Hey, Meg, let's do a podcast.

That's a great idea. What should we talk about?

So today we're doing something a little bit different. Instead of having a conversation with Meg Fairchild, I actually had a conversation with Susanne Ambros the other day, and it was part of our Leaders of Lama Learning Experience, which we call LOLLE because everything has a fun acronym here at Torrence Learning. But we had an opportunity to talk about agile learning, which is a different kind of or context for agile than what I usually do. So it was super cool. Have a listen. So one of the really cool things about my job and my role is that I get to talk to all sorts of fantastic people and have really interesting conversations. And part of, part of this conversation is about sharing that with other people. So I'm not the only one who gets to talk to you or explore that.

So, Susanne Ambros, welcome and thank you. I would love for everybody else to get a chance to listen in on this conversation. So, first off, can you introduce yourself, your role, who you are and how you come into the world?

Yeah. Thank you very much, Megan, for having me, and it's a great pleasure and an honor for me to be here. I am so pleased that I got the chance to meet you in person in December. And we had some exchanges before, but it's always, I think, a big difference if you meet somebody in person. So at least we meet here in audio file. And so my name is Susanne. I'm 42 years old in June. I'm married, I have two daughters, and I live in Munich, Germany.

And from the moment I started working as a ski instructor at 18 years old, I fell in love with learning and teaching. And so I decided also to study to become a teacher. But finally found out that in a very, how would I say that in a polite way, in a very much structured and curriculum led world of schools. I didn't feel at home. So I did never end up in a german public school, but I founded and co founded a company that did learning management for corporates and worked there for 16 years. And for some more years. I'm now working for at Quality Minds, which is an IT consulting company. We are around 300 employees working in IT projects.

And I don't know, this is the amazing thing about Quality Minds. We are living an agile culture in our company. That means we are very people focused. And, you know, I joined the company as a learning expert because we have found a specific way of learning that matches very much our agile style of working. And I hope that I can tell you more about this in the next few minutes.

Oh, I think we will. So, Susanne, I have a question for you.

I'm not surprised, Megan.

So something you just said kind of piqued my interest, because a lot of people, you said that at Quality Minds, because we use agile, we have a very people centric culture, and a lot of people come into their first experience with agile in general and feel like, wow, it's about software, it's about techniques, and it's about mindset and there's stories and there's points and there's rules and there's scrums and there's, there's masters and rituals and all these things, none of which feel like people centric. What does it mean to work in an agile people centric environment?

I would say that we take the agile manifesto very serious, and I'm sure all the audience is aware of the agile manifesto, but there are lots of principles. And I think that if it's, you know, it says more people over processes, for example. And I think if you look at this kind of rules or policies or however you would call it, then it's very clear that when people are, you know, more important than processes, then also in a company, you would rather think about do you, do you prepare the working processes for the people or do the people work for the processes? And I think that's, you know, a question that a lot of people might have asked themselves previously. And I think that at Quality Minds, we have found the answer that people matter more.

I love that. I love that. And there's so, so many places we could go from that. So. But what I wanted to talk to you was around the learning and development in the workplace and how that connects in. So what gets you excited? You mentioned it, it's not as rigid and curriculum based as public school. Same thing the US is in Germany. But what gets you excited about learning and development in the workplace?

Yeah. So I think that if you think about a lifelong learning culture, then it's not over after school or university. And especially when you look at our current world with all the new developments, for example, in technology, look at AI and all these things, that's so fast, you have to keep learning because otherwise you will be lost. So also in the workplace, it's something that never ends. And I think that the way how we looked at learning for a long time is always about content. When you were talking to somebody, then it was always, what do I need to learn? And then a manager or somebody in the workplace told you, this is something you have to learn. This is something that is important. And it was very much hierarchical.

It felt hierarchical or something that people tell you. And, you know, looking at science, motivation is something that comes intrinsic from people. And so that the simple answer to people centric learning is to ask people, what do you want to learn and, and why? You know, why do you want to learn that? You know, do you have individual goals? Do you have visions where you want to grow into or any, I don't know, roles or projects or things that, you know, match the goals of your life. And that's something that I think is so powerful and so motivational. And it's not an extrinsic stuff that somebody brings to you. It just, there's so much energy that is enabled by the question, what do you want to learn and why? And that just opens the space. And this is how we learn at Quality Minds. And this is also what we call agile learning.

