Techniques for the Self-Directed Learner
I met Sjur Kvammen at Øredev this week. He introduced himself and told me he’d read something of mine a while ago, something about psychology. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but he found me later and said it was my writings about heedful programming. Wow, what a blast from the past. I’d actually de-linked that stuff from my home page because it’s so half-baked, but apparently the all-seeing eye of Google has kept it alive. I went back and read it, and my psychology of agile software development ideas. It took me back to 2003 when I was reading like a maniac, learning all sorts of things at the intersection of sociology, psychology, and software development. The outcome of this intense study period was getting hired at ThoughtWorks, my big break.
During this time, I used a few simple techniques to guide my self-directed studies. I figured I’d share them here in case future learners find them helpful.
The first technique was to maintain a reading list on the Bookshelved Wiki. This is still a helpful resource to me when I need to go back and remember when I read something, and back then it was extremely useful in organizing what I would be reading next.
As I was reading, my second technique was to write the excerpts I felt were significant on paper, using the paper as a bookmark. When I finished a book, I would transcribe the most representative of these excerpts onto my quotes page, which proved invaluable for years afterward when I was writing articles like Code Complete on Extreme Programming and ultimately Apprenticeship Patterns.
The third technique could be called “depth-first bibliographic search”. Since I was a quote geek myself, I paid careful attention to the books that authors were quoting. I would also read the bibliographies when I finished the book. I would collect a subset of the book’s references and add them to my reading list. I sorted my reading list in such a way that I tended toward depth over breadth. I can’t remember the exact path that led me to Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks, but I’m pretty sure it started with Alistair Cockburn’s Agile Software Development with around 5 degrees of separation. It was a very rewarding find and continues to give me insights, such as the advantages of mixing teams with experienced and inexperienced people.
“Comprehension can be increased if more levels of experience are connected, as when newcomers who take nothing for granted interrelate more often with old-timers who think they have seen it all.” Collective Mind in Organizations, p. 366
See? I can’t help myself. :)
