How to explain complicated topics to inexperienced audiences

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale. Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Definitely Maybe Agile with your hosts, Peter Madison and David Shurk. So what's on the table today, Dave?

Great to talk to you again, Peter. I wanted to talk to you this week about the experience I had bringing agile into my kids' high school. I have uh three kids. You've probably heard me talk about this occasionally. And uh two of them went to the same high school. Uh one of them went to a different high school, and that high school, you get the opportunity to go in occasionally as a parent and talk a little bit about what you do. And I've now been doing this probably for three or four years, going to the high school and talking to a very particular group of kids. They do the digital media arts program at this high school, and helping them understand a little bit about how the industry looks at what managing work. And of course, what's interesting is I can't go and talk to them about Scrum and stand-ups and cycle time and DevOps because this is completely beyond what they're used to talking about at that point. So maybe today's topic can be a little bit about how to introduce what we do in layman's terms.

Yeah, this reminds me of this uh, you know what ELI5 is? Um so this this idea of explain it like I'm five. It's a there's a whole Reddit channel and a whole subculture around this. So how do you how do you take a really complex idea and simplify it down into language and concepts that uh others can easily understand? And uh there's lots of ways we do this, metaphors, analogies uh are great ones to like help translate this into things that we might be able to relate to, um, and like making sure we have the right uh forms of language to be able to communicate, um, and then and then coming back and verifying this with the other people. So so what did you say in high school to all to these high school children to say, hey, look, this is what I do?

So, well, I'll put it this way. I've done this a few times now, and I will definitely say I've done it absolutely wrong, and I've getting to the hang of doing it in a I hope, because they keep asking me to come back, that I'm beginning to get to the point where it's somewhat valuable. Doing it wrong is obviously learn uh teaching, sticking to the vocabulary that people use. And you described it really well. If you're teaching to this group that doesn't have your vocabulary, you have to back off and do, I think, two things. One is use metaphors and analogies everywhere, and not just metaphors and analogies that are relevant to your unusual audience, but convert it into metaphors and analogies that are relevant to this new audience. So one of the reasons I mentioned that is you we've talked about this many times, is I often use sporting metaphors or analogies. And the reason I use sporting metaphors or analogies is because they cross audiences. Even if you are not a prolific watcher of sport, we all understand sport, we can relate to the conversation, whatever that might be. Unless I go into some very esoteric sport, uh, we're all going to be able to follow that conversation. So that's that first thing is just using metaphors and analogies that that are relatable to the audience.

Yeah, the I mean the kitchen one's quite a popular one, right? Where we've got to keep the kitchen clean, we've got to keep everything tight. That's I mean, that's one which can be directly related to, and I even high school kids should get this one. It's like uh yeah, come home and try to make dinner if you've uh left all the dishes in the sink and uh you've got nothing to make the uh dinner with next time. So, how do we get to a situation where we we're continually uh making sure that things are ready for us all the time? We don't want to leave things in an undone state, and and using analogies like this to help understand the concepts that we're looking for and like and how we we help people try to work this out in the things that they do on a day-to-day basis.

It's a I mean, yeah, kitchen, restaurants, whatever it might be, something that people relate to. And I think this is uh that that's definitely a place to start. Uh the other thing, by the way, and and this is maybe where taking a bit of time to think through those metaphors is really valuable because uh the metaphors have to match very, very well. If there's if there's a gap or it's not quite working, or at least we have to understand where where the match is good and then clarify that versus where the match is not good, and we have to sort of step away from it and use something else. Because again, if you try and stretch an analogy or a metaphor too far, uh misunderstanding is a guaranteed outcome. Mirth and merriment may not be, but misunderstanding will be.

Yeah, depending on the analogy, yes. Uh yeah, sometimes you sometimes when we take these analogies and we uh we've realize we've gone down a road where it's um uh yeah, we've not ended up in the place we intended to end up in. That's uh that can often be uh be the case. Uh so what else have you uh tried to use to communicate?

Yeah, I think that the the other thing is um really clear terminology with a really clear definition. So and what I mean by that, so that on a vocabulary side is, and I I'm thinking back to I I've spent many years, I left the UK kind of 20 odd years ago, but I spent eight of those years in Germany, where English is a second language for most of the people that I would be working with. And in those situations, you end up dumbing down the English that you use. You use one and two syllable words rather than the exactly correct word, which is a specialist word that we as English speakers will understand, but a lot of the audience may not. So you mean like uh anti-disestablishmentarianism? Precisely, yes. Um the the the the challenge is um and it we we were just chatting about this. The challenge is a lot of people will nod their head and say they absolutely understand what you just said, but they didn't, and they're not going to be able to ask a, you know, we're we all understand this, we're a bit shy. We don't want to look like an idiot because we say, What on earth do you mean by anti-disestablishmentarianism? Or how do I pronounce that word? I mean, so rather than appearing a little bit behind the scenes, we'd rather have a really direct conversation with clear, succinct words that we can all relate to and understand.

