35: Four sessions instead of six and making the event more fun

In this episode Dagmar Labes is sharing some of her facilitation secrets:

• When to reduce to four sessions instead of standard six?
• How to make the event more motivating and more fun for participants?

Download the MP3 (11 minutes - 8 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Thank you Dagmar.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

34: Skills needed for facilitation and alternatives to Game of Life

In this episode:

• Which skills does a facilitator need?
• Alternative code katas to the Game of Life?

Download the MP3 (9 minutes - 13 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Mentioned in this episode:

• JS CodeRetreat: facilitator's skills
• Mars Rover Kata
• Kata Theater

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

33: How to help others and mixing in Open Space

This is the second part of my chat with Amélie Cornélis about:

• As an attendee, how can I help others and myself to learn?
• How about combining Coderetreat with the Open Space format?

Download the MP3 (10 minutes - 8 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Amélie, thank you for another discussion. You can reach Amélie at her Twitter @AmelieCornelis.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Open Space

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

32: First time facilitation and helping participants

In this episode I will answer five quick questions:

• What kind of people will be at the Coderetreat?
• How to prepare for first time facilitation?
• How much should we help people during the session?
• How to deal with a pair of juniors who do not get anywhere?
• What's more important, participants changing partners or freedom?

Download the MP3 (9 minutes - 14 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

31: Helping attendees into the day and then winding down and reflect

In this episode I am discussing with Amélie Cornélis about:

• How to help attendees get into the day - at the beginning of the event?
• How to help attendees wind down and reflect?

Download the MP3 (9 minutes - 7 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Amélie, thank you for the discussion. You can chat with Amélie at @AmelieCornelis.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

30: Facilitation, typical constraints and advertising

The 30th episode with the following questions:

• During the day itself what kind of facilitation do you do?
• Which constraints to use on a typical Coderetreat?
• How to advertise your Coderetreat?

Download the MP3 (11 minutes - 16 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

29: Setup and facilitation of a remote MobRetreat

This is the second episode with Harald Reingruber about Mob Programming:

• What is your setup for remote mob- or ensemble programming?
• How to facilitate several remote mobs at once?
• Are you changing people from the mobs during the MobRetreat?

Download the MP3 (10 minutes - 7 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Harald is available at his Twitter for further discussion. Thank you Harald.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Cloud Desktop Setup Instructions, see similar approaches by Clare Macrae, Jay Bazuzi and Llewellyn Falco.
• Remote Access Tools: AnyDesk or TeamViewer. VNC is too slow.
• Mob-Programming on Open Source Software Meetup, Vienna

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

28: How to keep schedule, including junior facilitators and TDD

In this episode I will answer the following questions:

• A Coderetreat is very busy. How do you keep the schedule?
• How to include a supporting or junior facilitator, e.g. from the hosting company?
• What is Test Driven Development? (Not really answering that ;-)

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 12 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Kent Beck's book "Test-Driven Development: By Example"
• Emily Bache "TDD is a Superior Way of Working"
• Dave Farley "Test Driven Development"
• Jason Gorman "Test-Driven Development (TDD) in Java"
• Jason Gorman "7 Myths About Test-Driven Development Debunked"

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

25: Top 3 most important facts about Coderetreat facilitation

This episode marks one year of the Coderetreat Facilitation podcast. To celebrate the anniversary - and to prepare for the upcoming GDCR20 I will recap my top 3 most important facts about Coderetreat facilitation:

• What is the Coding Dojo Mindset? (from episode 10)
• What is your primary job as facilitator? (from episode 13)
• Focus on pairing (from episode 15)
• What is the best way to facilitate? (from episode 5)
• Why are there four questions when I said "top 3"? ;-)

Download the MP3 (13 minutes - 19 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Thank you all for staying with me for the last year.

(Music from Party horn by audiosmedia, Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

23: All first time participants, facilitators knowing Game of Life and supporting the global event

In this episode I am answering Lars' questions:

• Any problems when all participants are first-time Coderetreat participants?
• Any problems when all participants have never heard of the Game of Life?
• Is it required to solve the Game of Life before facilitating a Coderetreat?
• During (pre Covid) Global Day of Coderetreat, which activities support the global event?

