[rramadass]

1) Study PSP and TSP for Personal improvement (no higher-ups need be involved)) and Team improvement (Group != Team). Come up with a simple methodology and metrics to monitor and improve.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_software_process

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_software_process

2) Communication Techniques. Eg. 1) On Communication (2 vols) from HBR 10 must reads series 2) The Communication Book: 44 Ideas for Better Conversations Every Day by Krogerus and Tschappeler. While practicing always use problems of relevance and not hypothetical ones.

3) Decision Making techniques, in particular; Delphi Technique (https://www.toolshero.com/decision-making/delphi-technique/). Also see The Decision Book Fifty models for strategic thinking by Krogerus and Tschappeler. Again only use problems of relevance for practice.

4) Research Activities i.e. Problem Domain and Tech. Domain study. To identify new pain points, opportunities for Business and new Technologies/Languages/Tools for implementation. They need not be related but should always end with a PoC i.e. not just ending with a "talk". Inspiration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31626049

[deamanto]

Thanks for this. I'm not sure if it was unclear but I wanted to clarify that this entire day is dedicated for the entire dev team as a group and not individually which is why I wanted to do something more interactive as a group rather then have a multiple people present a topic.

The reason I say this is that my post reads like everyone gets the day off to individually learn and some of your suggestions reflect that.

1) I've never heard of these terms however the PSP sounds like something worth looking into, it helps people improve themselves on an individual level.

2) This sounds like more of an individual thing and I'll look into this in my own time

3) This looks like a good group task to introduce but it would mean having to think of relevant problems which may lean more to the "work" side of things, not sure how I could make this more engaging

4) This feels like something that needs to come from the business but unsure if this applies here, I'll need to read the link you posted to get a better understanding of how/if it fits into the purpose of this day

I'll look into 1 and 3 but at the end of the day I don't know if I'd be confident enough to read up on this and understand it to the point I'm able to lead the entire team on how to approach it. But you've introduced me to a lot of new things I've never heard of before and I'm keen to delve further so thanks

[rramadass]

You are welcome, that is the purpose of HN; to share the ideas from our studies/experience with each other :-)

In that spirit, a few more suggestions;

HBR 10 must reads are booklets of articles on various topics some of which are pretty good. I have found the following volumes useful;

- On Communication (2 vols) - Sample article: https://hbr.org/1995/09/the-power-of-talk-who-gets-heard-and...

- On Managing People (2 vols) - Sample article: https://hbr.org/1993/03/the-discipline-of-teams-2 and https://hbr.org/2005/07/the-discipline-of-teams

- On Managing Yourself (2 vols) - Sample article: https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time

I think maybe you are looking at the mandate for your "day" a little too narrowly? The idea behind these sort of initiatives is to allow people the freedom to think/play/interact/communicate/etc. so that they can give free reign to their individual creativity and bond better as a team. The hope is that this will translate to better performance on the job and also throw up new business ideas, new products, new technologies etc. thus benefiting both the individual and the group/business. Thus you can approach your "mandate" in many different ways. As an example, You can just be the coordinator and not the lead by using the "Delphi Technique" to come to a consensus on how to study the above mentioned suggestions.

PS: You may also find the book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward Deci useful.