It's a learner centric approach.

Okay? So this is where our stories start to intersect. So here I am trotting along in the world, doing my thing. It was Pam Hogel at theLearning Guild who introduced us, and I'd worked for years with Pam in her capacity as an editor, and she around agile project processes for instructional design. And all of a sudden she says, Megan, Megan, Megan, you have to meet Susanne because she's doing something different than you are. And yet it's like, but they're so interrelated. And I said, well, let's, let's have a conversation. So you have taken the agile principles and applied them to learning, where I'm taking agile principles and applying them to instruction, like the project of developing learning. You're actually going one step deeper in.

So in a nutshell, before I butcher it, what is agile learning?

Yeah, Agile is an approach where, as I said previously, the learner is definitely at the center and the learner is in the driver's seat of learning. And that means that he or she takes personal responsibility and also works in a self organized way in terms of learning. And with this question, what do you want to learn? Together with a learning coach, the learner sets individual objectives and goals for the next timeframe. We call this a learning sprint. That means that, for example, when I ask you, Megan, what do you want to learn? Is there anything that comes to mind that you want learn? Possibly.

Oh, are you asking me now?

Yeah, I am.

Ooh, I am. You know what, right now I'm doing a lot of learning about applying artificial intelligence techniques to not our content creating. We're doing that, I'm learning that, but my new learning is around to all of our business processes, including maybe even finance.

And why do you want to learn that?

Because, well, one, I'm curious, but I feel like we do a lot of things the hard way, and I'd like to see if there are ways that we can free ourselves up from doing it the hard way and instead do things the easy way and then have time to think about what it is we're doing instead of just being so consumed by the doing.

And for your learning goal around artificial intelligence for learning, is that something that you would like to apply yourself more AI techniques, for example, or is that something you want to teach to others, for example?

So in the AI for our business processes, I am really focused on leading and supporting our team in applying those so less doing it myself. But maybe I do the first version and then that kind of inspires them.

To do some more and then also some management practices, for example, how do I communicate it? What are the risks, for example? So rather the management point of view for AI techniques in learning?

Yes.

So this would be a learning goal, as we would call it. You know, just as an example, I, as a leader of a learning business, want to learn more about AI practices because I want to kind of become a good manager, understand what these processes do to our business and so on and so forth. And that, you know, this is how we frame it. Then again, I would ask you, have you followed similar learning goals previously, maybe with other innovative techniques or something like that?

Perhaps not quite so structured as this, but yes. So I did it around Xapi.

So would you like to share some successful learning practices that helped you the other time to achieve your goal?

I love this. You're doing it. This is fantastic. This is so fun. And you made a user story back there. I saw that. So examples. So before I assembled a team and I did a lot of reading on the web of both how to as well as case studies.

And we as a team, we tried it out ourselves. And interestingly, in that spot, I also had the leadership and management role and then assembled a team of people that had the sets of skills that were going to be required to do the project in which we learned a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, perfect. So, you know, just coming to the meta perspective and what I'm doing now is to see what happens, what is the knowledge you have already on your personal learning processes and preferences and try to find a way for you to also now tackle the new learning goal. And also, you know, I would ask you, what does success look like? So, you know, if you would like to picture, you know, after this learning goal, how do you act in your business? How do you kind of start AI processes in your company? Just envision how you would like to look and feel after you have achieved your learning goals.

I would like, oh, a couple things come to mind. So this will be an incomplete answer, but several partial complete answers. So I would like to be well versed enough in some of the tools that are available for, let's pick financial processes, but financial processes and enough to have tried them out a little bit. I'd love to have a prototype that I could show others and a structure and a process that I can use to support people to explore a little bit more themselves.

But that sounds really very straightforward. So you are an experienced learner. I can see that you have a lot of experience that you can also use for the learning process. And is there anything I can help you with? Do you need material or do you want some, as you said you wanted some cases where probably some financial AI processes have already been tried. I can offer to help you also with some material that meets your learning goal needs. Or on the other side, you might have already some material that you are aware of that you have in your company probably already, or colleagues that you know have already used. So we would together think about how the best way forward is where we get the material from. And my role as a learning coach would also be to help you with sufficient material that helps you for your specific learning goal.

I love this.

