherland.

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The eduScrum team is making some remarkable progress. Lot’s of classes are fully running eduScrum at the Ashram college, the first teachers are trained and applying it outside the team and even some first schools outside the Ashram are implementing eduScrum. Gradually it is growing.

So we welcomed the request from Jeff Sutherland and JJ to visit the Ashram and see the results for themselves. It was a little early (school had just started for one week after the summerholidays), and the team was even a bit worried they could not show the energy and excitement that is going on in the classroom. But what a wonderful day it was. Willy prepared a great little program for Jeff and JJ to show them what they are doing.

 picture copyright Ashram college, do not reprint without permission.

We arrived early in Alphen, some time before first lessons, and, boy we were allowed to visit the teachersroom, now finally we know what is going on overthere (obviously being incrowd now, we will not tell you). We stepped into the Chemistry class of Willy, with Havo 3 (15 year olds) about to start.

First thing I noticed was the classroom had the studentdesks organised in little islands of 2 by 2. So half of them with the backs against the whiteboard in front of classroom, with the back against the teacher! Furthermore everywhere there seem to be examples of scrumboards in A0 paper flaps hanging in the classroom.

The students entered classroom quietly, taking their A0 paper flaps in groups and putting them on the wall with magnets. They sat down and waited for their fellow team members to join and started discussing-working with eachother, immediately……

All that time Jeff, JJ, Willy and myself were chatting with eachother, drinking our coffee. At some point for all groups, kids stood up and shared around the A0 paper flaps, obviously starting a standup meeting. We were all flabbergasted. At some moment Willy put us out of our total confusion: he did something special, knowing that Jeff would be coming he and the class did their utmost best to do the eduScrum planning in 2 lessons, instead of three. All making sure that they would be ready before the visit, and obviously succeeded. The Scrumboards all showed backlog with broken down tasks, estimiated and prioritized, a burndown chart and remarks on Definition of Done and Definition of Fun! Everybody knew what to do and just did it!

 Willy had the students standup if they had previous eduScum experience and half of the class stood up. We all joined, Jeff made a little introduction and explained some of the history of Scrum. We learned that most kids really found class more enjoyable, having less need of doing homework.

Class continued and kids continued to work by themselves, not being hindered at all by five adults just standing their in the classroom. Sometimes one of the kids would standup and ask a question to Willy, but they all seem to have an excellent idea of what to do next. Just before the end of the 45 minute lesson, Willy all made them aware of the end of the class. The kids stood up moved tasks around from open to in progress or done, making pictures with their phones. He told me that is the way they share what to do for homework. And off they were for the next class.

We saw another class going through planning poker, which I will describe later. It was in this class that Jeff wispered to me: “This is amazing. I have seen some Scrum in schools, but that was all about having students understanding Scrum and doing some project. This is all about changing the way one teaches” and I concluded he just realized what the board of the eduScrum foundation and friends of eduScrum have noticed that something new is going on. That Willy and the eduScrum team are really inventing some new way of teaching, together with the other teachers of the Ashram College something special is happening.

Ilja Heitlager, Posted on September 12, 2013

A view into the future – using Scrum as teaching tool in high school (and prior?)

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A few weeks ago I visited the Ashram College (high school) in Alphen a/d Rijn in The Netherlands. A friend pointed out that they have a teacher there, who is using Scrum with high school students. They call it eduScrum, but what’s in a name. The results are astonishing: student teams that are focused and motivated and that score a full point higher in their exams!

So, on a dreary Wednesday morning I take my car and drive to Alphen aan den Rijn, to visit this high school. I live in Zoetermeer, so it’s practically around the corner. When entering the school, I get the feeling I am making a journey in time. First I feel like going back in time, because all those swarming “children” (oops: young adults) remind me of my time in high school…. That’s long ago…. I’m getting old.

Secondly, I am seeing the future. They are really on to something here!!

Also more info on the eduScrum site:

Willy Wijnands is a lecturer in engineering, physics and chemistry and uses Scrum in all his classes. Willy has made a fundamental shift in teaching. Namely: he as a teacher is no longer responsible for the learning process of his students, but he has delegated that responsibility to the students.

                                                         Picture: Willy Wijnands – working hard…

You might think that such young people can’t deal with such self-responsibility but practice shows differently. They are even good at it. They do work in teams to motivate each other. Logically; this is the basis of Scrum. Willy works with teams of four students. He has discovered that this works best. [Note: I once spoke with RedmondO'Hanlon, the famous biologist, world traveler and book author. Redmond explained to me that the army prefers teams of four. According to him, because: "It is impossible to get four men agree on a lie ...".].