Yes, and and I that's that critical piece. And there are coaching tools that we we use with that. It's uh but um but one of the clear ones though is always this, like sort of um playing it back, um, backtracking and uh paraphrasing it back to ensure that things are properly being understood on the on the other side, verifying uh you you do have to avoid the the nodding heads and watch carefully and listen carefully to ensure that the communication is happening well. I mean, this is not an easy thing to do. Um the there's one of these it's one of these things that there's definitely an art to it, and a big part of it comes from uh listening, like really developing your listening skills uh and not not just listening to the words, because we were talking about this a little before we started uh recording the episode, that it's the what words mean to one person may mean something else to the other person. So when we we use well, even take something like cycle time, cycle time could very well mean all the amount of time you spent on your bicycle, you know, like it's uh legitimately could seem like it is the uh the right interpretation of that, but uh it's not what we mean when we say those two words.

Well, exactly. And I think um as you were describing that, one of the there there's an another element that comes in, which is building rapport so that people feel comfortable saying things. And and I'm thinking about the experiences that I've had at the high school, which is are always I always come away humbled by it because first of all, it's always nice to find people may or may not listen, but but the other thing is the questions that they that are asked are obvious, are often very, very insightful, but they're just coming from a sector that we don't necessarily understand or we don't relate to all of the time. So we have to kind of listen out very carefully. Uh, one of the things that I found in those environments is number one is always like reinforce the um validity of the question. And this is the brilliant question, or more of the same, keep those questions coming. These are excellent questions, we need to understand more so that people feel rewarded for asking questions. Uh and then the other side, as you just mentioned, is clarification and and making sure we're comfortable and we understand it correctly.

Yeah, I think that it's important to uh really have that uh deep understanding of uh the the words that are being used. Are we using them in this context? Are we explaining them? Are we using simple enough words? Are we uh all of these come into it, right, to make sure that we're we're properly communicating because we we take so many things for granted, and uh, and especially uh if you've been doing it a lot, so it becomes second nature. The other area you see this a lot in is uh organizations develop their own languages. The I always like to joke about the TLAs, the three-letter acronyms, the uh the and you end up with a dictionary of acronyms because that's as we get better as we get better and faster at communicating, this is an easier way for us to do it. There's a there's a great uh video of um, I think it's I can't know what they're called, one of these stunt aircraft uh uh the US um uh stunt flyers, uh they all fly in synchronization, and they do this practice um where they sit around the table and they talk through all of the maneuvers and everything they're gonna do. But they don't even talk through the maneuvers, they uh they make the sounds, they make the motions, they they there's there's a language which um goes beyond just the words, and it's because they interact so closely together that they they've developed that level of language, that deep understanding of how each of them communicates. And we sometimes forget when we're so embroiled and deep in these things that we may be communicating like that, but to everybody else it just sounds like gobbledygook.

I'm interested. We should definitely find that video and put it in the comments. That would be quite interesting to see how that's uh progresses. Um, what else would you? I mean, we've talked quite a bit now uh about language and communication. What are the first, if you if you're talking to a group who really have no understanding of what it is that we do, what's the one or two things you want them to take away?

So, I mean, from my perspective, paraphrasing a lot of sort do is the first thing is to like make it visible, make it uh understand what we're doing. You can't you can't uh actually improve things that you can't see, and even that's too complex, right? Uh so the so I I tend to start by um saying, well, we we ask questions and we ask questions about how things happen. And we we uh some some of the fun things I like to do from a coaching perspective is give them examples of tools you can use. So um imagine so we ask how and what and uh what the difference between open-ended and closed questions are, and and how you can use those to uh expose things and then show them like what the value of that that is. So it's like sort of, well, how would you answer this question versus um if I told you did this happen? And then say, and and what else can you learn from that and give them some coaching tools that they can use to start to draw information out as a way of starting to engage in the conversation and say, well, now if if we ask questions like this and we're open, we're transparent, we can create that visibility, and that visibility in turn allows us to start to understand more about how things are happening and start a more open conversation.

I'd push back a little on that. That feels to me like an awful lot for a brand new audience. Um Yeah, you're probably right. It's a little too much. Uh let's see. I I mean I I start it really simply and just say, here's a post-it note, write down one thing on each post-it note. What are you doing? Right. What things do you have to do this week or next week? Nothing simpler, nothing more complicated than that. And and again, it depends on the audience that you're working with. But high schools, and I've worked with a lot of non-technical teams, uh, whether it's a leadership team or a group of school teachers or whoever it might be, volunteers in an organization, just wanting to know, okay, I've heard you know how to do stuff better more effectively. What can we learn? Post-it notes. Here's some things. What are you going to do? Put them in one of three columns. Things that I've got to do and I've not started, things that I'm working on right now, and there's a third column which is stuff I've finished. You've probably not written post-it notes for that. Yeah. That's the starting point. But how does that explain what you do? Well, I'm not trying to explain what I'm doing. I'm trying to give them something that they can immediately use and apply in their own world and go, okay, I can use this. I gained something from it. I they don't need to know what I do. I can point them at a website if they need to, or I can say, talk to me later on. Yeah. But what I'm trying to, and and this is quite a different goal, right? Is how can I get again going back to my kids? There's a lot of pressure on school kids nowadays to pass exams. And there's very little information on how to prepare for the exam, how to manage their time, and so on. So I've spent time with my kids where I'm just, and they don't listen to me. I'm their dad for crying out loud. They're not going to listen to me for very long at all. Nobody listens to a dad. Thank you for agreeing so quickly on that. So, so there it's more just get some post-it notes if if you know we're having a conversation where people are unsure what's going to happen. I've got so much work to do. Get some post-it notes, order those post-it notes, let's do one at a time and just get going.

