 and workshop. My name is Julia Cuppey and I am here today representing a regional theater company called La Jolla Playhouse and I am going to be presenting with this fine fellow next to me here. Thank you. Your name is what sir? Yeah so I'm Adam Cuppey and I'm from Coding Zeal. We are a software consultancy and we specialize in web mobile applications but more importantly we make a lot of fun of ourselves. That's true. And for those of you who are wondering yes we are married. No we're not brother and sister. Yeah. We don't want to confuse that. Nope. You're welcome. Yes yes. Okay so we're gonna get started right off the bat today. For those of you who are familiar with improv raise your hand. Excellent. Very good. So some of you are like maybe maybe not. Alright well today you're gonna connect how skills required in improv can enhance your own collaboration and communication skills in your own lives. So that's what we're gonna attempt today. Why are we here though Mr. Cuppey even further. Well I forgot I was doing these slides. Yeah so those were the us. Yeah there we are. Okay so why are we here. So the biggest thing is the big question is why would you want to learn about improv and conjunction with like programming and software development. This is something that I've kind of like toiled around in my own head for a really long time and we submitted this talk it was like let's hope we can come to a conclusion on that. But the bottom line is is that here's the deal is that the skills required to perform improv can be used as an additive technology for creating ideas and this is where it becomes really important is that for all of us as we've learned not just at this conference but many times over is that a lot of the things that we're gonna learn and a lot of things we do are totally exploratory right that's like almost the nature of our job our value is almost at its most presented at a time in which we're creating something new. So improv is a great opportunity to be able to kind of correlate those two because you're exploring on ideas that you've not explored on before that's the whole idea right. Any in a pretty low-risk environment. Yeah super low risk right so in the case of most improv scenarios is that everyone goes into it knowing that you're gonna fail a lot yeah right you're gonna fall down a lot. And an improv that or actually failure is a gift mistakes are gifts that can take us in places we never expected and we like to celebrate them in improv. So we're gonna actually practice failing a lot to start off this workshop. How does that sound? Yeah. So with that being said we do actually have to just set some ground rules it's really important that when we start doing these type of exercises that we have a safe environment that we all can feel like we can take some risks even though maybe it seems low but for some it might actually be pretty embarrassing to talk in front of people and actually psychology today says you know what the number one fear is for most people public speaking you know what number two is death. So to go with the death theme of our conference I just needed to sneak that in there. We're gonna do the thing that's even worse than death. So with that being said our safe environment we're just gonna put four parameters for us to talk about so we need to turn off the internal editor in our heads of like wait a second I don't think I can do that because I'm gonna look stupid nope that needs to be shut off for a moment. We need to be fully present with our partner that might mean that I actually gonna ask you to go to someone you might not know and say hi my name is and then you decide to share your real name or not. You can improv that if you want to. Yes and the next thing is to laugh with never at and improv we're laughing a lot it's a byproduct of what the art form does so we just want to make sure we're laughing with each other never at and then also asking permission making sure that we are being aware of the other in the scenario. Yeah and the funny thing is is these only apply to improv they'll have no relationship to the rest of your life in your work. Yeah so just know none of this will relate outside of this. Okay so can we all commit to this safe environment for the next 40 minutes. Yes all right so we're gonna start with a very low risk activity. Mr. Kathy take away. Okay so here's the the basic thing is you don't have to really do much of anything other than if what I happen to say is true for you all you got to do is stand up that's it that's simple okay you like ice cream surprise but there are some lactose and tonic there I see that's right there's some okay sit down okay you are a morning person. All right excellent okay how about you live outside you live outside North America. Oh hello welcome. Interesting and if you're not a morning person and lives outside North America I'm sorry. Okay you have a degree in something other than software engineering also an alternative is you don't have a degree at all so yeah wow fantastic okay make sure to look around like you know these are the people that are just like you okay all right so next one is you have experienced imposter in posture syndrome while working in this industry yeah wow okay fantastic okay and then the next this is a subtle one but you believe them is the superior editor I don't know how that got on this list okay the next is you believe the quality that quality interaction between people is critical to success excellent all right very good well you did so great look at that low-risk you took excellent so like I said earlier improv loves failure there are considered gifts mistakes or gifts these gifts can take us in these ways and places that we never imagined and they turn into these hilarious moments now that's a byproduct comedy is a byproduct right what you never want to try to be funny in improv because that actually turns out to be not funny it's actually the honest spontaneous reaction to what's happening on stage a lot of those good examples of that actually occurred during the game show yesterday when a so a redhead of sorts on the panel decided to fail a lot actually I didn't decide to fail you can think what you want but in the end those were some spontaneous moments they did not plan for is that correct correct yes very good another panelists in the room