Arenas of Continuous Improvement

My go-to process for learning is Deliberate Practice†. In that process one must identify skills to practice. But how?

What follows is a mental model I’m experimenting with.

The model is lightweight and seems useful for identifying skills that can be developed day to day on-the-job. The following examples are for a software engineer.

Example:

1. You have “arenas” that you can use your skills in; code, PRs, standup, retro, pairing
2. There are artefacts (code, dbs, tickets) and people (colleagues) in those arenas
3. There are “skills” (I include mindset here) that you use in those arenas

Plan - XXXX (I’ll give an example in a second)

What I’m thinking is - it’s the interaction between all 3 (arena, artefacts/people, skills) that defines the outcome. Each one is an variable that we can change to make the day more interesting and educational.

I can use the model in the following way:

Example:

1. When working on this jira ticket today that requires reading and writing to a database
2. I’ll be working an app that uses MongoDB
3. I’ll be using my MongoDB skills, specifically reading and writing documents

Plan - I will focus on improving my MongoDB skills, I’ll research best practices for reading/writing multiple documents, maybe there’s a more terse way of doing it or I can do it in fewer operations?

With this plan I’m mindful of what I’m going to be doing, I can be deliberate about my practice. Better still, if I’m working with someone who can mentor me I can adjust my plan accordingly:

Example:

1. When working on this jira ticket today that requires reading and writing to a database
2. I’ll be working in an app that uses MongoDB, in a team with Sarah who’s a MongoDB expert
3. I’ll be using my MongoDB skills when working on this ticket, specifically reading and writing documents

Plan - I will focus on improving my MongoDB skills, I’ll ask Sarah to pair with me on this ticket and make it explicit that I’m trying to develop my skills here.

By asking myself “what are the skills of my team mates I’m working with?”, I’m being more mindful of one of the variables (artefacts/people in that arena) and it opens up a different learning opportunity. An arguably better one.

It feels like a “before” version of the STAR model (Situation, Task, Action, Result) which is normally used to reflect.

Maybe I’ll come back to this article and update it if I find success/failure in this mental model. Or let me know if you find it useful!

† from Ericsson - go read Peak if you’re interested, highly recommend. Actually I just opened this up to look for a good quote and I want to read it again!