Practice situational awareness, individual and group exercises in IT
As an agile coach, I found it useful to practice these 3 exercises on myself and the other 3 exercises within teams. If you want to be the Jason Bond of IT you should start now and read the below article for inspiration :).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjrWOZby8s8&t=1s
In order to be able to perceive and comprehend so many stimuli from your project, and to reach to the special attention of Jason Bourne you may obviously understand that you need some practice.
As I always recommend, in order to keep up the motivation — that will make you continue, you have to start small and progressive, as in agile; one acquired a small thing and then pass to the next level. Is certain that some people need another approach, of the big mountain, but few succeed really.
Start small and progressive is starting with and on yourself, as an individual within a team and I will give you 3 INDIVIDUAL AWARENESS EXERCISES for it (you may be inspired from others in the board in the picture):
- Notice 5 things that you did not notice before on a usual trajectory, may be from example: home-supermarket, or home-work.
The idea is not to collect a sum of things, but to look with different eyes at the things and persons that surround you.
Many times I meet the same people on my way to work. Or on my usual running way, I noticed once such a big amazing tree, never noticed before, because my mind was wandering aleatory; it may be a drawing on a wall, a detail, some person/s, a lot of other things.
Think of it like this: if you haven´t observed those evident things on a very known trajectory of yours what is possible that you may not have observed in your project or at your teammates, that may help you even in the daily interractions?
Train in Perception.
2. You’re now prepared to use your new vision of yours and to watch/observe your regular expressions or body positions.
Watch a recording of a demo and look at yourself. Did you know before that you used to do those gestures or have those frequent body positions? Or that you constantly repeat some things?
When I did that for myself I noticed something that I was not aware of and implemented a plan to watch myself with respect to it and try to eliminate an unconscious gesture that I did not like. Watching the latest recordings, I realize that I do not do it anymore 😊.
This filter, that you have now within yourself, the control of your body and your facial and body expressions (at least some), will help you in your communication and presentation skills; knowing what you can focus on (which feature of yours you want to observe and eliminate or enhance) will bring you a possibility for change. Also, will help you recognize in others repetitive gestures — which may be even easier, and maybe understand their feelings from the body language or their reactions to what you say.
This is how you link Perception to (some) Comprehension.
3. We are all having emotions and they impact us. But I am not that emotion and sometimes I do not want to be led by emotion, but by the whole me, with my rational part included.
So, next exercise: notice when you have an emotional reaction. Separate facts from feelings on a sheet of paper or a word in your computer. Make a column for facts and another for feelings-reactions attached to those facts.
This list will make you see clearer.
You may become an expert on conflict resolution, yours internal and help others in your team having this perspective.
You certainly will become wiser and in the future not so affected by emotions, being able to maintain an equilibrium between emotion-mind and body.
Focus on comprehension.
You have some other exercises proposed for each level in picture below, read them and choose one that inspires you and think that you need most. You will get their advantages and reason whys by yourself for sure.
The next level is TEAM AWARENESS EXERCISES.
It is good to work alone, but the group may reflect other realities of a situation than you may think of. Is always enriching and may be fun!
Look at the 3 group exercises I propose to you. Ideally, someone should lead these exercises, the scrum master or the agile coach or a team member and propose to others an exercise.
- The positive observation — At a daily meeting, pay attention to each colleague, what he/she said, the mood, the words chosen, the state, at all the details that one can register about everybody. When asked by the leader (coach, scrum master), at the end of the meeting , with eyes closed, team members are required to make a positive observation about a colleague, at turns. Everybody makes a positive note about everybody.
It may be about the clarity of the speech, the color of a shirt or an interesting approach that one had on the project.
This not only brings a refreshing positive atmosphere that will last all day long but will increase attention and presence during the meeting, slowly tuning the PCPDA model.
The next level is to extract in the group a state of the sprint remark, after listening to everybody in a daily.
2) At a coffee meeting with your team ask one member to make an exposure on something of interest for him/her.
In the group, after the exposure, ask the other team members to remember all of what had been said, all the body language in detail and when it was made, the emotions that the person who spoke may have felt, why would he chose that theme-speculations, and any other detail that might have been observed.
It increases perception for every team member but also the possibility to have a common comprehension in the group.
3) De-construction of a circle made of wooden bricks into a triangle, by all the team members, with blind falls. This is a truly complete team building exercise which I recommend after the 1st sprint to be made.
In this exercise, everybody should understand using their senses, in team, that they have below their feet a circle made of wooden bricks and the task is to make a triangle out of it.
All you need is:
- A clear room, depending on the team size (4–8 members) smaller or bigger
- A wooden bricks simple game (or more, you may need more bricks with more team members, more space to make the exercise interesting enough) Jenga type: https://www.novodistribuciones.com/regalos-menos-de-5-euros/59399-jenga-juego-de-madera-en-bolsa-para-regalar?gclid=CjwKCAiA2fmdBhBpEiwA4CcHzRdsKYvMER8FPg5rTcH_fXaKCDmXrPcoxNukAKdlTmLKynk-Z-JXHRoCYYwQAvD_BwE
- Blind-falls — some scarf or textile face masks may play the role well, one for each team member that participates
The leader of the game makes the circle before the participants enter in the room, with blind-falls on — the leader will lead each of them at the feet of the circle, placing them around it. He/she will be attentive if they are letting themselves be led or not, which will tell you something about the confidence degree.
The leader with no blindfalls (agile coach, scrum master) will ask the participants to understand the shape put at their feet. Afterwards, he will ask the team to make a triangle, Normally we don´t mention anything about time limits. If the leader notices impediments during the exercise a time limit may be established spontaneously by the leader.
After the game was officially closed, a group discussion about how they worked together will be held, about the technical solution, the way the decision of implementation was taken, the interactions between them, the individual behaviors observed by others, and by each member on themselves. It is a good opportunity for introspection and to observe systemic behavior that just took place and if there are any similarities with their daily work.
This exercise is useful to increase personal confidence within teams (usually it is followed by a lunch together), observe team deficiencies, processes, and collaboration, observe various personalities and ways of thinking and acting and predict the possible interaction in the future within the team, so that the scrum master or agile coach take action to proactively improve various things he observed at a team level and individual level (for example: align the strong personalities, stimulate action or reflexiveness etc).
More group suitable exercises are proposed below:
In conclusion, practicing any kind of awareness will help you understand more about your environment, so you can take the right decisions at work and in your life. Enjoy the newly acquired skill!
