DEV Community: Daniel Hübner

Remote Fika OR how can we feel connected as a team when we work remote

Daniel Hübner — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 16:51:47 +0000

The Corona crisis pushed us into working remotely three weeks ago. This was an early move by idealo to be prepared
and to ease the burden on our health system in Berlin and Germany.

Overall my team did the transition very well, mood and productivity is still good. What I felt was missing
was the casual conversation in the kitchen or the lunch with the colleagues where there always was time to connect
on a more personal and private basis. Chat about the latest movies, bitching about politics or others things.
For the first weeks as a remote team we where missing out on these situations, all communication was limited to
the work we do. So I felt disconnected from the humans while the work connection was quite OK. this was what
made me act on it.

What is Fika?

My wife and her family is strongly connected to Sweden (and the other scandinavian countries for that matter).
This is how I heard about Fika:

Fika is much more than having a coffee. It is a social phenomenon, a legitimate reason to set aside a moment for quality time. Fika can happen at any time, morning as well as evening. It can be savoured at home, at work or in a café. It can be with colleagues, family, friends, or someone you are trying to get to know. It is a tradition observed frequently, preferably several times a day.

Remote Fika in my team

I just went ahead for my team and suggested, that we spent fifteen minutes every morning together for a Remote Fika.
Attending is voluntarily and nobody prepares an agenda or something for the Fika. I arranged the time for Fika so it leads
directly into our first team meeting of the day (the daily aka daily stand up, daily scrum, ...).
And we just use the same Google Meet room for the Fika and when the time has come, we move over to the daily.

As I initiated the idea I ensured that I attended all Fikas for the first week. I was prepared that nobody shows up
for the first Fika, but this was not the case. We had good, funny and interesting things we shared and discussed
over this short period of time.

And the best thing for me is: I really feel more connected to my colleagues. I know if they maybe had a bad day or
did not sleep good last night. What is on their minds. I am always looking forward to the next Fika and can let
the team wander off for the day to work on their tasks, soothed and certain that they are OK. For me as the team
lead this is so important to know.

So grab a coffee or tea, maybe a sweet as recommended and join your team or your peers for a Fika.

The mini assigment

Daniel Hübner — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 12:27:54 +0000

This is the final part of the series of articles about holding a programming workshop for 3rd and 4th graders.

In the first part I wrote about how I came to hold programming
workshops for schoolkids and explained about preparations before a workshop.

The second part describes how we stared off in the workshop.

Now to the mini assignment we managed to facilitate in the last two workshops.

The Calliope mini assignment: Light and dark

The Calliope mini has a number of input and output choices. You have buttons and pins but also sensors for light and position, compass functionality and a microphone for input. There are 25 red and one RGB LEDs and a mini speaker for output. Also you can have radio communication and connect other devices through a number of interfaces. This makes the Calliope mini able to be used in many situations and for different ideas and solutions.

We wanted to show one very practical aspect and used "The Calliope mini as an automatic scooter light" example from the didactical material available through the Calliope website (pages 13ff).

First we got the kids to write a program that can measure the surrounding light and display the value on the Calliope mini. The code is very easy to make, the real fun for everybody was to run about the room and the hallway afterwards to measure the light value. We wrote down the values on the board and briefly discussed the expectations and the actual measures. I liked this part of the workshop as everybody was engaged and happily measured and contributed places to measure and light values.

As the next step we wrote the code that would constantly measure the current value of light. In case the value is below a certain threshold, the red LEDs should light up. And in case the value raised above the
threshold again, the LEDs should turn off. This is of course just like light systems of bikes work nowadays. What I like about this assignment is, that it shows how something is done that the kids already know from
their every day life. And how easy the basic principles behind it are, given the right tools.

Sadly, time was running out for the final coding and testing of the automatic lights. So putting together the code and testing the Calliope mini was a little short and more instructed by Stephanie and myself that I wished for. It would have been of more value to have the kids figure out more of that themselves.

Conclusion

Up until now Stephanie and I held four workshops at our daughter's school. The first two were very short with only 45 minutes where we covered only the very basic principles. With 90 minutes (and a short break) the second round of two workshops were longer so we were able to cover the mini assignment and take more time for the introduction of programming. In retrospective, this still was not enough time to go into more detail and equip the kids with a basic skill set to have them go about programming their own ideas.

Being used to work with agile principles, going this way still seems a good approach to me: Experiment, reflect, adapt, repeat. We had to start somewhere and we were sure that not everything can go smoothly from the very start.

I can think of at least two ways to continue this journey:

Get into even longer sessions of workshops, maybe a whole morning of three to four hours with breaks. This might need a little more preparation but the idea is to make more room for the ideas the kids come up with. From a didcatical perspective, this would be a challenge for myself. I would not know how best to go about it.
Have weekly or biweekly coding sessions in the afternoon. At the Schule an der Strauchwiese there is a variety of different working groups available, ranging from football, chess, baking, to puppet shows. This can be a good approach for programming with the Calliope mini. The kids can repeat working with the editor and learn the practice and skills over a longer set of time. While having workshops on a regular basis is a big benefit for the kids, it would be rather hard to facilitate it from our perspective. Taking the time and supplying the hardware so frequently seems unrealistic to me. Also I imagine that such workshops would attract more boys already into computers. While it can be of benefit to support their interest I still would rather open this opportunity to girls - as I stated already.

