Amplio Learning Kata

Preface by Al Shalloway. The preface of this book explains the need for Amplio Learning Kata.

• Using the Amplio Learning Kata to create new possibilities for people. People tend to do what’s in their best interest. The Learning Kata can help them understand new possibilities that are in their interest.
• Introducing Ensemble Learning. Ensemble learning is when everyone learns together. It is how Amplio University is run and provides the model for the Amplio Learning Kata.

Introduction

• The need for this book. Agile is at a turning point. Two missing concepts are first, how to understand the causes and effects in knowledge work, and second, how to convey this to others.

The incremental steps of the Kata are based on these insights:

• What’s the difference between experts and those with less competence? The most significant difference between experts and those with less competence is what they attend to. Experts pay attention to certain things and ignore others. Less competent people are often unaware of what an expert considers significant and pays attention to what an expert ignores.
• The Pick-up Sticks Model of Teaching Concepts. Teaching difficult concepts is a lot easier if you start where people are and take a stepwise path to getting to where you want them to be. It’s like having a pile of pick-up sticks where you take the top one off one at a time until you get to the one you really want.

Other chapters from the book

• Attitude of an effective value coach A cornerstone of being an effective coach is their attitude. In this chapter, we discuss taking an attitude of being a visionary, taking responsibility, being rationally optimistic, having humility, empathy, compassion, congruence, integrity, and authenticity, and taking a systems thinking approach.
• Why We Only See What We Think and Talk About
• What is an effective coach? This discusses both the attitude and the capabilities of an effective coach.
• Why You Should Never Say “follow to understand.” It’s tempting to tell people what to do. But it’s not effective, creates resistance, and is disrespectful. It’s possible to get an understanding from the beginning by taking advantage of their dormant knowledge.
• Dealing With Resistance to Change. People often resist change, but it’s important to remember that resistance is not always a bad thing. In fact, it may give us insights into how to proceed. Eli Goldratt once said, “A comfort zone has less to do with control and more to do with knowledge.” This means that resistance may simply come from a lack of understanding. According to M. Wheatley and M. Kellner-Rogers, all systems insist on exercising their creativity and never accept imposed solutions. We shouldn’t presume resistance is both inevitable and undesirable. Keep the big picture in mind and know that resistance can be a valuable tool in achieving success
• Evidence Without Understanding Is Often Ignored.
• Why You Need Theory as Well as Evidence to Enroll Management In Better Methods. 
• Teaching With Theory.
• Being an Effective Coach Takes More Than Just Coaching Skills. Being effective requires coaching ability, understanding the concepts to be conveyed, and understanding the key principles in the domain.
• How to Improve or Change a Practice. We can make better choices about what to do when we have a mental model about what is helping or hurting us. We do not need to live within the constraints of frameworks that do not take advantage of first principles. With these, we can focus on identifying challenges and seeing how to eliminate them. It provides the objective of each practice and a way to tell if a change will be beneficial.  When a particular practice doesn’t seem appropriate or is too hard to implement, you don’t abandon the objective of the practice; instead, you find another one that can meet the objective and is more appropriate and likely easier to implement. There is a reason (objective) for the roles, events, artifacts, and rules. While it may be advisable to change one, the new practice must achieve the original intended objective.
• The Difference Between Inspect and Adapt and Plan do Study Adjust (PDSA)
• How to talk to someone who just doesn’t get it.
• Finding the Middle Ground. People tend to go to extremes and ignore the truth in the middle.
• It’s not a debate. The discussion should be about finding what’s of value, not winning the conversation
• YAGNI (You Ain’t Gonna Need It) as a model for teaching.
• How Understanding Can Give Us Patience
• Attend to the fear in the room
• People don’t always say what’s so. They say what sells.
• Using imposter syndrome to move things forward
• Dealing With Unruly People