Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the best thing to do is practice once or twice. The object of the exercise is not good performance; it is learning.

The “dry run” is a term that comes from the performing arts. It is basically a rehearsal. Practice the thing a few times. Simple enough.

What we tend to confuse in the dry run is the objective. We often aim to have a high-quality or good performance. Instead, we should aim to learn.

There is a difference in how we conduct the dry run when we change the objective to learning. First, the practice audience is NOT present to learn the faults of the practice-ers. They are present to find a lack in quality in various places so that the practice-ers learn. Some audience members may be present to find learnings in presentation while others may be searching for learnings in technical correctness, etc.

Second, the presenters are present to present, present, and continue to present. No “time outs” for reflection and readjustment. Learnings will come later when the practice audience provides their impressions of the dry run.

Finally, the overall object of the dry run is to aid learning so the entire group can improve the quality of the product. This is not an exercise in grading individual presenters.

The “grade” given the dry run is proportional to the amount learned. If much is learned, the dry run was a big success. If little was learned, the dry run was a mild success. If nothing was learned, the dry run was a waste of resources and should not have occurred.

This last point goes against much of what we normally do at work. “Hey, you guys did GREAT,” means the dry run was a wasteful failure.

“We have much to improve,” means the dry run was a great use of resources and a big success.

Is your organization ready for this? A dry run won’t work if you aren’t ready.