And the answer, Megan, you know, just when we're talking about structured school and university, the answer usually to such a very specific learning goal is not a standardized course because you would then, you know, of course it's a standardized course. You're in a group of maybe 12, 15 co-learners. They all have different goals, they all have different ideas, they all have different use cases they want to apply the content to. And this is also a business case for agile learning because we as a company at quality minds, we have saved a lot of money by not going to these standardized learning offers anymore.

That is deep. That is deep. I love it. Feeling a little pain here, but that's okay. That's okay. I love this, I love this. Okay, so a couple of things I noticed from this, very specific goals, very specific definitions of success. You've also done mini prototypes, right? What have I done before? Right? That serves as a meaningful first iteration from which we can learn, right? Was that successful or not? So what are some of the other things from that example we just did that people should pull out.

Yeah. Because the process is not finished. So we would, after this first planning that we have done together, I would probably supply you with some materials and you would just start learning because that's the thing that nobody can take away from you. You know, you have to learn is a very individual, sometimes a very lonely process, but you do it yourself in a way that you'd like to do it. And then we would meet for a retro and a reflection, let's say halfway, we would agree how often you want to meet me? And then we would reflect on how has it gone so far, you know, have you learned what you wanted? How far are you overcome some obstacles? Is there anything in your way that I can help you with? What has been successful and motivating, what was demotivating and usually, you know, sprint, zero in agility means that nothing really goes right.

Good expectation to have.

Yeah. So you would, you know, the traditional stuff would be that you would come back and say, you know, I was very ambitious. I wanted to learn so many stuff. I didn't have time, you know, my child got sick, and then my boss also started a new project and I didn't, you know, and then, you know, I was so tired, I fell asleep while reading all those web pages that I wanted to read. So I'm really devastated. I'm not successful. And then together with you, with me, your learning coach, we would kind of identify probably some more realistic goals that you could set, some smaller ones probably define other times of the day, other formats, probably. Maybe it's better to listen to a podcast than to read in the evening when you are really tired.

So we would also think about the process of learning, not only about the content you want to learn and your goal, but also how do you learn. And this means that your learning will be more motivating, more efficient, and over time you will not need me anymore as your learning coach because you know so much about your own learning process that you are a very grown up and professional learner. But when we have talked about schools and universities before, we have not been trained in the self, you know, reflection techniques and the way to learn how to learn, basically. And that's something that we can do in agile learning.

So you are, as you're coaching through the topic, you're coaching also on a meta level around that performance that you're teaching the skill of learning.

Yes. And metacognition, you know, so the knowledge about learning

and how long is a learning sprint

That depends. So our recommendation is that we would start with a three month sprint. When you are, you have your learning goal next to your day to day activities and work and family and everything. But sometimes, for example, in onboarding processes, or so you might dedicate, let's say the first three to four weeks or so to learning, then a learning sprint can also be shorter. And, but the, you know, traditional start and pilot phases, we usually recommend three months learning sprints for twelve weeks.

This is fascinating. This is, I have many questions and we'll get to explore all these questions, but one of the things I can imagine people listening, thinking, huh, okay, this changes everything. But in order to change everything, most folks are going to need to get permission or buy in or at least acceptance of the idea. So how do you convince leaders that this is a useful strategy, that we shouldn't just send everybody off to a university program or make them all take an e learning course, that they should do this thing called agile learning and this much more organic and people centric approach.

So the, you know, in agility, and you are working also with agility for a long time, and you might have come across that people have the feeling that they lose control because all of the power is with a team and not with a manager anymore. And this is the same here. So a lot of leaders, when they listen to what we do and how we do it, they would say, yeah, but if I don't want my employees to learn about AI techniques for finance processes, for example, because I think that it's more important that the employee learns something else. And that's something that you would have to ask yourself, you know, because agility is very much about trust and that's also something that you would have to reflect, you know, if you want company culture where you control everything or even have the feeling that you can control everything, which I think you can't. But still then probably agile learning is not the right thing. But if you want to have a company where people are enabled, where they are passionate about what they do, where they are motivated to develop themselves in a way that they think is really useful for them, where they feel that they are somehow self organized and also in power, then you should apply agile learning, because this teaches people how to do it. And also the principles of agility and people centered approaches. And then leaders also ask me, but then I don't want to finance if they learn something that it's not useful for their job, for example, if they want to learn how to swim, for example, and then it's something, you know, you can probably with this agile learning pilot project, you could say only work related learning goals.

