Day 11

Digital

The Agile Manifesto

The key ideas of agile are embodied in the 'Agile Manifesto' - http://agilemanifesto.org/

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Agile is fundamentally about learning, people, and change-three things we struggle also with in education and handle poorly at the present time. 

Agile Schools

Steve Peha, a technologist and educator in the US, has worked extensively in applying the lessons of agile and lean to the classroom. His article on InfoQ, 'Agile Schools: How Technology Saves Education (Just Not the Way We Thought it Would), can be found at http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-schools-education

Lean Production

According to Barney and Kirby, educators can learn from lean production the importance of empowering teachers by training them to problem-solve and then expecting them to be self-reflective and to continuously improve their practice.”

Kanban

One of the ideas that has been taken from Lean Production by agile practitioners is Kanban - which means 'visual card' in Japanese.

For an example of how Kanban boards can be used to help children plan, see Princess Kanban. This is on the agileschool blog, which you may find interesting. More recent materials are now on the Agile Classrooms site.

Trello

Trello is one of the tools that can be used to create Kanban style boards online. It is an easy-to-use, free and visual way to manage your projects and organise anything. Naturally there are other tools too, but this one seems to be the most popular right now, and amongst teachers and their students too. 

User Stories 

In software development and product management user story statements are many times following the format: As a (role) I want (something) so that (benefit). The idea is to capture what a user does or needs to do as part of his or her job function. It captures the "who", "what" and "why" of a requirement in a simple, concise way, often limited in detail by what can be hand-written on a small piece of paper.

User Story Cards

In software development, if the agile team considers a requirement too complex, the requirement splitting technique helps the customer to divide it into simpler ones. This helps agile teams to better understand the functionalities requested by the customer, and helps agile teams working in parallel with frequent communications between them.The requirements are written on story cards, which means that the complex user stories are broken down smaller stories. (De Lucia & Qusef, 2010)

3'c's

User stories have three critical aspects, Card, Conversation, and Confirmation. Ron Jeffries wrote about the 3'c's all the way back in 2001 and his advice is still good today. A good story card will likely end up with a back side covered with results of the conversation(s) and confirmation tests.

References and further reading

Andrea De Lucia, & Abdallah Qusef. (2010). Requirements Engineering in Agile Software Development. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence,2(3), 212-220.

Barney, H. & Kirby, S.N. (2004). Toyota Production System/Lean Manufacturing. In B. Stecher and S.N. Kirby (Eds.), Organizational Improvement and Accountability Lessons for Education From Other Sectors (pp. 35-50). Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.

Briggs, S. & Briggs, S. (2014). Agile Based Learning: What Is It and How Can It Change Education? - InformED.InformED. Retrieved from http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/agile-based-learning-what-is-it-and-how-can-it-change-education/

Leadership

Agile Leadership Style

• Facilitate
• Remove obstacles
• Encourage reflection
• Be a servant leader
• Create a safe environment
• Allow team to self-organise

Beck, K & Andres, C (2004), Extreme Programming Explained (2nd Ed.) Addison-Wesley.

Schwaber, K. & Beedle, M. (2001). Agile Software Development with Scrum. Pearson. 

Servant Leadership

The originator of the servant leadership concept (though inspired by a Herman Hesse story) was Robert Greenleaf.

“The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

Robert K. Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader (1970)

A longer extract ftom this work is in this week's media

Servant Leadership in Agile

There are many sources that explore how servant leadership works in agile teams. The article A Brief History of the Servant Leader on the Scrum Alliance web site provides a simple overview.

Servant Leadership in Teaching

Servant leadership has been applied by a number of authors to teaching. If you wish to explore this concept further, the following resources are available in the Unitec library:

• Bowman, R. F. (2005). Teacher as Servant Leader. Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 78(6), 257.
• Herman, D. V. & Marlowe, M. (2005). Modeling Meaning in Life: The Teacher as Servant Leader. Reclaiming Children and Youth: The Journal of Strength-based Interventions, 14(3), 175.
• Nichols, J. D. (2010). Teachers as Servant Leaders. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (ebook)
• Shaw, J. & Newton, J. (2014). Teacher Retention and Satisfaction with a Servant Leader as Principal. Education, 135(1), 101-106.