Teaching and learning in Kyrgyzstan

Have you ever heard of Kyrgyzstan? Two years ago I had no idea where exactly this country was. And this year it was already the second time I traveled to this amazing country in Central Asia.
Everything started when Gerrit Beine asked me to join him giving a workshop about agile software development in Bischkek (here some impressions from 2012).
This year I was offered the possibility to teach, inspire and learn again in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This time Michel Löhr joined in as the main coach for the agile workshop at KSUCTA University. And it was amazing this time I was already used to the not so good things like infrastructure or air pollution (which has improved in a good way over the last two years) and then on the other side I saw all this beauty!
The nature is stunning and looking to those massive mountains just outside of Bishkek is amazing. Hiking in those mountains was even more rewarding and then you had the people of Kyrgyzstan: Awesome! So friendly, hospitable, open minded and curious people it was a wonderful experience. Every day at least two students took care of us by doing activities to explore nature, culture, people or food. Thank you all for making this possible.
The 5 days agile software development workshop was a lot of fun where we taught the basics of Scrum. With a lot of games and interactive exercises so that the students could experience the agile culture first hand and learn to work and improve as a team and excel with each iteration.
I’m already looking forward to inspire, teach and learn more in this wonderful country called Kyrgyzstan in the next years.
- Company fair
- Traditional meal
- Alina
- Winner of the Marshmallow challange. Awesome iterative approach!
- mmmhhh how delicious
- Bazar impressions
- Interesting experience and out of my comfort zone but it was fun 🙂
- street impression in Bishkek
- Ok the space in this car is used well 🙂
- Madina our interpreter for the 10 days
- Teamwork
- Cinema
- Delicous pizza I could have eaten each day
- Michel and Sven enjoying the hike
- Thank you for showing me around
- Our stand at the fair
- Part of the 1st student company contact fair in Bischkek
- Preparing the workshop agenda
- OK this is an interesting menu 10kg lamb (!!!)
- Test driven development exercise
- Our favorite restaurant with our favorite waiter (he did not speak english and we no russian but sign language and pictures are going a long way 🙂
- Winner team of one of the many games we did to teach them real work life challanges
- Yeah with my new Kyrgyz cap
- Winner team of another game, so much fun 🙂
- Michel and Sven on their way to Bishkek
- Students playing the Marshmallow game
- SCRUM Flow Overview
- Mounts outside of Bishkek
- Madina our interpreter for the time in Kyrgyzstan
- Thanks for the great day trip!
- Food was very delicous
- With Turkish Airline to Bishkek
- Our workshop participants
- 1 € = 70 Som
- Awesome nature 🙂