What Makes Discussion Groups Effective
What Makes Discussion Groups EffectiveI'd be very interested to read your ideas here:
Question: Are you speaking of electronic discussion groups, or the face-to-face variety? Or perhaps either kind?
Answer: I meant face-to-face groups, of maybe 10-30 people. A few were formed at my old company in order to promote sharing of information about specific technologies (for example, OO) among a group with the same job (the software engineers) and any related people. It was successful, as long as they were kept ad-hoc. I was interested in the social and organizational aspects of meetings like this, and electronic groups don't involved those factors. Internal newsgroups were established and very effective, but they didn't lend themselves to the kind of rapid, information-sharing we got in the meetings. Plus, we actually got to meet other software engineers from around the company. Thank you for all your comments below, by the way, they were very useful.
My personal experience is that they provide a motivation to study a broad range of material and to learn from the perspectives and experience of others. It's much like taking a class except it's free, it's more fun, and it doesn't stop at the end of the semester. -- PhilGoodwin
At my company, discussion groups are not very common. I'm interested to know what I can do as an organizer of a (technical) discussion group so that the people who participate get the most out of it. Any ideas?
Simon, I'm a few months away from finishing a pattern language on study groups which should answer your question (and if it doesn't, I've got more work to do). If you'd like, I'll send you a link to it when it is complete. -- JoshuaKerievsky
''see http://industriallogic.com/papers/kh.html'
There are two obvious requirements for an effective discussion group: willing participants and suitable topics of discussion. These things are so obvious that I'm afraid stating them isn't much help, but you've got to start somewhere.
My suggestion would be to start out small. Find just two or three other people who are as interested as you in doing a discussion group. Then organize a discussion group primarily for yourselves. If you can't make it work for a couple of people, it's unlikely that you can make it work for more. On the flip side, if you can make it work for a few people, you've been successful even if you can't make it work for more.
If you can make it work for a few people, it also becomes an easier sell to other prospective participants. That's because people who are thinking about joining the discussion group can more easily see up front if there's real value in their participation.
Curtis, I've discovered that there are processes which actually do make dialogue groups effective and which are essential knowledge for groups that wish to survive. The trouble is, most people have no idea that such processes exist. Over the last few years, I've seen numerous groups die, a number of which were Patterns groups. They died because they lacked a process and an understanding of what makes groups work. I predicted the death of one of them - I went to see where they meet, and experienced how they ran things and knew that it was only a matter of a few months before the thing would tank. On the other hand, my own Patterns group in NYC continues to thrive, as do other groups that have taken the time to understand some of these processes. You can learn more by reading part of this paper: http://industriallogic.com/papers/learning.html - however, the PatternLanguage I've written on the subject is a much better way to learn more about this. Now I just have to finish it. :-) -- JoshuaKerievsky
Joshua, I found it on your page. I guess it is finished now. Excellent.
We run a study group at CanooDotCom for our internal education. We started this at our former employer in early '98 (if I remember that correctly) and enjoy it every since. We tried and struggled with all kinds of different setups. The only thing that remained constant was the timeframe of an hour per session. We tried weekly and two-weekly session. Moderated and unmoderated sessions. Prepared talks and summaries vs free discussions (and of course combinations). Assignments up-front vs assignments only for the next session. Rotating assignments through all group members and fixed assignments for a whole book. Topics were general OO, Patterns (multiple times), XP, Concurrency, Refactoring (multiple times). We read books and articles. We like to bring examples from our day-to-day work into the group, often as real-life exercises.
What we found hard:
I have a process for conducting study groups I've used over the years that has been fairly effective. I'll provide some guidance under StudyGroupGuidelines. -- ChrisBrooks
I think one good idea is to bring up a very small problem that shall be solved. If the people in the group can't agree on a solution, then break the problem down to a smaller one until all the people agree. Then everybody will go home with a new experience and a new problem solution. -- DanielMarcus?
Has anyone tried running a discussion group in an OpenSpace format? I can answer my own question now. We just held the first meeting of the TriangleXpUsersGroup. It lasted 90 minutes. We began by writing up ideas for topics of discussion on whiteboards at the front of the room. It took everyone a while to get used to the idea of walking up to the front and writing topics, but once we got everyone milling around it worked. Each topic was written beneath a letter A, B, C... and we had 3x5 index cards with those letters on them around the room. Everyone milled around for about 5 minutes chatting and reviewing the topics on the board. Then people gravitated towards the card for the topic they were interested in. Some groups combined where there weren't many people and they could find common ground in the topic, and they would update the board to reflect this. If a group decided they had said everything they wanted to on a topic, they disbanded and could join other discussing groups in progress. The main rule of OpenSpace is the "rule of two feet". If you don't like the discussion group you are in, leave and go to another. If you don't like any of the discussion groups, leave. After this experience I would highly recommend the approach. -- AlexChapman
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