There's a lady called Barbara Oakley who does writes uh wrote a book called uh Learning How to Learn, uh, I think it's called. Uh and she has a course on Coursera. That's a uh that's a good book that I mean it's aimed at high school kids, um, or any uh but really it's for anybody who wants to learn how you learn. And uh she has a great newsletter too, where she which she sends around once a week that always has some interesting um books to go and look up and read, things that you wouldn't necessarily normally think about that uh are quite uh insightful. So that's something else we can put into the comments that uh can be quite useful. Yeah. I d I do think uh from that concept that uh giving people giving them some language that they can use to investigate understanding the differences can be quite a valuable uh sort of tool. Um but then it does, I think, require that they then remember to use them.

Well, but I mean that's driven by need, right? And and I'm very aware when we're talking to the kids in in high school, for example, at Argyle, where I where I've been doing this for the last few years, many of them won't use this. To be honest, it has nothing to do with high school students. We go into companies and talk to teams, and many people will not use the ideas that we're raising. Of course not. Um but uh one of the interesting things is just getting kids talking to one another, getting the people talking to one another. So after that visibility thing of getting all the post-its is just having people talk backwards and forwards, creating triads and just because making work visible drives the conversation. If you don't have the work visible, I can sit down and say, I'm stressed, I've got lots of work to do, but there's no starting point. Whereas now I've got all the work in front of me, and now we can start looking at that and saying, well, you know, do you have all the work in front of you? Um what changes can you make? What we're looking at.

Yeah, write it all down. It's uh I mean it's the first step of all of these. Write it all down, put it all down so we can see it and then have the discussion around it.

Now, anything, what anything else you would add in as as a parting comment once people have written everything down and made it visible?

Well, I I think uh I think my biggest comment about this this conversation, I think we've got listed a whole bunch of uh excellent resources we can put in the uh comments that and some of which will help uh point people in the uh right direction. In terms of um like the f how you keep it simple and in some ways a lot of what we are talking about, the the the acts itself, the fundamental individual elements of it are relatively simple. It's the the complexity comes in understanding what the impact of those can be and the why it's important and what it enables you to do. That's where the tricky part is, and that's that's where the the interlink is, I think. So that's the part that becomes a little trickier uh to explain. So we can kind of give that the the base piece, write everything down, make sure you make it visible, and then so why?

Yeah, like what does that well yeah but but I I mean to the great question, right? Why? Why would you make it visible or why would you write it all down? So where I'm obvious uh often going to follow up there is really one of two areas. One is look at all that stuff in your to-do column, the stuff that you've not started yet, and just tape the top two or three, the things that you have to do right now. So we and this one is I've there are so many names about this. There's loads of books around just identify your top three or five things and work through them in order. Everybody understands that or can find it and read around these things. So that's one thing that we definitely talk about. Um, I think an area that many kind of guidelines on how to get work done forget about is don't start anything until you've finished something. And we talk about stop starting, start finishing in many of our conversations. But when I'm dealing with non-technical organizations that really have, you know, they're just trying to get some help to do stuff. I'm just gonna say finish something before you start something. Yeah, no, you want to start something, I know you've got to do something, but make sure something gets finished before you pick that new thing. It's the flow decision filter.

How do we uh stop starting, start finishing, get stuff done?

So, how do we summarize this?

Language, visibility, communication, uh simple, uh fewer words. Uh so I I think that I think that summarizes a number of the key uh elements there. So how do like in in terms of I I think that's that's kind of the conceptual piece of this here is uh use analogy and metaphor to help to convey ideas in a way that uh transcends the languages that we're we're we're looking to do. Um ensure that you're verifying that uh you are understood and that people do understand it's it's okay to check in and backtracking is a very valid tool to be able to do that. Uh to and ensuring that we we we start with a a concept that we always look for at the beginning of a lot of our work. And like making things visible is a is a great example as something that can be both very helpful and a good place to start. Uh, what was there anything you'd add to that?

I I actually don't think we should. I think that's three very clear things there. Focus on those.

Focus on those. Awesome. Well, as always, Dave, is an absolute pleasure. I always enjoy these conversations, and uh I look forward to the next one. And uh if anybody wants to reach out to us, they can at feedback at definitely maybeagile.com.

Thank you. Always a pleasure. Thanks again, Peter.

You've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock focus on the art and science of digital and agile and DevOps at scale.