Stephanie and I have not discussed on how we would like to continue. Also the idea of offering a Calliope mini workshop at idealo internet GmbH for the Girls Day 2020 was cancelled just this week due to the unforeseeable development of the Corona pandemie.

It surely would be nice to get connected to other people active in this area. I tried to find some on the course of the last year in Berlin but was not too successful to my own surprise. Maybe I missed the right search terms or something. It could be something to pursue in the future.

Let's start the workshops

Daniel Hübner — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 12:26:47 +0000

In the previous part I wrote about how I came to hold programming
workshops for schoolkids and explained about preparations before a workshop.

In this and the following part I will explain what we did during the workshop.

Starting into the workshop

After you have everything (room, hardware and pupils) set up and ready: Where to start with the workshop itself?

We started with samples of programming without electricity. What do I mean with this? An instruction like

If it rains outside, use a rainjacket

is a parent programming a child. And so is

 Brush your teeths before you go to bed (or they will go bad)

This simple things introduce conditions and actions already and everybody knows them. And it is programming without electricity for sure.

The first programming assignment: Eat a banana

Our first programming without electricity in the workshop was eating a banana. This is taken from the education material that is available in the Workbook for Students, page 3. The steps to eat a banana are prepared and the children were asked to put the steps in the correct order.This was a good way to show that instructions given to a computer needs to be detailed, precise and in the correct order. If you take a bite from the banana before peeling it, you know what you get. Also the idea of loops is introduced with this exercise.

The second programming assignment: Maneuver a "robot" through the room to a specific spot

Stephanie fashioned a robot mask for the workshop:

We wanted to have the kids maneuver a robot (myself with the mask) from one place in the room to another. I always started turned towards a window or wall. The robot was supposed to only understand very basic instructions. The instructions were unknown to the children beforehand and this was intended.

When the task was to direct the robot to the door, the first command usually was go to the door and my response was I do not understand this. With some try and error, the pupils found out what the robot can and can not do. Taking turns they gave the robot commands until the task was complete. There always is a great deal of laughing involved when I
bump into obstacles or did something unexpected.

Here is one example of what happened: The robot was repeatedly asked to half turn right and of course I did a 180° turn as this is half a circle. The kids of course expected me to actually only turn 90° in the given direction. It took some time to figure out that the command needs to be turn one quarter to the right - but eventually they got it.

It is important to have a second person (Stephanie in our case) helping with the robot programming. She ensured that the children took turns in programming the robot. Having everybody participate in the process, the solution and the learning in that was an important factor for us.

The third programming assignment: Display your name on the Calliope mini

Now we (finally) got to the computers and the Calliope mini itself. We took a very easy task to program so the kids get introduced to the graphical editor and the process of downloading the code to the computer and then transfer it to the Calliope mini (through a USB connection and a file browser).

For starters we presented the Calliope mini and gave everybody one still sitting inside the box. They unpacked it and got the cords (power and USB) hooked up to begin with. We showed what and how to do it and ensured that the children got it right.

It is so easy to forget how used we adults are to computers, mice and keyboard. What takes us only a couple of seconds to understand and execute is a totally new world to eight year olds. They are not used to handle a mouse and click on a button in the browser. They do not know what a file or folder or drive is, what download means. At least some of them do not, while others might be used to this sort of thing.

Given experiences from previous workshops (with adults) we ensured that our own setup that we hooked to a presenter is similar to that on the children devices. And then we did all the needed steps, one by one, in a slow pace. There was always some running around the room to check, if they were following and help with a vast variety of problems.

As the children worked in pairs we took turns in writing the code and deploying it to the Calliope mini. We payed extra attention to the fact, that everybody could work with mouse, keyboard and the Calliope mini.
This is especially hard for two kids with very different experiences with computers. I literally took one boy's hand from the mouse a number of times so his partner could take his time to practice pointing and clicking. This is hard, but I find it very important to support an environment of learning by doing. As a professional programmer I have seen and felt too many times the situation where pair programming was dysfunctional due to the fact that only one person held on to the controls all the time.

I have no education in teaching children at all. Maybe I am mistaken by my approach or there might be better ways to achieve learning by doing. However, I wanted to point this out for you to consider.

You can find details on the mini assignment we did next in the third and final part of this series of articles.

Preparations

Daniel Hübner — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 12:25:16 +0000

Introduction

In summer 2019 I had the chance to get to know the Calliope mini.
Its inventors, the Berlin based Calliope gGmbH, states on their website:

"Calliope mini is a tiny controller designed to show you the fun in programming. Get creative and start coding!"

