{"id":1096,"date":"2013-03-23T14:48:57","date_gmt":"2013-03-23T14:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/masteringtheobvious.wordpress.com\/?p=216"},"modified":"2013-03-23T14:48:57","modified_gmt":"2013-03-23T14:48:57","slug":"ahoy-mateys-swashbooking-yer-learnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agilepartnership.com\/fr\/ahoy-mateys-swashbooking-yer-learnings\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahoy mateys: Swashbooking yer learnings!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I firmly believe that Sunday mornings are best observed with a pot of hot coffee and a book or two to enjoy.\u00a0 So at Play4Agile2013<\/a> in February, on Sunday morning I pitched a Swashbooking session as one of the early slots in that day\u2019s Open Space (though in my sleep-deprived and slightly hung-over state, I\u2019m sure I called it \u2018Bookswashing\u2019 \u2013 I always get this backwards!). \u00a0 I also talked about it recently during an Agile Ottawa session as a tool for hacking your thinking, as I believe it\u2019s a great technique for crowd-sourcing booklearning regardless of the time of day.<\/p>\n

Swashbooking is a timeboxed approach to quickly skimming books to look for anything important, which can be practiced alone or collaboratively as part of a group. \u00a0I first learned of swashbooking from Deb Hartmann Preuss<\/a> (a woman who continually gets me into all kinds of good trouble), though the idea originated with James Marcus Bach<\/a>, whose work as a software tester and educator has inspired me in many ways.\u00a0 James\u2019 excellent book Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar<\/a> vividly describes his experiences with hacking his own education. \u00a0He has shared a video on Competitive Swashbooking <\/a>capturing an 8-hour marathon wherein he and his brother Jon swashbooked their way through a diverse collection of 100+ books in order to produce a short presentation about what they learned.<\/p>\n

Group swashbooking as I\u2019ve practiced it is very simple:<\/p>\n

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  1. collect a diverse selection of books, at least one per participant. For rapid skimming, paper books offer a distinct advantage over ebooks.<\/li>\n
  2. each person in the group selects a book and reads it in whatever way they prefer for a short period of time (6-10 minute timeboxes work well).\u00a0 The reader may read a chapter, scan the table of contents or index, flip through and look at all the illustrations \u2014 whatever works for them in finding something important in the book at hand.\u00a0 Recording observations as you go will be helpful, so stickies or index cards and a pen will come in handy.<\/li>\n
  3. at the end of the timebox, each reader passes the book along to the next person in the group, who then reads it in whatever manner appeals to them as outlined in step 2.<\/li>\n
  4. Repeat step 3 until everyone has had a chance to examine each book<\/li>\n
  5. Have a short, time-boxed group discussion to share observations and impressions of the books being considered.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For a group of 5 people, the timing might work like this for a 60 minute swashbooking session:<\/p>\n