But if somebody wants to learn to swim, that also can add to a company culture where you appreciate and acknowledge that there is no real differentiation between work and spare time. Because, you know, if I go to work in the morning, maybe under the shower, I had a really great idea. Even though I wasn't in the office, I wasn't really kind of already registered on my machine. But still I did work because under the shower I had a really good idea about a meeting that I will have to facilitate today. And so it's also okay probably to go for swimming for an hour while I'm working. And also if I have such a practical goal of learning how to swim, and I will probably have next time another goal, I can take all the knowledge about the learning process for swimming, maybe for the next goal, because I also, in agile learning, learn about the learning process itself. That can also help. And in terms of retention and keeping people motivated in the company.

We have seen very many examples already that this is a differentiation to other companies. And in Germany we have a market where we are really keen in recruiting talent and it's not easy, especially in IT. And I think that also makes us a little bit ahead of the game because we offer these kind of learning processes. And one more, maybe one more like last comment, because I've been working in HR for such a long time and in learning and development, I have always been told what people need to learn because that was very much attached to the company strategy. And now with Agile learning, I have an overview that is anonymized. So nobody knows what goals match to whom, but I can go to my management and say, look at all these goals that are intrinsically set by our teams and these are all the competencies that they learn on a voluntary basis. What do you as a management of this company do with all these competencies and skills? Can we probably develop new services, new offers, new products with all these new skills that are developed by our team here. And that's also something, the first time that I can contribute to company strategy rather than just get company strategy and then kind of drill it down to learning offers and programs.

It's fascinating. It's like bringing a whole bunch of natural resources to a group of engineers and saying, what can we make with this? Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. So what about the things that the company really does need everybody to know and do? Do they still have a place in this or do we just do those? We do those, that they're on the side.

I'm not living on Mars. Of course there are things that companies management and also a team decides that they want to learn. You know, for example, apply a new technology or work with a new tool or a new process or a new whatever. And this is what we call teaching goals because they come from externally. It's not intrinsic agile learning, it's agile teaching. And what we think is important that you can kind of bind these two approaches together. So the ideal process is that if you have these external teaching goals, then you kind of provide smaller impulses to your employees saying, this is a new topic. For example, we have a new office in Italy.

So Italian is a language that we should maybe learn or think about. And then you could probably give them some input about the language, about the structure, about Italy as a country. And then again, you, in individual learning sprints, every employee can kind of think about, how will I be in contact with our new Italian colleagues? Do I need a few words in finance language, for example, or will I be a salesperson? So will I need more learning about the culture in Italy and how they do business and how they do meetings for, for example, or am I a technical guy? Will I have to learn more about technical vocabulary or, I don't know, some certifications that are needed for Italian standards and so on. So the individualization after the input from the outside can also then be done in individual learning goals with your learning coach. And what we see a lot, especially nowadays, that with these teaching goals, we very much focus on mindset oriented techniques in teaching people. Because usually it's not about the content, as I said before, it's more about a mindset where the content is applied. So, for example, you learn about working agile. Then you should also have a process that shows you how agile works and also prepares you for the new mindset that you need to apply.

So we think that if you have to teach people, and as I said, I'm not living on Mars, I know that there are topics that are brought from the outside. We think that we very much need to focus on the mindset where this content is applied afterwards.

I think that's fantastic. And what comes to mind, Susanne, is we're building right now a program for a client, and it's on security broadly, right? And so in this one learning experience that we're creating, there is data security, there's device security, there's email and phishing and all that kind of security. And then there's travel security, like when you're traveling abroad, you know, don't, don't set your purse down. And I'm actually not on the project team, so I don't know what the content of the course is, but it occurs to me that, and it has already occurred to me, not every employee of this company is going to experience all those situations. They maybe need a little bit of all of it, and then they would have the opportunity to say, okay, where are you most likely to be needing to apply these security principles? Let's have a personal dive into that space.

Yeah. And then also, you know, talking about mindset, you know, when you have this overview is, you know, some more attention to some, you know, scenarios where there might probably be a risk, a security risk. That's something, you know, that is a mindset, you know, I'm not saying, you know, you always lock the door and, you know, you'll be kind of scary scared about everything. But still, you know, there is a certain awareness about lacks of security, for example, or even talking about security and all these kind of things. So you would, first of all, before you design such a program or even the top, you know, this general of everything, you would also think about what kind of mindset do you need that security is a present habit or that is present and aware in all the things that we do in the company.

