And we are recording. All right, mr. Bubbles kicks off man. All right, so we have a special episode today We have the agile pubcast and the agile wire combining powers So we have Jeff and Paul joining the two Jeffs here and we're just gonna do a joint episode for everybody out there And and see what comes up We're talking about before we got recording about just some of the things We've been experiencing and want to share those but I don't know Jeff and Paul You guys normally start with, you know cracking a beer and It's a little early for Jeff Molesky and myself right now, it's you know, so 6 a.m. We're like I will start I think we'll stick with the coffee, but if you guys want to go ahead and grab a beer I think I think that's a good time for that All right, well, I'm on the becks Haven't had a German beer for a while so Empty in the fridge Jeff Yeah, normally I've been told I've been too loyal to the IPA so I'm going for a lager today So I've got and I've got a box of mystery ciders and I've numbered them now So I'm going to let our guests choose a number of ones that are remaining so it was originally 12 and So you can pick a number between one's full, but I'll tell you the ones that are now missing number two has gone and Number eight has gone and number 12 has gone. So any of the numbers remaining you can choose for me to drink today First one to shout out a number wins five Goubles is too slow with this It's this one. It's a Harry's cider Made in Somerset 6% Nice for a lunchtime drink. Yes, it's made. Where's it made? So yes, I shall crack this one open it's got a nice kind of Union Jack on there on the top For our American Somerset is pronounced Somerset It's Traditionally a quite a farming County. Yeah in the sort of northeast of the Southwest, I think you'd say If you if you know the little bit of the UK which where England branches off to Wales It's around a roundabout there that sort of okay area That's quite rough quite well known for their ciders in that part of the world There we go, you know, I think I think we should we should get into some kind of norms here And so Malewski is already called bubbles bubbles. So is it bubbles or boobles boobles boobles And so I think having three Jeffs on the call is crazy. So I think we should have no Jeffs on the call So I'll be what what's he okay In the absence of any other creative nickname we'll go for Malewski It is Malewski. Yeah, no, no, you hit the nail on the head. I was just chuckling when you said creative Nickname is having a last name like Malewski. I've heard quite a few Plays on that name especially I was in the army for a little bit of time and They they had a dance of fun in that it was almost as fun as being in sixth grade again having Having a name like Malewski, but anyway so In the classes that Jeff and I run we ask and one of the kind of Icebreaker if you like one of the warm-up activities that we do is we ask people to share nicknames And it's as this little bit of vulnerability that people have perhaps never told that their Their colleagues or their the other members of the class that of what their their first or their school Nickname was and some of them are quite odd Some of the quite obvious but some of them need it need an explanation and then it's quite a fun activity to do Yeah, sometimes you never share them That's a pretty good one. I'd like I like doing the different types of icebreakers if I can avoid it, you know Just the the name and a little bit about yourself that seems a little bit overdone But hey, that's actually that's actually a good question. How have you you know when Jeff and I we used to do a lot of classes We would just create you know like big stickies and put them up around the room and have people walk around and Grab a partner and kind of introduce themselves to the partner And then the partner would kind of introduce that person after they've answered some of these questions How have you two been handling that with virtual classes? So Yeah, I think using an online whiteboard we do it. So it's again similar thing they can almost like creates and A little bio of themselves are using a virtual whiteboard So a few things like maybe they can grab a picture that they're happy to share and stick it on on the online whiteboard So we can rather just looking at their zoom we can reference Perhaps a funny photo or something interesting that a situation that they found themselves in and again A couple of maybe likes and dislikes and rather than they can be a bit more descriptive It's just giving them a bit more time I generally still send people away to maybe like virtual breakout rooms to do it in smaller groups But try and gather a bit more of a bio about people and actually Create as nice little online Memento that you can kind of drag around the course with you on a virtual whiteboard Yeah, and then Jeff isn't different for you Well, the thing that's worked quite well for us in the past And I think it translates really really well to the virtual world and actually possibly even more important in In the virtual world is that is the positive? Thing so tell me something that that's good about your week or tell me the highlight of your year or something like that Or you know So something that you're grateful for today or something like that just gets people off and a nice positive start Because quite often we'll start with you know what questions on your mind And usually it's based on some frustration at work or something that they want to they want to tackle Which is great. That's why they're here and but equally it starts with a problem rather than yeah So we've got time for that we're going to do that, but even it's let's