What learning to ride motorbikes taught me about being agile

Emily Webber @ewebber

Practice and discipline can lead to thinking less and being more agile

The intro…

Photo by RobD *pretty much what I look like on a motorbike

What I actually look like most of the time

Photo by Simon Lane

Declarative (explicit)

Facts that can be consciously recalled. Things that we declare or explicitly stored and retrieved

Non-declarative (implicit)

The ability to recall facts and concepts, often referred to as common knowledge. Muscle memory and “auto pilot”

Memory

The name of your first pet Your partner’s birthday Your primary school teacher What you had for breakfast

Declarative (explicit)

Your name The difference between a cat and a dog Using a phone How to find 1st gear in a car

Non-declarative (implicit)

Declarative (explicit)

Weight Indicators Mirrors Foot gears

Non-declarative (implicit)

Balance Clutch control Road awareness Shoulder observation

My Memory

Recalling explicit memory takes more effort than implicit memory

Illustration by JE Theriot

How do memories move from explicit to implicit?

We learn through experience (and failing)

Photo by echiner1

Kolb’s model of learning

Having an experience (Concrete

experience)

Trying out what you’ve learned

(Active Experimentation)

Learning from it (Abstract

Conceptualisation)

Reflecting on it (Reflective

observation)

ExpertProficientCompetentAdvanced beginner

Novice

Dreyfus model of skill acquisition

Rules Intuition

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to make you an expert of anything

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

Photo by Mike Oliveri

Kata 型

1. Understand what goal we want to achieve

2. Grasp our Current Condition 3. Set the next challenge on the path

to that goal 4. Run small experiments through the

unknown towards that goal

Toyota Kata

methodsandtools.com/archive/toyotakata.php

I almost passed …

How can I stop forgetting to switch my indicators off?

Practice makes perfect We learn by doing Implicit memory != explicit memory

Agile ceremonies help you practice being agile

Being good at them is like being a black belt in karate

Collaborative learning raises the performance level of everyone

http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/librarylinks/articles/benefits.html

Practicing regularly and often as a team will help you become more expert and implicitly agile

ThanksThis is me:

Emily Webber emilywebber.co.uk @ewebber