what anything planned beforehand no that's correct no so it's important for us to allow ourselves to fail and celebrate that failure so we're gonna do a little quick exercise to illustrate that okay so here's what I want you to do stand up for moment okay and I all I want you to do is find a partner find one other person and if you can't find a partner just put your hand up in the air if somehow you end up as the odd man or woman out okay okay there you go Charles over here I'm fine each other okay great you found a partner okay first thing you do is make sure you know the other person's name if you don't want to ask look down perfect very successful excellent excellent okay so here's what I want you to do now if you were at the if you're at the lightning talks yesterday this is gonna sound very familiar to you but we're making a modification to it so this is in fact called one two three but instead of doing what we did with ABC where I asked you to you and your partner go from a to Z back and forth so ABC D FG we're not doing that part we're cutting right to the chase and going to one two three and then you come back to one so it's gonna look and sound something like this one two three one two three one two three one it's gonna look something like that alright and that's all you have to do so between you and your part but if they pause or hesitate or if you overlap you have to start over again that's right yeah so if you pause or hesitate overlap whatever that might be you have to start all over again at one again one two three you're not going past three pause or hesitate start at one you ready and go and go and ten nine eight seven six five four three two one and stop now how many of you got confused when I started counting down from three two or one alright how many of you were able to make it let's say ten iterations okay so if you raised your hand but your partner didn't you probably shouldn't have raised your hand okay very good all right so how did it feel like when you messed up actually anybody get frustrated by that throw some out hilarious hilarious you were frustrated yes frustrated a little bit harder than you would thought originally okay great what about your body language could you potentially reflect on what happened to your body when you when you did that did anyone do I or okay there's so many different okay well we are actually subconsciously programmed from birth in our society that failure means a punishment and sometimes our body language will reflect that and how we result how we reflect how we react that's the word I was looking for to when we fail how many of you started to notice your partner failing more than you if you raise your hand I know many of us know we're starting to figure out what they need to do better to make this better right okay so this time we're gonna do it again this time if your partner fails I need you to assume that it is your fault it's your fault because we really start to bond when we start to fail together without blame so we're gonna do it again this time we're gonna do the one two three one two three but if someone fails we're gonna celebrate it by going and doing our best I need you to just illustrate this your best ten point landing and going aha no tada oh tada all right ten point landing I need to see ten point landing one two three and begin oh sorry one last thing I'm so sorry one last thing now number one is a clap now what it looks like is this oh here we go two three two three two three you have 30 seconds go clap on one stop in 5 4 I mean the exercise in a compared to the first time exhausting great there was celebration happening what else supportive recovery what was that after recovery interesting okay very good very good we like to say these are the moments where we like to shoot for average and fail cheerfully in these moments because then we have an easier access to do things like recover faster so that's so cool great job it is also important that as we move to the next thing in our yes and mindset we have yes and fail being our first point that we just illustrated the second point is talking about yes and build okay we're gonna talk more about that in a second but before we go back well before we go ahead I want to say one last thing about failure and that is we as a community need to start redefining what failure means right failure is actually an opportunity to learn it's an opportunity to have insight into a solution we never imagined before many of you probably know the most one of the most popular failure stories out there and a little company called 3M where they started to create a superduty adhesive for building planes and that particular engineer screwed up failed big time actually and created a little like sticky substance that now are used on the little tiny pieces of paper that are on the chairs in the room called a post-it and now how many of you probably use post-its in your everyday life yes okay that's just a great big win that would never have happened if they didn't allow themselves to fail we're gonna use those post-it notes here in just a second to all right so we're gonna go on with our yes and build point and mr. cup you want to leave us all right so here's what we're gonna do here's the next one so here's what I want you to do is you're not gonna do this with your current partner which would find a new partner new partner and remember do the first thing of introduce yourself and if you don't want to ask to look down okay good and once you found your partner I want you to put your hands up in the air like this found your partner put your hands in the air like this if you're still missing a partner this is gonna be oh no no no you're good you're gonna keep your hands in the air perfect no you're perfect okay good okay drop your end is anybody missing a partner by chance okay okay so this is called two old friends now here's what I here's what I want you to sorry we need two volunteers for starters so you can actually go ahead and sit down but give me two volunteers there's one in the back perfect one more yep hero perfect hero and where did my oh she's coming all right come on up don't forget your partner because you're gonna go back to them in second yep stick with your partner stick with your partner you're not gonna do your life anyway all right all right hero you fought