This introduction to the Calliope mini was initialized by the sozialo e.V., a non profit association started by the idealo internet GmbH, my employer. sozialo e.V. also equipped a mobile tech lab with Calliope minis, Laptops and everything needed to go off to a school or event or somewhere to do a workshop where anybody could start programming very fast
and with a lot of fun.

I have heard about the Calliope mini beforehand from Stephanie Hardt, a friend, who had some fun programming the Calliope mini with her children. We teamed up and contacted the school of our daughters. We proposed holding small workshops for pupils in 3rd and 4th grade.

In this series of articles I want to tell you how we went about it.

What is contained in the TechLab?

Currently the small TechLab consists of the following items

5 Laptops with power cables and mouse (mouses are easier to handle compared to touchpads)
Wireless Access Point with SIM card
10 sets of Calliope mini, containing the controller, USB cable and batteries
Power strip with extension cord
HDMI extension cable

From the first workshops we held, we learned that the internet connection is a very critical element for holding the workshop. Two times is seemed that we were prepared well enough to use the schools WiFi. But it failed and we needed to fall back to Access Points from smartphones (on one occasion only a teachers Smartphone could provide a stable Access Point).

Now we bring our preconfigured Access Point so the risk is reduced. We still need to test and improve this setup, but it is gradually getting better.

What is needed on site?

A room with tables and chairs for all participants is mandatory, also having at least on power connection for the extension cord we bring. Having a projector or large monitor helps a lot to show the children
how they work with the editor and how they deploy the code to the controller. I think it is possible to hold a workshop without these, however I always had a projector to use.

Having supporters in the school (or any other environment) is not even helpful but mandatory in my opinion. These people work with kids every day and know how to organize such an event. To me it felt very different
to work together with teachers and educators compared to my work colleagues that I see day to day. It's kind of like two worlds clashing together, so be prepared to a challenge. Being flexible on your part is definitely a good advice.

What is you audience?

In our workshops we specifically addressed 3rd and 4th graders. Having good reading and writing skill available is essential for working with the Calliope mini and the editor. We felt, that the recommendation of Calliope gGmbH was just right for us and expanding the age range would be too much of a challenge for us to handle the differences in knowledge.

Having two daughters myself, it was important to me to make the workshops accessible to girls. The teachers and educators managed to have an even split of girls and boys in all workshops and this was really great.

According to Calliope gGmbh girls (and boys) at that age are not framed into gender roles, especially when it comes to technical stuff that still (at least in Germany) is so much of a male field of activity.

We wanted to show that all that stuff on the computers or inside those smartphone is no magic and is "just there to consume". Instead, with not too much effort, everybody is able to use that hardware as a tool to use like a knife, pencil, guitar, hammer, ball, ... Take it, have fun and create something with it to use.

This concludes the first part on this series. In the next part
you will find out how we started into the workshop.

4 tips on how to make good team decisions

Daniel Hübner — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 16:00:34 +0000

Did you ever experience lengthy discussions about a problem during a meeting and you never get to start working on it? Or a decision that was made is repeatedly questioned by team members?

Here are four tips that might improve the decision process of your team:

1 Forget the first thing that comes along

A first idea to solve a new problem is almost never the best. Use it as a starting point but you usually find a better solution by discussing, refining and iteration through ideas. A colleague pointed out that design thinking processes can help you.

2 List pro and cons of all your ideas

If a number of ideas come up in team discussions, it can be useful to list the pros and cons of each solution.
Maybe you could even do a SWOT analysis. And there are always cons.

Collecting this information is useful in different ways. It can show when an idea has not been understood by everybody (quite normal). It can show an issue or an advantage of an idea that nobody was aware of before.

Once the list is completed, the team is aware of the implications of their decision. I find this an important commitment driver.

3 Postpone all decisions that are hard to make at the moment

I took this idea from Robert C. Martin’s book 'Clean Architecture' where any architectural decision should be made as late as possible. As developers we like to have a recipe, a collection of small steps that will deliver safe and sound results. But the truth is, mental work has no recipe. In the beginning of a project or at the start of a new problem we usually know very little about it. The problem space is only clear for a couple of steps, the rest of it gradually becomes foggy and obscured.

When a discussion about one detail has been going on for a while, ask this question: "Do we need to decide this now?"

First of all this question can direct the discussion towards a solution language.

Second of all, postponing a decision to a later point in time can be liberating for the moment. We can focus on the next steps that are clear for us and can make a decision more easily. And we are sure that we will learn more about this postponed question on the way and eventually we will reach a point, where making the decision will be easy.

You can think of this as iterating decisions just as you would iterate other tasks in your daily work.

4 Commit to the decision

From time to time I observed teams where a decision is repeatedly questioned by team members. A lot of time and effort can go wasted in such a situation. This might be an indicator that the team did not commit to the decision.

One way to avoid this is to use the Consent Decision Making method. I learned the method of Consent Decision Making from agile coaches at my workplace. The method is described in the sociocracy 3.0 framework.

We at idealo try to establish such a culture. We ask "Does anybody object in starting with this idea until we learn otherwise?". From my experiences this helps to commit on a decision, to start working on it and adapting continuously as we learn more about the problem.