The Learning Dojo

Redefining the relationship between learning, time and space

The Learning Dojo is both a physical and metaphorical space where intentional, regular, inclusive and contextualised learning happens.

Full-stack product teams come together to undergo an immersive and accelerated learning experience, acquiring or improving Lean Product Development, Lean Management, Agile, and DevOps muscles.

All learning (mindsets, principles, practices, and tools) happen in the context of real-world work and everyday constraints. Not in a sandbox.

Learning Dojos are an emerging trend, especially in large organisations, to adopt new ways of thinking and acting at scale.

The Origins

Target is the pioneer of the concept. In 2015, their new CIO, Mike McNamara, coming from Tesco, established clear directives: advance adoption of Product, Lean, Agile, and DevOps mindsets, continue modernisation of tools & methodologies, increase speed & agility, and pay down tech debt.

The organisation was transformed into a product-based organisation with dedicated teams. The culture started to change with a focus on engineering, value delivery, and continuous learning. At the heart of this movement is the Target Dojo.

In 2015, Target presented the Dojo concept at the DevOps Enterprise Summit, spreading like wildfire in a sort of Dojo-mania.

Why create a Learning Dojo?

Traditional learning approaches cannot cope with the current market speed and cannot scale knowledge, skills and culture across large groups.

The typical approach to learning has some caveats:

• They generally focus on a specific skill area
• Are targeted at individual learning
• Exercises are performed in sandbox environments
• Practitioners never have to contend with real-world constraints, making concepts challenging to apply after the course.
• These are usually specially planned events, and practitioners are often restricted to a minimal number of those per year.
• The knowledge is constrained by the expert
• Approaches are usually 1-N and not very engaging

That makes it hard for the learning to stick and lead to long-lasting change.

The Learning Dojo might be your best shot to (re)build your engineering culture.

“If we only periodically conduct training events or only episodically work on improvement — and the rest of the time itʼs business as usual — then according to neuroscience what weʼre actually teaching is business as usual.” Mike Rother

Reimagining learning

To scale knowledge and skills across large groups, organisations need to relearn to learn, redefining the relationship between learning, time and space.

Learning needs to be merged with performing so it can happen continuously.

The product of learning can no longer be constrained by experts, and the learning process needs to be inclusive, promoting discussion with multiple perspectives.

There is a belief in our society that to learn something, you need to have it taught to you, and that’s absolutely false.

Being taught is a major obstruction to learning. But there’s an essential characteristic of teaching: it is a marvellous way to learn.

The way we learn is upside down. Practitioners should be teaching because that’s an excellent way to learn, and experts should be continuously learning to enable others to learn more effectively.

That’s what education should be about: facilitation of learning, not teaching.

The idea behind the Learning Dojo is incredibly powerful. A combination of practice and mentorship that together act as a learning accelerator. Like martial arts, engineering capabilities for building digital products cannot be mastered without significant, dedicated practice and mentorship.

What activities would the Learning Dojo promote?

The 30-day Challenge

This is the most popular offering in the Dojo. In the 30-[working]-day Challenge (six weeks), full-stack product teams work together toward continuous improvement, working on their current project/product to unlock key capabilities and new ways of working while delivering business value.

During the journey, product teams are supported by cross-functional coaches with solid experience in Lean Product Development, Lean Management, Agile, and DevOps.

The coaches are there to pair, support, mentor, ask meaningful questions, provide answers, pull in other specialists, and ensure skills transfer, actively introducing new mindsets, principles, practices, and tools that are fit-for-[the team]-purpose.

The mission is to get teams up to speed in six weeks (12 iterations of 2.5 days) and for those teams to carry forward the work after leaving the Dojo.

Other learning sessions that the Learning Dojo could promote

• Katas
• Coding Dojo / Testing Dojo
• Mob Programming
• Fishbowl
• Lean Coffee
• Lunch & Learning
• Hackathon
• Internal events
• Unconferences

Who works in the Learning Dojo?

Experienced coaches in Lean Product Development, Lean Management, Agile, and DevOps should staff the Learning Dojo. They will guide your product teams as they learn newer and more effective ways of working and building digital products at scale.

Establish your own Learning Dojo

• Identify the capabilities your organisation would like to unlock in the product development lifecycle. Build a capability map and use gamification.
• Staff the Dojo with your best and brightest.
• Prove the concept first with one team and a small group of coaches.
• You don’t have to go “all in” immediately on a physical space, but get the pilot teams out of their typical working environment.
• Consulting firms can help with its early execution, designing the sessions, preparing your staff, and training them in running the Dojo.
• More importantly, find ways to enable your organisation to learn how to learn and motivate your people to want to do so.

I hope this content has pollinated your ideas.

Till the next time!

Marcio Sete