Learning in the Forest

How & why does The Forest emphasize learning over production?

Well here you go, thrillfall.

Kent once visited a media tablet project that Dan Ingalls was running (pre-iPad). They were coding in Smalltalk, of course, but they had to port it to their new platform. He was telling me the story of implementing the graphics primitives. Dan had (with Diana Merry-Shapiro) invented BitBLT. Everybody on the team had implemented BitBLT on some platform. Everybody except one. So that person, of course, implemented BitBLT.

It was the “of course” that startled Kent. Could someone else have done it faster? Yes, in the sense that the graphics would have started running sooner. Any chance of this implementation turning out fatally worse? No, not with all that kibitzing power around. Might it turn out better? Maybe.

This is Learning in The Forest. People take on tasks that will help them learn the most. Whatever the project gives up in this week’s productivity will be more than made up later through:

• Innovation

• Confidence

• Energy & engagement

• No bottlenecks

Juniors

How about the specific case of juniors. Juniors have almost everything to learn. What do we see in The Forest?

In The Forest we accept that they’re juniors. They’re just not going to get that much done. What they do is going to interfere with itself later.

In The Forest we don’t try to squeeze a little bit of production out of juniors, we fill them up as quickly as possible while adhering to the rest of The Forest program.

• Self-selection of tasks. Each junior knows more about what they are ready to learn next. Use that knowledge.

• Pairing is for learning. When seniors pair with juniors, the goal is maximizing learning, not production. (This may be a new skill for the senior, so train, practice, & discuss teaching through pairing.)

• Demos. You may miss a few demos. Don’t miss two in a row. Explain why weekly demonstration of customer-valued features is critical. Slice the next week finer. Get a crude demo ready by Wednesday.

• Relax. Tell the juniors to stop working when you see them tired, whether things are going well or badly. They won’t know how to regulate anxiety or excitement.

Learning

Learning is how The Forest generates sufficient resources for tomorrow while achieving sufficient results today. Production insufficient? Learn more.

If you’re having problems because your engineers lack skill & you’re having the same problems a year later, that’s a You Problem, not a Them Problem. The Forest is right there!

A year in the Forest is better than a Master's degree. “Of course your project was successful. Look at all these amazing engineers!”