fantastic good to meet you both to each other okay all right all right so this is called two old friends now for every improv scene if you've ever seen something like who's lying is it anyway or you've ever done improv yourself you might not know this acronym but you've seen it done and it's called crow and it's an acronym for character relationship objective and where so you'll hear them yell it out in the beginning they'll be like give me a character give me a character what's their relationship what's their objective what are they trying to do and then where are they okay that's crow now this is kind of a hook because every scene is built off of this crow right so that's the so when they're like how do you how do they do that they just make it up like that this is part of the formula and the recipe okay but we're gonna we're gonna provide this for them today so we're not gonna need your participation quite yet but we're gonna give them the crow the character relationship objective and what and where they're located okay so the first is is that you are both two old friends who are Ruby comp participants right not a stretch not a stretch right this is good now the character you are as you are two old friends all right and what you are going to do your objective is that you're going to recall an old memory when you're gonna recall an old memory all right and where you are located is in this room so it's as if you were meeting yourself as two old friends recalling in this room long ago okay now here's the hook of what you're gonna do is whenever one of you says something like oh it was great to so if I was to come out to Julia oh it's been so long yes and I decided to go Australia for the last 20 years yes and you're only 22 years old when did you start well we start them young in my family yes so the idea here is you want to start every sentence with yes and all right now we don't normally do that in practice of course raise your hand if you don't really do that in practice wow okay right but that's the idea all right fair enough now here's what I want you to do is I want you to scooch down here a little bit and of course in at in theater we always make sure we talk to the person in the very back of the room all right so speak up are you ready to fail are we ready to help them fail all right wonderful don't worry this won't last on but remember you are RubyConf participant you are two old friends you are recalling an old memory and you know what you're just in this room okay fair enough hero why don't you start us off I spent a long time yes and I remember the last time we were together yes and it was three years ago yes and Sandy Mass was there as well oh yes and I enjoyed her talk very very much and this year's to this room to do this activity with us yes and maybe we should go find her don't forget your objective recall an old memory okay now wrap it up now close up the scene bring it to a conclusion that you were just with and you're gonna do the same exact thing you're gonna be two old friends here at RubyConf recalling an old memory using yes and at the beginning of each of your replies all right on your mark get set go up your scene make sure to close up your scene bring your story to a conclusion 30 more seconds 30 more seconds all right 10 seconds 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 and celebrate okay so I'm gonna walk around and I want to hear about your memory what was your memory conversation okay fantastic tell me what happened as two old friends during Matt's conversation we noticed the tortoise in the hair notice the tortoise in there outstanding tell me about your two old friends we went skydiving 10 years ago really as RubyConf participants yeah didn't didn't go well I had broken a leg but we're going again today so okay fantastic all right anyone else have a wildly ridiculous story yes sir where did you go post-it notes were invented in this very room at RubyConf there was glue everywhere it was almost tragic excellent a tragic experience dr. Hartle where did you go we went back in time to our university days where he actually graduated without attending and it's because we helped I kind of helped him out and we were thinking about how a beer was it was involved decided to go excellent all right did anybody end up off this planet all right where'd you end up well we were rescued from see we were in the desert on a camel on either hump get really really drunk and we're out of water so we killed the camel and then we had no way to get back but the aliens saved us and like you do all right and one more one more I'm gonna go all the way over here the very back in the very back of the room where did you guys end up tell me about your story of two old friends go we committed murder happening at this conference excellent work excellent work wow okay so let's let's talk about how did it feel to yes and your partner how did it feel anyone throw it out unnatural okay can we say why why did it feel unnatural that's right because actually many of us start our sentences in a conversation in brainstorming sessions potentially with your co-workers by saying yes but we are the types that aren't going to blatantly say no that's a horrible idea no we're gonna be polite and kind and say yes but did you think of this or but did you think of that or but I don't think that's a good idea right so yes but is a concept that we want to try to stay away from in the yes and mindset because yes but means that you're blocking the offer of the other person to really fully build on the other person's ideas you have to accept whatever that idea is and build upon it yes but is actually very effective when you're wanting incremental change because it allows you to really critically think about what each small step of the process is but yes and can help you break the mold into new worlds for some over there and new ideas that we would never have been able to figure out just being in that yes but mindset so the yes and mindset allows us even to go places and break that mold and then there was one more thought that I had there why am I forgetting it yes and it was so there's a lot of research actually out there that says we can't create and critique at the same time so if you're always being in a yes but place you're critiquing every single thing and not really allowing