get ourselves off on the right foot How about you? One of the things that I did recently and I like doing it's Liberating structure called mad tea, but it's like how do you do that virtually? So with zoom we do breakout rooms and I had a large collaborative session a week or two ago And we just started everyone off and we just broke them into groups of two randomly and just give them a powerful question Like just like you're saying with Jeff like you know What's been the the greatest accomplishment you've had over the last year or something like that and just give them that And then usually you skip them like a minute and have to share that time box Then you pull them back But we found like hey you can't go that short anymore because people like need time to introduce each other in that chit chat like that Just there's no room for that in a virtual meeting So you need to give a little bit more time So we found like okay two or three minutes is good and then we did you know come back and forth and give them Different questions and have different people meet different people and then you know Have some people share some highlights and then you kind of get to know who you know You have to hear what happens in these breakout rooms But as a facilitator what I found is what's very different is you don't hear all the chatter So you're just like I hope it's working well. I hope people have a good conversations I really have no idea but usually you get the feedback afterwards like yeah, this was this is great So yeah, it's kind of you you find yourself In left in the main room that when you when you set up all these break out I'm kind of just staring at myself on a camera now and anyone could come back into that room whenever they want But you kind of think well what I'll do now It's just like it's like you kind of so I find myself just like maybe Perhaps a bit unprompted dropping into breakout rooms It's just but then you feel like you're kind of eavesdropping on people. It was a bit weird So but that's the one of the things I found about breakouts one thing I was gonna ask you guys Actually, I can ask you why you're here. How do you manage taught? So with with if you've got like, you know, 10 breakouts that all of a sudden start How do you make sure everyone's aware of that time because I know that in zoom you can you get like a one minute countdown when you close the rooms But do you is there a way you can share a time a common time that everyone can see at the same time? I haven't found a common time. There's a countdown in zoom There's also some of the tools do have a timer in them and I set that timer which everyone is using as a canvas Okay, and then you can send messages to each of the breakout rooms too So I've just done that too like if we're giving a little longer one maybe like, okay, you know You maybe you have a 20 minute time box to do a big activity. Well, I'm gonna give them, you know A five-minute check in or something like that. Yeah, cool Yeah, I've sent you can broadcast to everybody. So I'll say the five minutes gone 10 minutes left. Yeah Okay Yeah, I would say and again, I think we're talking specifically with zoom here But for them it'll from a student perspective or a attendee perspective It'll display the the time left of the breakout room in the upper right hand corner for them Okay, and you found you found your your online delegates enjoying activities as much as your your physical classes So Yeah, no, I guess maybe this is eluding to a comment I made earlier but For for better or worse the the SDO the scrum.org curriculum is very activity heavy And I try and set that expectation with students early on I you know, you're gonna get out of this class what you put into it You're gonna learn just as much from me as a trainer is you're gonna learn from the other students You're gonna learn through hands-on tactile interactions with the exercises so be prepared to do a lot of exercises and At the end of day two One of the the students forgot that or didn't know that his mic was hot and he came back in sat down deep sighs like Please God no more fucking activities and And you know, I felt for him because to be honest I've had that literal same thought coming back at the end of some of the classes now Don't get me wrong I loved the classes that I was a part of but there was just at a certain point where it's like You're drinking from the fire hose You know, there's just so much content being thrown at you You're trying to make it applicable. You're mentally and physically exhausted by the end of the day and you're just You're just like, okay Let me let me relax and just soak up this this learning at this point because I'm just kind of I'm failing for the words for it But it I totally got where it was coming from and luckily I've reached out to him afterwards And we had a good conversation about it got some good feedback about the class on it but I think you raise a good point with that which is We we had spent probably a week Rebuilding the class to do it online And so there was some real quick learnings from the first few classes that we did in particular if If I talked for more than Let's say three to five minutes tops I would lose people so it couldn't in you know Not that I do that all the time in a classroom, but there are teaching moments when you're in a classroom There are teaching sessions where you're gonna go in and go a little bit deeper with topics But it was just how do how do we continue to engage students in a virtual environment?  