Love it. I love it. Okay, so you've got this approach. You and your co-author have written a book.

No, I haven't. Vera, the author, and also Manuel, another colleague of mine, have written the book. Perfect. I'm responsible for networking and. Yeah, also learning coaching in projects here at quality minds.

I love it. I love it. I'm going to ask you some questions as a professional. So this is the lightning round. And I just love finding out how people tick. Right. So aside from the book agile learning, do you have a book that you just love so much that you feel everybody should read?

Yeah, I have to say, I have to come back on the title of it, but it's about networking because it's very, because I think that taking this people first approach, and this is the title of our book, is called Learners First. But I think the beauty of networking is that, as you said at the beginning, I'm really curious. I want to learn about the people I am in contact with. And I think this is a science or something that really helps you to grow and not yourself only, but also the others around. And in this book, they show a lot of examples of networks in nature, but also in society. And how they work. And as I said, I don't have the title at hand, but I will give it to you so you could put it then under the podcast.

We will totally do that. Because now I'm fascinated. Yes, I'm very fascinated. I don't like networking, but I love building a network and connecting with people. Right. It's that. And so it's not a cocktail parties and business cards. It's about connecting with people and finding out just how deep and interesting they are.

So. Oh, fascinating. Fascinating. I'm definitely interested in that. So in the. The realm of learning how people tick, and I'm gonna. So I'm a big fan of fidgets, and this one, nobody else will see this because you and I are on video, and nobody's gonna see the video, but this is. It's actually from my friends at Axonify.

It's a green brain, but you and I both have green in our company logos, and it's squishy. Do you have a fidget that you love?

Yeah, it's a pin. It's a green pen.

Is there something special about this green pen or the design of it?

No, the pen is only. The thing is, it doesn't matter the color. The color does, of course, matter because of corporate colors. But what I think, because when I started teaching, but also presenting, I do a lot with my hands, so when I talk, because somehow I need my hands to underline what I'm saying and these movements. And so this pen always helped me to keep my hands at a certain, you know, kind of position. And so this is the reason why I'm always toying around with a pen, because I don't want to be so, you know, kind of all the time using my hands so extensively. So the pen keeps me to the point I would say, oh, I like that.

I like that. And it's a little less silly than carrying. Wearing a green brain.

That's a stress ball, isn't it?

I go through a lot of these.

Yes.

How about?

Muscles.

Well, yes. Right. Muscles for typing and gripping. I've actually read about grip strength as we get older, being a really essential skill or strength.

We are not getting older. We are getting more experienced.

Yes. Yes, we are leveling up. And my last lightning round question. Do you have a favorite snack while you're working?

I would love to say nuts and apples and healthy stuff, but I love chocolate.

Yeah.

So at least coated in chocolate, let's say.

Okay. Nuts coated in chocolate. I hear you. I hear you. Yep. Chocolate covers a lot of territory.

It does.

Sweet little caffeine kind of sugar and.

You know, wonderful taste. And. Yeah, so if it's a favorite snack, then it's chocolate, even though I know it's not always the healthiest.

I love it. I love it. Susanne, Thank you. This has been very. I love this conversation. I have about ten things I want to run off and go implement in my own life and in my business. I think folks will really enjoy this. So make sure there's a link to the book for everybody and a link to the networking book, too.

So awesome. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it having me. And, yeah, I really enjoyed it a lot. And, you know, it wasn't necessary to be nervous.

Not at all. Not at all.

So, Megan, how'd that go?

It was super awesome to have another conversation with Susanne. So she and I talked a few years ago when Pam Hogel from the Learning Guild came, connected us up, and I remember thinking at first, like, you know, Pam, it's a totally different kind of agile that she does than what we do. And yet it makes so much sense. And it's really cool to see. It's very meta, right? To see the same principles all applied in a different direction. So I actually loved it. And you know me, I love things that are super meta anyways, so, yeah, that's cool.

Oh, awesome.

This is Megan Torrance with Meg Fairchild, and this has been a podcast by TorranceLearning.

Tangents is the official podcast of TorranceLearning, as though we have an unofficial one. Tangents is hosted by Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance. It's produced by Dean Castile and Meg Fairchild, engineered and edited by Dean Castile, with original music also by Dean Castile. Because of the nature of the content of this episode, no fact checking was required.