the possibilities to occur yeah so if you think about this in a lot of your software teams because I experience this all the time as far as even a project manager or product manager as well as an engineer on a team which is oftentimes I find myself jumping two steps ahead and so I'll find myself in a no but mindset or a yes but mindset really quickly but what I've discovered is that like she was saying yes but can be incredibly powerful when you're trying to iterate on something and we're trying to refine something which is often what we're doing is we're trying to find a maybe a more ideal scenario or we're trying to factor in all the all the bits and pieces so there's an alternative to this that is yes and at the same time where you're basically accepting and adopting that there's an idea at play that might have merit we just don't know what it is yet there's concerns about it but let's factor this other stuff into this entire scenario to think about well what are the things we might not be thinking about now that we might need to think about later and similarly you might find that in your teams that this is something that you separate so there's a on our team we have a creative department and we have a chief creative officer that I work with a lot and so we have to we enter in a meeting with this mindset of like let's not critique what's wrong about this right now like let's not beat that up let's just pretend like it all worked out right let's just pretend for a moment that that's the case and it's amazing where we end up and then we kind of take and kind of derive well what things about this do we get really excited about that we really really love and let's move that into something where we still we start to really refine it because again because this totally when she was telling me this like a totally resonated resonated for me that you can't create critique at the same time I was like well no kidding like that happens all the time so you create then you go back and you can critique great and so there's the third point that we want to share with you regarding the yes and mindset and that is the yes and share part of it we have to prioritize shared experiences within our industry because these shared experiences that we're having even right now develops our teams to be more sustainable and give us the room actually for more opportunities to come out of it and we bond over the success and failing sharing both of those two things as a team and celebrating them together and bonding in that way failing in that way and then sharing those experiences help us create those new revolutionary ideas so we're going to try this yes and share with this an exercise I've actually never tried with this large of a group before so I'm really excited I know I know it's a little higher risk here folks but know that it's not going to ask of you to do too much so what we're going to do is we're going to up the ante and I'm going to ask you to do a seeming seemingly impossible task that here at this we're going to act as an ensemble the Latin word of the meaning of that word in Latin is at the same time ensemble means to act as at the same time we as an entire group of how many of us are in here probably a little over a hundred people are so probably are going to clap all at the same time without any type of communication no no no one clap all at the same time all together as an ensemble and here in an improv that's what we are we are an ensemble of people working together for a common goal so this is what we're gonna do we're gonna just see how long it take us for a moment okay last thing last thing last thing sorry sorry I'm a little nervous about this again I've never tried this before we have to be fully present to be able to do this we have to look around we need to know who's around us behind us in front of us we have to have the awareness of the room we have to know the relationship of each other in the room so here's what yes so let's get into a large circle because we actually have enough people so yeah we can do it you can consume as much but move quickly so we don't run out of time but one large circle okay and for those of you who love puzzles and riddles there's not some secret to this there isn't okay it's as simple as it sounds and as hard as it appears to be and I want to ask one question what happens if we fail nothing you guys it's not brain surgery we're just doing improv so nothing's gonna happen but let's see if we can actually do this and achieve this together no no no so one clap at one time as one unit that's it really in tune with one another that's pretty amazing yes pretty good nice work good thing there weren't three times this but nice work nice work how did we get there how did we get there patience paying attention what else rhythm okay so we got into a pattern that we all could start to understand intuition all right being aware practice good timing yeah okay good it kept going okay so we started to find what was right and didn't just continue doing that all right great that's nice nice you guys in one moment in one time we created the sense of ensemble so nice work yeah without a doubt yeah so this is something that you can find here's generally what I've experienced happen in this scenario that you can look out for because it's actually so this a lot of this stuff has come from things that you do as an ensemble especially in a play or some sort of group think right is you know think about it just out of curiosity how many of you have actually been an actor in a play as community theater as professional as it might be or a backstage crew yeah so there's a natural harmony that will occur right well but the goal is to get into that place now there's something we say a lot in acting and that is acting is reacting so it's this idea that it's not about what you say it's about how you react to what someone else says and this is like a really important kind of component to a lot of the things that we do too at our company we do a lot of pair programming your company may or may not do that but it's a way for us to kind of have that really tight cycle of feedback that very basically simulates that exact same response and feedback cycle that will occur well you could do things like this and there's a lot of different variations on this exact same type of exercise