These teams of four, work for several weeks together to achieve a specific goal. This learning objective is subject-specific. The responsibility to define and set the learning goal remains with Willy (the what and why), but how students get there they decide with their own team! Willy is, as such, the Product Owner. The students are the teams. In the classes I visited the learning goals were:

·       give a presentation about the phenomenon: light,

·       determine of the amount of copper in a mobile phone (and filter out all the gold from the phone in the lab!), and

·       make a bridge using only paper sheets and glue. The team with the bridge that carries the most weight – wins.

These teams are also “cross-functional“, but slightly different than in Scrum. Every students writes and maintains a personal profile. What are your skills and improvements areas (… teamwork, planning, management, explaining…). Subdividing themselves in teams of four, all students in the class make well-balanced teams that address skills and development areas. [Note: why do managers in companies not delegate this responsibility to their people?? Even first year high school students are doing this successfully!]

So you have a class divided into teams of four with all required “competencies” on board. And what now? Well, the first time that a class works using eduScrum, Willy spends two class hours to explain the eduScrum process. This is necessary, but it needs to be done only once. In these two class hours, Willy explains precisely to the students how eduScrum works.

It works roughly like this:

 

·       At the beginning of each period (usually 7 weeks) Willy gives the teams a goal. “Within seven weeks you must be able to do XYZ and this will be tested in the 6th week. In the 8th week you have to hand in a retrospective report“. These are great goals. Above I have given a few examples. He also points the teams to the chapters in the book on this topic. In some cases, he explains what the test will be. For example, with the mobile phone. When I visited them Willy was actually handing out an old phone to each team. He asked them to determine the amount of metal in the phone and to literally extract the gold from that phone. In other cases Willy does not tell what the evaluative assignment will be. He does point to an example assignment so the team can practice in advance. He also clearly explains to the students that if they really understand the topic, they will be able to pass the test. If they do not understand it, it won’t work. They get the goal to: understand the topic. Not to achieve a certain grade. The ‘getting it‘ is the goal: this is education!

·       The next two class hours each group makes its’ own schedule for the work in the coming period. When will we study the book chapters? When will we make the assignment? When do we make the (online) quizzes, when do we do the exercises? Each student team makes their own plan, which is written on sticky notes that are put on a large sheet (they call this sheet the “flap“). The planning is made with sticky notes, because practice shows that planning should be continuously adjusted based on progressing insights (sounds familiar?).

·       The flap, is divided in weeks from top to bottom, with three vertical columns. Yes, how surprising: ‘To Do‘, ‘Busy‘ and ‘Done‘. One of the students is responsible for keeping the flap of the team with him/her, so it is always available in the class room. They still have no name for this pupil. Have an idea? eduScrum master maybe? The complete team is responsible for maintaining the flap, however. This is logical. After all, planning and replanning is a team effort, not an individual one of the eduScrum master. 

 Pictures: Example ‘Flaps‘

·       At the beginning of each class hour all students run into the classroom (the teacher has no own classroom neither do the students, so in between class hours it is a real chaos in the school building). Each team puts their flap on the wall. The students hold a stand-up meeting in front of the flap for a few minutes. They exchange work status, reschedule the work, make arrangements for the work until the next lesson, agree on who does what and what is done in class and what they will take home as homework. Then they just get to work. Students deciding on their own homework! Sounds innovative, doesn’t it?

·       Willy walks through the class room to assist the teams, if needed. Willy, in his role as teacher, is really a Scrum Product Owner. The teams do the work and decide on their own process. The product owner is called in by the teams when they have questions or when they are blocked. In general, they’re rarely completely stuck. Mostly there is a team member that understand things better so explains it within the team. And if they really don’t know how to move on, they understand where and how they are stuck. So, they understand what they don’t understand. As a teacher/product owner it is much easier to give them a a little push in the right direction. Knowing what you do not understand, and why you do not understand this, is already quite some knowledge. This is teaching! Besides helping the teams, Willy glances at each teams’ flap as to monitor their progress. This is easy to see, because the flap indicates the status clearly. Transparency above all.

 

 
 

·       At the end of the class hour the teams folds the flap. The responsible student takes it with him/her and the teams wait for the buzzer, after which they may move on to the next classroom.
Agile teams finish early! This is demonstrated, during my visit. They manage their own time, so by the time the buzzer sounds, the teams are ready to leave the classroom. Willy hates it to squeeze himself through the student mob during the change time. He (and I) peep out already a few minutes before the buzzer (to the dismay of some of his colleagues). Walking through the school building, just before all hell breaks loose…nice and quiet! I’m also wondering if the next step could be to give each group their own classroom and let the teachers only change classrooms. Just as with Scrum teams in practice: a working area for the team, while the work and the product owner go to the team.

