The sound of Silence (or one hand clapping)

I think it was one of the greatest philosophers of our time who said: "The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face" .

I led a workshop a short while back where I experienced how powerful silence can be, and I’d like to share it.

But first…

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Imagine this post would end at the line above; perhaps you’d scroll down, but find nothing below…

How would you feel?
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You would have either of the following reactions (I guess)

• Oouuf, that crazy bear, had’nough of him…
• Oouuf, that forgetful bear, again he forgot to save the whole post before publishing
• Hmmm… I wonder what he meant to say…

And that’s the power of silence; it forces the listener to deal with the void, to fill it with her presence, her reflections, etc.

This works in music (in its simple form, think of how your brain is trying to guess where the song continues after a pause, to the extreme, remember the John Cage piece…), in art (think of a Rothko painting) and for sure in agile-coaching.

A while back, I read a post by an agile coach who was really proud of how he solved a problem between the development (who was producing too much to be tested) and the testers who were not able to follow up, he located the problem, named it, called the teams in (mid sprint), and presented the problem he saw and the solution (VSM). I would have probably taken another way of action:
- do nothing. 
- see what happens. 

A solution to a pain is always stronger if the pain is strongly felt by the team and not by the coach... and who knows, perhaps your perception is wrong. 

So this is a segment of my response...

My response may be provocative, but I am known for this, I hope you find it interesting as well..

Seems to me you located a problem, explained it to the team, and introduced a tool to prevent it.

I’d consider a totally different approach, which is to do nothing, and let the problem happen…

I’ll explain…

Supposing your assumption is right, the sprint would have finished poorly, perhaps even failed, which may waste some work (not a lot, I’d say a few days… since dev was done) but would produce a heated retrospective perhaps some conflicts between QA dev and PO
And THIS IS GREAT! it will boost the team’s maturity and spirit enormously (if handled correctly, and remember – the retro is YOUR tool, this is where you can effect the team the most)

But what if your assumption is wrong? what if the sprint would’t have failed?
what if the QA is overbooked because they over-test? in which case there would be not so many bugs, which may lead to a change in the weight allocated to testing.

When explaining what YOU see is wrong (and you said you had a hard time to do it), and putting a tool in place, you are (IMHO) blocking the growth of the team.

And now for the hardest part for me, an apology:
- It is so easy to interpret a story when it is given to you all wrapped up and you are not involved, I remember how I was so proud with some things I did with the team, and felt so stupid when re-thinking about it months later

In the workshop last week I experienced the power of nothingness first hand. For example – the participants split into teams to gather findings, and then I asked them to present their findings to everyone.

After the first presentation they looked at us (the coaches), I waited a bit, than asked them if there are any questions to the presenter, and then started clapping (everyone joined) and invited the next presenter.

After the second one finished, they looked at me, and I did nothing… fifteen seconds of awkward silence (god – it seemed like eternity :-). 

Than someone started clapping hands, so everyone joined.

When the clapping ended, another awkward silence… people looking around – now what?! Until the next team’s speaker said “I guess now it is my turn” and got up.

For the next presentations - their 'routine' was easier, and they didn't even look at me... hence they took a step toward independence and self organisation.

I hope I made my point, just wanted to add it is not easy to be silent (certainly not for a blabber-mouth bear like me…) which makes it a great experience.

And of course - sometimes you DO have to say something... (@ least I do...)

Would love to hear your comments (silent comments are of course welcome as well :-)

Till nextime!

Yer Bear.