Ask HN: What are some interactive group exercises for devs?

4 points by deamanto 3 years ago | 6 comments

The place I work at have a day just for devs to do whatever we think is good for our own learning and collaboration. I've been tasked to think about an activity that can be done within that day.

There are generally a lot of presentations/talks but I find that structure getting a bit stale and want to seek ideas that are outside just "giving talks" so that the devs can interact with each other.

Some requirements I've set for myself:

* a couple hours long (can be longer)

* able to be done within a small group (~3-5 people) of all skill ranges

* important that it's collaborative or interactive so that people aren't just working in silos

Some ideas:

* 1 day, very short hackathon-style activity

* work on something open source (probably need to decide on what package and set up instructions prior)

rramadass 3 years ago |

1) Study PSP and TSP for Personal improvement (no higher-ups need be involved)) and Team improvement (Group != Team). Come up with a simple methodology and metrics to monitor and improve.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_software_process

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_software_process

2) Communication Techniques. Eg. 1) On Communication (2 vols) from HBR 10 must reads series 2) The Communication Book: 44 Ideas for Better Conversations Every Day by Krogerus and Tschappeler. While practicing always use problems of relevance and not hypothetical ones.

3) Decision Making techniques, in particular; Delphi Technique (https://www.toolshero.com/decision-making/delphi-technique/). Also see The Decision Book Fifty models for strategic thinking by Krogerus and Tschappeler. Again only use problems of relevance for practice.

4) Research Activities i.e. Problem Domain and Tech. Domain study. To identify new pain points, opportunities for Business and new Technologies/Languages/Tools for implementation. They need not be related but should always end with a PoC i.e. not just ending with a "talk". Inspiration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31626049

deamanto 3 years ago | |

Thanks for this. I'm not sure if it was unclear but I wanted to clarify that this entire day is dedicated for the entire dev team as a group and not individually which is why I wanted to do something more interactive as a group rather then have a multiple people present a topic.

The reason I say this is that my post reads like everyone gets the day off to individually learn and some of your suggestions reflect that.

1) I've never heard of these terms however the PSP sounds like something worth looking into, it helps people improve themselves on an individual level.

2) This sounds like more of an individual thing and I'll look into this in my own time

3) This looks like a good group task to introduce but it would mean having to think of relevant problems which may lean more to the "work" side of things, not sure how I could make this more engaging

4) This feels like something that needs to come from the business but unsure if this applies here, I'll need to read the link you posted to get a better understanding of how/if it fits into the purpose of this day

I'll look into 1 and 3 but at the end of the day I don't know if I'd be confident enough to read up on this and understand it to the point I'm able to lead the entire team on how to approach it. But you've introduced me to a lot of new things I've never heard of before and I'm keen to delve further so thanks

rramadass 3 years ago | | |

You are welcome, that is the purpose of HN; to share the ideas from our studies/experience with each other :-)

In that spirit, a few more suggestions;

HBR 10 must reads are booklets of articles on various topics some of which are pretty good. I have found the following volumes useful;

- On Communication (2 vols) - Sample article: https://hbr.org/1995/09/the-power-of-talk-who-gets-heard-and...

- On Managing People (2 vols) - Sample article: https://hbr.org/1993/03/the-discipline-of-teams-2 and https://hbr.org/2005/07/the-discipline-of-teams

- On Managing Yourself (2 vols) - Sample article: https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time

I think maybe you are looking at the mandate for your "day" a little too narrowly? The idea behind these sort of initiatives is to allow people the freedom to think/play/interact/communicate/etc. so that they can give free reign to their individual creativity and bond better as a team. The hope is that this will translate to better performance on the job and also throw up new business ideas, new products, new technologies etc. thus benefiting both the individual and the group/business. Thus you can approach your "mandate" in many different ways. As an example, You can just be the coordinator and not the lead by using the "Delphi Technique" to come to a consensus on how to study the above mentioned suggestions.

PS: You may also find the book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward Deci useful.

verdverm 3 years ago |

Check out the book "Search Inside Yourself" based on the mindfulness program developed at Google

Many great and fun team / workplace activities. Applicable too more than just devs or work too!

deamanto 3 years ago | |

Similar to what the other commenter did, is this the same as SIYLI and this program https://www.mindfulnesscenter.tw/files/shares/2-Day_Program_...?

I would say that while I really like these sorts of exercises for us devs because it's underrated, I would expect these thing to be run by at least a Psychologist who has training understanding the background of why these things are good for us rather than a dev like myself who would just be reading from a book to explaining it to others without verifying it myself.

anon2020dot00 3 years ago | |

Based on Amazon reviews, seems to be just a typical mindfulness book for better or worse.

Curious what's an example of a fun team / workplace activity from the book?