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Co-Localized Facilitation

A group of office workers around a workshop table

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When you have the possibility, bringing everyone in a large room to run the workshop all at once is probably the best (and more fun) way to do so.

Training from the Back of the Room activities

Turn and talk Energizer

People will need to mob for programming, so it’s a good icebreaker to get them to meet and discuss the topic at the beginning

Rapid Response during Lectures

After presenting the Test Data Builders and the Mikado Method, we’ll ask the attendees some questions to check their understanding. It will also help them to assess what they learned after programming.

Wall and Web centers

This collection of markdown files contains 2 ‘Web Centers’:

These are web pages where attendees can look for clues as to how to get through the exercise.

If you are running the workshop in a room, you can create physical Wall Centers with real copies of books, and printouts of articles. All referenced books and articles are listed under the References page.

Pair programming

The pairing setup is simpler when participants are co-localized. If you want to setup mobs, you’ll have to make sure that the physical setup is good enough for 4 people to sit together.

Stand and Talk for Mini-Retros

Mini retros start by asking a simple question like “What worked well and what did not”. This will make the attendees think before they can state their answer in front of all the class. Following on with other insightful questions will help them to envision how to use their new knowledge.

Here is a dedicated page with typical retro summaries.

Learning logs as a Conclusion

By writing down what they think they can do with their new knowledge, attendees have a higher chance of actually using it in their daily work.

General Facilitation tips

Do a live demo of the mikado beginning for large audience

If attendees are remote, or only a single mob, letting them watch the video is fine. If they are all in the same room though, you’ll get a chaos of unsynchronized replays…

We could also just watch it through the main screen

Use wide visible timers

In order to make sure to stick to the agenda, use wide visible timer in the room.