you can integrate into your company and I will throw out an idea raise your hand if you do a daily stand-up okay wonderful so if as a leader on your team and that does not necessarily mean you have hierarchy in your company just as somebody who you can lead and and show as a guide as a guide this is something you can do at a time either every single morning at our company we do one power clap that closes up our meeting and at some level we do exactly that for this very reason it gets everybody on the same heartbeat we're one ensemble then we split off and do projects sure but we're gonna come back to this heartbeat this is us boom and go simple something easy that you can all do so think about that great and just to close things up because we're almost out of time this yes and mindset means that we say yes and fail we say yes and build onto one other's ideas we say yes and and share and at the same time be an ensemble experiencing those those you know moments to fail and succeed together and then you'll create the yes and mindset that we hope that you all actually can start to put into your own practice so here's the deal is you know we're only in a matter of only 40 minutes and we're about at time in only 40 minutes we have very little time to go over scratch the surface yeah of all the things you can do right but here's the thing is that there is a lot of other we'll call them improv games at the very least that you can start to integrate into your teams so here's what we did and I highly encourage you all to go here so at this URL you can actually download a pamphlet that goes through all of these things but more importantly has a whole slew of other things that you could do as well it has all the exercises from today actually in there and it's got all of the other details so by all means go exploit it take it share it what have you the goal here is simple and that is your teams yet to try it with your teams right now the important thing is is not just about you know putting your team in a place where you guys do a lot of improv like that's not the objective here right although you can absolutely do it in fact I'm in San Diego we both live in San Diego and there's a bunch of different improv companies that are there and you can go and get entertained by improv of course but oftentimes they'll run classes and I will tell you what it's an unbelievable team building experience right gets everybody in the mindset of like clearly this has been established that we're gonna fall a lot we're gonna fall flat on our face and it's totally acceptable to do that and that's the thing I think that a lot of us in our teams hope for is that we can fail successfully and have a good time doing it and improv is a great opportunity to do that so yes definitely please go here use it I hope you get a lot from it and yeah enjoy that then the other thing is as you notice on some of the backs well every other chair either on the well in conjunction there's post-it notes as well as there is a pen on the table as well here's what we're gonna ask you to do number one is if you're I know many of you are familiar with this but solidifying is a very solidifying and integrating is an incredibly imperative part of any practice this is one of the reasons why right taking notes is super important it can be super important right and that is simply because it's even if you never reflect back on the notes it's an opportunity for your mind to create kind of a kinesthetic binding to the thing that you just learned it's a neural network in your brain absolutely so it's actually something that you might not even be fully conscious of is happening so here's what I want you to do to your right on the back wall you're gonna see a large white piece of paper and on the back of your chair you've got or at least every other chair there's a bunch of sticky notes simple thing and this is it you don't have to put your name down unless you really want to all I want you to do is I want you to write down one two three different thoughts discoveries ideas that you had in either something that you learned and something we said today or better yet how you feel you could integrate this into your team tomorrow well maybe Monday right think about it truly think about it how can you bring your team together and again it does I am a firm believer that leadership is not hierarchical right great leaders can come from anywhere so even if you feel like you are just new on a team and you don't really know those people I totally understand and also even putting the intention out there is high so think about that grab a piece of paper and what I love you to do is write it down stick it over there on the board as you walk out the door and it's really that simple yep and we just wanted to leave you with just these last thoughts and that is you know here at coding zeal they have partnered with me and yes we have a relationship personally that brings me to work with his team but I would love to be able to share what we know about how theater making skills can actually improve the 21st century skills we call it creativity communication collaboration and collaboration and if you would like to have a conversation about how we play house can help you do that with your own teams please just don't feel free come on yeah so so one of the things yeah so what we're what we're gonna do is we're so we're we're beta testing a couple of different things right now so if this is something you're like this could be something that's really helpful to team this is not a slimy sales pitch or anything like that no money this is really just something like if you want to do this we've got a bunch of different things we'd love to experiment with and we're trying to find three different organizations to work with the various sizes so that's it no cost what we're looking to do is just work with them because we I feel as a software engineer myself and having a wife that's in technology or not well yes in theater now I am right that there's a merger here yes I know true it's really beneficial so if this resonates for you please let us know no cost none of that it's definitely just a conversation that we can have so take some time to reflect and actually write and then you guys have a wonderful yes and rest of your day yes thank you so much everybody thank you very much