“I brought back my husband’s book on Modern Control Loops,” Geri said with a smile, dropping it on her kitchen table. “It is electrical engineering, but I thought the first chapter might be useful.”
Geri was back from another trip home, a mere 1,000 miles away. I always like it when she comes back and brings me presents. Renee (my wife) and I were over for some of Geri’s famous soup and sourdough bread, made with starter that had traveled half-way round the world.
“Look at this,” she added, flipping open the book. “It does a great introduction to control theory using simple examples like water towers, toasters, and toilets. We just need the first chapter, but Jason wouldn’t let me rip it out.”
“Toilets?” I said, suddenly finding the topic more interesting, as I consider the idea of displaying a slide with just a picture of a giant toilet on it something that, quite simply, I must someday do.
“Say away from the toilet metaphors Tom,” Geri quickly added.
“O.K.,” I mumbled, “but then it has to be toast.” I actually consider toast to be a food group.
“Toast,” she replied. “Right here on page 7.”
I picked it up and started reading. I loved it. Feedback theory explained with toasters, toilets, and water towers. This could be really useful.
Kyle had recently dropped a feedback loop presentation on my desk. It contained his idea of feedback loops as the core agile value, and showed feedback loops nested inside of other feedback loops, nested inside of other feedback loops. I was trying to make it into a presentation for some executives, but it didn’t connect to me emotionally. I wasn’t moved. Or, how I usually describe work product I do not like, it was crap.
But toast. Toast has legs. The word is fun to say. Makes you smile, and we can all relate to making and burning toast.
“Here is the soup,” Geri interruped my ponderings, “one with cream and one without.” Cream, what is it with the fascination with cream by the agile coaches? Kyle was now even drinking cream for lunch, or rather as lunch. “I’ll have without please.”
Renee had hers with cream.
“Toast,” I proclaimed to Geri, spreading butter on the still warm bread, “could be used as an example of both an open and closed loop feedback system.”
“I know,” Geri added, “and people might actually get it if we talk about making toast.”
“What are you talking about?” Renee asked, as if to test the point.
“Open loops,” Geri explained, “is when you put the bread in the toaster, set the darkness, push the lever down and walk away, hoping for the best. It is an open loop because there is no Feedback.”
“Open loop toasting is careful planning, if the controls are carefully set you get a great piece of toast,” I added.
“One small mistake, however,” Geri continued, “and you are setting off smoke alarms.”
“Closed loop toasting,” I added, “is more interesting to us agile folks. Closed loop toasting is when you peer into the top of the toaster watching it toast because you just burned the last two pieces of bread. Put the bread in and watch it very closely, using observations to adjust the controls and pop out the perfect piece of toast. Closed loop toasting is toasting using feedback.”
“They pay you for this work?” Renee, asked incredulously. “To tell them how to make toast?”
“Indeed.” I replied, “In fact, I think I’ll start on a new presentation tomorrow. Mark my words, in a few days I will have everyone talking about Toast.”
I, of course, wasn’t quite so sure it would work. But in marketing and sales, always lead with confidence. As I watched Renee and Geri eat their cream soup I wondered, ‘Would this connect to people? Talking about toast? and What is the deal with cream?’
I built the concepts a slide at a time over several days. Open loop toasting was waterfall. Plan carefully, set the levers, put the toast in, and hope for the best. Closed loop toasting was Agile. Use feedback to make great toast.
“What are you doing?” Geri asked, four days later watching me still working on just one of eight presentations we had to deliver within a month.
“I’m trying to make this toaster slide build better,” I replied.
“You do know we have a major presentation soon to a whole team of executives? You can’t spend all your time tuning just one presentation.”
“Ahh,” I replied, “but this is the presentation. The one presentation we do before every other presentation. The one presentation to rule them all and in the feedback bind them.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Besides,” I added, “you’re working on the other seven.”
Truth was, it was impossible to stop toasting. Kyle had already given the toast presentation about a dozen times in various forms and was on a roll, presenting it to anyone he could corner. “Have you seen toast yet?” he would say to anyone walking too close to his desk.
It was a challenge. Could I change a slide on the presentation before he gave it again, preferably between the time he last looked at the presentation and when he next gave it.
There are only three people I’ve ever worked with where I could ever do this type of curriculum development (most people won’t tolerate it). James at Menlo Innovations was the first, Geri the second, and now Kyle… and I had Geri and Kyle together in one place. This was too good of an opportunity to miss.
I would change a slide, Kyle or Geri would have to talk to it on the fly, and later they would tell me how it worked. I should point out, these slides did not have a lot of text. In fact, many of the slides were simply a single picture, such as one whole slide that contained only the Wright brother’s first airplane, and another a picture of a toaster and a piece of burnt toast. You had to think fast on your feet to give the toast presentation.
Last time I checked it Toast was on revision 12, but to be honest, I didn’t make revision changes the first few weeks it was developed, so it is probably really version 25. It has settled down lately, only changing once or twice a week.
Toast works.
People get it. And I believe people who see it only once just might understand agile philosophically better than people who have actually been doing agile for years. Feedback is that fundamental.
It is now the first presentation we give to everyone on agile, regardless of what we are teaching. It grounds people. It is impossible to see this presentation and not understand in a profound way how agile is different from waterfall.
Do you want to learn to be agile? It all begins with a perfect slice of toast.