But just little things like that when you're transitioning to do a class virtually versus doing in a person You have to do that My sorry, I'm going on for a minute here, but my my bigger concern with so many randomly pick me I'm paying attention My my concern with with this from a student perspective enough from a Scrummer an agile training student perspective I'm really thinking of my niece whose school is now all going virtual I mean, I spent almost literally a week Rebuilding retooling two days worth of training and you've got teachers out there who have an entire semester of material that they're supposed to be teaching now online and I I My heart goes out to him Because there's just there's no way one that's happening that in the realm of reality That's just not happening that that time box is of 24 hours in a day Is not happening and then you've got all these students that are trying to do virtual learning and there's just kind of a snowballing effect So sorry a lot a lot of information there but I just kind of feel for a lot of the teachers in academia right now who are trying to struggle to Do their lectures with 250 students that they would typically have in a lecture hall or something like that so Yeah, I think and I think We are learning as we go and even to say the Scrum Alliance especially is is no different and they're The the initial constraints that they put on us as trainers on how how we can train has changed because Based on real feedback from people taking these classes that I think now Jeff You might we might have to edit this if I'm wrong because sometimes I do get these things on but we can teach effectively a CSM class over multiple days or weeks Jeff we're right. I believe that to be correct Yeah, yeah, so we have the same thing on the Scrum.org classes down to us so we can I think I think an eight hour a nine to five class Like like you said Jeff that when you are if it's too if you're firing information It's just too much to process and people can't it's physically and mentally exhausting and And people you got to bear in mind people have probably been on zoom calls or online calls for the other three days of that week anyway So if they're if they're still full in full-time employment, they're constantly on an online call So it's looking at various different ways that you can alter how to deliver the content and it doesn't always have to be You know firing it straight down them someone's camera lens that would go for eight hours straight Yeah, I found that you know in addition to just calling our students But that's that's where I found the activities are more helpful in that so I Go for an hour every hour. We take a ten minute break. I encourage people.  So it's it You know it takes a little bit away from the overall time box that I have for two days but I'm just a fan of keeping yourself mentally fresh come back from it and then Like I said, even though in person at the end of two days, you're mentally exhausted It's weird. You think maybe it's easier sitting in front of a Monitor for eight hours, but I think it's just as challenging for people. It's it's really about how engaged you are mentally That's that you know is the exhausting part of the training Yeah My daughter's online schooling as well and they were as they were getting used to it They didn't have another they didn't have a swear word issue But but one of her classmates did actually leave her microphone on when she went to the toilet It kind of broke the ice a little bit it was they took it all in good humor and The student took it in good humor as well and it kind of just I don't know I just made things a little bit easier for them. Obviously it was completely accidental and they would rather have not happened But yeah, all these little things that you just don't think about Jeff with with the school thing. Do they monitor or do they? Oh, sorry, what's what's he? Do they are they mindful of do they monitor kind of chat so in these so can students In a classroom you get kind of whispering conversations or whatever Yeah, that's distracting for you as a teacher but also for you as a student So do they shut that down? Do they do they just monitor it? Do they close up completely? Honestly, don't know we got it We got a message from the principal with some guidelines and to be honest that there isn't a large element of trust My daughter's 17, so I think they do kind of treat them as adults to a large degree But the only sort of rule really rule that I saw standing out was no screenshots or pictures Okay, and in that sense of you know people don't want to feel like they might be recorded But now I didn't see anything specifically about that but on the on the topic of chat one thing I found really really interesting Was that in my daughter's school as well as having their online lessons? Which they are just like you molest you they're doing shorter They shorten the lessons and increase the length because they've taken the science on board saying it's it's more more exhausting But as well as that they're also I'll use the word force. Okay, but they are they are requiring all students To to join non lessons Online with groups of other students, so they're required to be there with other students Not to learn but just to chat just to socialize So that you're not either in lessons or off on your own at least their friends or or randoms Well, I think to begin with it I think what they're doing is they're mixing it up a little bit because they don't just want the little Little groups to really isolate and clique. Yeah But yeah, just just to be there and we know no teachers and just just to just to chat And this is the same class the same school that she had a she had a lesson on small talk Which as well as you know being able to learn your your academia and things like that just being able