Download the MP3 (9 minutes - 13 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Christian Hujer's Game of Life sample solution
• Game of Life, Apache Ant
• Game of Life, 1 line APL
• Game of Life, short functional solution in Clojure
• Game of Life, 256 bytes Commodore Assembly
• Game of Life, TSQL
• Game of Life, XSLT
• Join the Software Crafters Slack Team (Channel #coderetreat)

New RSS Feed: If you subscribed to this podcast before August 27th 2020, you need to unsubscribe and subscribe again to the new feed https://www.code-cop.org/podcast/rss_feed.php.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

20: Dealing with distractions and support of coding setup

In this episode I talk with my co-facilitator Oliver Spann about:

• How to deal with distractions and negative surprises?
• How to support people with their coding setup?

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 10 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Thank you Oliver for sharing your knowledge. Read more from Oliver at his blog.

Coding setup mentioned in this episode:

• kata-bootstraps
• Cyber Dojo

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

18: Corey Haines' Cleveland Coderetreat Introduction Part 2

In this episode Corey Haines will introduce you to

• Coderetreat Day Structure.
• Using different programming languages.
• Conway's Game of Life.

Download the MP3 (10 minutes - 13 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Check out the full video here:

Material in this episode and related episodes:

• Corey Haines' Cleveland Code Retreat Introduction from Corey Haines on Vimeo
• Episode 16: Part 1
• Episode 05: Coderetreat Day Structure
• Episode 01: Learning a new language
• Episode 02: Explain the Game of Life
• Conway's Game of Life

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw.)

17: Preserving energy as facilitator and activities to help switch pairs

In this episode I talk about:

• Preserving my energy as facilitator.
• Activities to help switch pairs.

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 12 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

15: The intro, facilitate forming pairs and difference to a Coding Dojo

This episode contains:

• What to put into the intro for the day?
• How to facilitate forming pairs?
• Which are the differences between organizing a Coderetreat and a Coding Dojo night?

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 12 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

13: Primary job of facilitator, first session without pairing and supporting participants' learning journey

Today I talk about the following questions:

• What is your primary job as facilitator?
• Is it allowed to run the first session without any pairing?
• What is Ping Pong?
• How to support participants to continue their learning journey after the Coderetreat?

Download the MP3 (9 minutes - 13 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Managing the Difficulty of Coding Exercises
• A box of things to take from the Coderetreat

Thanks to Christian Haas for feedback on audio quality of this podcast.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

12: What to look for and ask about other than the code

In this episode my co-facilitator Oliver Spann shares some tips for non-coding facilitators:

• What to look for during sessions (while people work) other than the code?
• What to ask in retrospectives if you did not understand the code?

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 6 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Thank you Oliver for sharing your knowledge. You can learn more from Oliver at his blog. Related to this episode is Oliver's latest article Can you facilitate a Coderetreat as a Scrum Master?

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

11: A remote Coderetreat and overview of constraints

In this episode:

• How to run a remote Coderetreat?
• What are constraints?

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 12 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Material used for this episode:

• Retrospective on a Remote Global Day of Coderetreat
• 20/80 - A coding dojo constraint just for fun

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

10: Coding Dojo Mindset and Game of Life is mandatory

In this episode I am answering

• What is the Coding Dojo Mindset? (What is the core mindset of a Coderetreat?)
• Is Game of Life mandatory?

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 12 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Alex Bolboaca: The Coderetreat Problem Is Not The Problem

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

08: Why pair program, finish the Game of Life and how many facilitators do we need

In this episode:

• Why do we pair program the whole Coderetreat?
• Is it possible to finish the Game of Life assignment in a single session?
• How many facilitators do we need and when do we need more than one?

Download the MP3 (8 minutes - 12 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)

05: Day structure, facilitation styles and non developers showing up

In this episode I am talking about

• Coderetreat Day Structure,
• the best way to facilitate and
• non developers participating.

Download the MP3 (9 minutes - 13 Mb) or subscribe to the Feed.

Mentioned in this episode: Structure of a Coderetreat

(Music from Synth Loop 1 by allpurposedw and Gong 001 by tec_studio.)