·       At the end of each period the teams do the final assignment, and receive a grade. The performance of this final assignment is shown (Sprint Review) and reviewed. The goal for the teams is to achieve a score higher than a 6.7 score (on a scale of 1-10; 10 being the best and 5.5 being just on the good side of sufficient). Students ask Willy quite often, why. After all, they are used to strive for a 5.5, which is fine to pass to the next year. Willy explains this very simple: “The goal is to understand the subject matter and for that you need a score of 6.7 or higher. A lower grade means you do not understand it sufficiently. For sure you will make it to the next year if you reach just a 5.5, but it still means you do not really understand it. So, please strive for a score higher than 6.7“. Again, the ‘getting it‘ is the goal, the grade is just a derivative of understanding. Doesn’t that remind us of grade scoring in business (shareholder value…)?

·       After the test each team writes a retrospective report on their achievement, their methods used, how to do things better next time in their collaboration. Also each student evaluates the other team mates on their qualities and weaknesses and also do that for themselves. The central question in the teams is as such: how can I improve myself and how can we become better as a team? Fine question, don’t you think? Becoming better as an individual and as a team, becomes the main objective in school. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

·       The next class hour, the new sprint starts. Willy explains the goal of this next period, and the whole process is repeated from the beginning.

Pictures: Examples of Review (demo) and Retrospective

Is this eduScrum teaching process easier for Willy? Firstly, yes it seems. It is easier for him to maintain a focused group, keep each student in the class working and keep a steady pace. Furthermore, it is easier to motivate the students to do homework, etc., because all these responsibilities are with the students themselves. And shouldn’t that be always? After all, it’s their education.
Secondly, the challenge for Willy is, however, to design powerful periodic learning objectives and assignments. What will be the goal for the next period? These goals must be ambitious, yet attainable, and they need to match with the overall education program and program learning goals. In the end, all students must meet certain levels by the end of each year. So, Willy has to groom these goals into attainable ‘teaching stories‘. This is not easy.

Furthermore, Willy in his role of Product Owner must be able to switch fast to answer the specific questions of teams. He needs to find the best way in a split second to help each team best. This requires extensive didactic qualities and teaching experience. This is much harder than teaching one single group program. The teams are also able to help each other, however, in practice they hardly do. They prefer to ask Willy first, before asking their fellow student teams. To solve this, Willy experiments with ‘question vouchers‘, they call them ‘joker cards‘. Each team has 5 joker cards that they can give to other teams to get advise and help. Joker collecting becomes the challenge. Helping each other is turned into a game!

I loved to see how this works in these student groups. You can see and feel their energy. You see the enthusiasm. I remember how it was in my high school years. ‘Different‘ so to speak … and then I am putting it mildly. In my years most energy was with the lecturer and usually this was negative energy to keep a group of 30 students just quiet.

But, what are the benefits? What does eduScrum bring? The first graduating groups have now finished their examinations. And guess what? On average they scored between 0.7 and 1.5 points higher on tests and school examinations. A full point higher!! No 6 but a 7, not a 7 but an 8, not an 8 but a 9. How much more indications that Willy is on to something, is needed?

And what about Willy? What are his next steps?

Willy and the eduScrum team travels our country promoting eduScrum whenever he can. He has even founded his own small company for this. They teaches eduScrum to other teachers and are very busy in his own high school to assist the colleagues in using eduScrum too.

And I? I leave the Ashram building full of energy. On my way to a customer. I think about a follow-up book. Perhaps: The Power of eduScrum ??. Let me consult my publisher first. Maybe they are interested to discuss a complete new line of educational products: teaching packages for eduScrum ….

But above all, I realize that Willy has found a solution to a structural problem in current education. A solution by using Scrum as teaching method. Because, what do we really need in practice? Professionals who have learned that a 5.5 is sufficient to pass and that are afraid to make mistakes? Or do we need professionals who are able to collaborate in teams to solve new and complex problems, and that fully understand that making mistakes is the only way to understanding and learning?

I know my answer. And why should we limit this to high school education only? Why not apply this also in primary school and junior high school? I am waiting to discuss this further with some experts in this field. Please, let me know your thoughts and ideas.

We might be able to make the world just a little bit better!

Rini van Solingen

Chief Technical Officer