Is there something you don’t know?Almost everyday it seems we are faced with having to learn something new. Some of those things are trivial and easy to accomplish, while others are important and a more than a little daunting to master.There are some easy steps to make learning less overwhelming.On the Lean Agile Machine blog, there have been two consecutive, thought-provoking posts on Personal Kanban and productivity. One describes how to set up a Personal Kanban for research and writing production. The second describes how to set up short bursts of research and quickly evaluate the results.

SPIKE
n. A short burst of work to create a sample version of something

In agile programming, savvy developers will quickly cobble together a prototype, something merely to demonstrate the idea is feasible. Spikes make sure that assumptions about selected technologies and implementation are sound.In short, a spike is a burst of work that makes sure that further work is warranted.Learning is a great way to do this because there will always be things we do not know. Every field of study has nuances and developments that even ardent devotees can’t keep up with. So, when we suddenly need to bone up on say, deck waterproofing methods, we really don’t want to have to become a master carpenter.So, you do a Spike.You set aside 15 to 25 minutes (perhaps with your Pomodoro timer) and blast through as much research as you can. You Google, you Wikipedia, you save some links, you find some review sites. At the end of your spike, you have one of three outcomes:

You have learned as much as you need;
You have a good idea where to get information and how much longer it will take; or
You have learned that asking an expert is a better idea.

Now learning is easy. The spike gives you a predictable amount of time to spend to get results that tame the learning beast.(Please do read the two posts from Lean Agile Machine.)Photo by Shavar Ross