to talk to people I think is a really good skill to learn at school, you know My kids are seven and ten and they do the same thing But there's teachers because they have to help facilitate it They do random groups of kids in their class and they do like Google Hangouts and it's just the talk because I mean It's hard for them to not having that social interaction That they have every day and that's important to build, you know that competency as well So I I find it really interesting It's it's always fun for me to kind of hear them because you know You see my set up here now with my mic and stuff like that And so like see my seven-year-old sitting here talking in the mic and people like oh wow That's really cool, and he has to explain why you know why he has this nice setup because he's you know looking at my He's sitting in my office and stuff. So I was saying Sorry to interrupt you there, but you just reminded me if there's something else my so I've got I've got quite a wide range of ages And kids like 17 13 and one and so so my one-year-old is that's a hell of a spread So my one-year-old would only just really started going to nursery and interacting with other kids obviously he has other kids at home But he doesn't see them as kids that they're grown-ups to him And so he's gone. He's not really interacting with any other kids and however long this goes on for it But that's that's a really weird Thing for him. He doesn't think it's weird because that's always known But to not have that interaction is going to be a massive part of his development And that's something I hadn't really considered until yesterday Yeah, it's pretty hard to do a virtual zoom session with one-year-olds, right? Yeah, but all the as well as just knowing that there are other ones out there and but but also the little things like learning to share toys and Mm-hmm Things yeah, so so speaking of which it when we were talking earlier and even just what you were talking about Watsi I found that Helping or not helping but having the students build a working agreement as one of the first things that they do in the classes Is as powerful as it was before I feel like it's even more so you know Just this past week or week or two To it just out of coincidence to two of the students. They were both both male They both had newborns So one was a four month old and one was a six month old and they made numerous cameos without the the two days of training Right like at one point the guy was doing like overhead presses with the baby holding him by the legs So getting a good workout in But you know I as a trainer like what how am I supposed to you know control that situation and try and set the guardrails for them You know granted I I do set those expectations be professional with one another no You know we're in a very different situation But we normally do but then I just kind of open it up and allow the students to create that own working agreement together and Like every time thus far and I think I've run six or seven virtual classes now in the past few weeks Every time it's been magic with with them coming up Creating their own agreement holding each other accountable and you know We always revisit it throughout the day revisit a day to etc. Just to make sure it's real But every time I feel like as a trainer that thing has probably saved me more times than any any rules that I would put in place And and they're holding each other accountable. So if you're not using one, I'd highly recommend it It's just been very helpful. And that's probably something for me that's changed. So initially what because I did it my first Virtual class probably now about three weeks two three weeks ago, and I was Quite a lot more dictatorial about it because I I know I almost may maybe I was expecting The class to it for me to take the ownership of these are the rules that and tell us what to do And I've still got my screen. So I've written them down some ground rules. Um, but now I think you're right I think now as people have got more used to how online meetings work and The levels of the expectation people have are probably a bit lower than they thought they were because We are all human. There's a lot of it all our kids and families are at home as well There's stuff going on that we can't control and we've got to maintain it at the work-life balance So I think people will be much more happy like you said to to set those rules for themselves because they've got so much More experience about it now and that's that gives me a lot more I worry about that a lot less because I think people will self-manage it and probably respect it a little bit more than They would have done before Yeah, when I see these some behaviors, you know, like when we're doing these remote sessions One of the questions I ask often is like, how would this translate? In the if we were in person So if we're doing chat and it's going back and forth, but you know, somebody's trying to convey some information That kind of be like passing notes in the back of the room, right? Like come on We're professionals here. Like that's not that's not professional Or if you don't turn your video on might be like wearing a bag over your head going into an in-person meeting That would just be weird like let's not be weird Things like that, right? Like you could take almost any of these scenarios Even the baby like I would say well, what would that be like would be like bringing your baby in and somebody might be like Hey, let's bring your whole self to work. I love that. Let's do more of that.  I did a few years ago And it was awesome. So this this lady was she she'd been looking forward to this class for ages and Childcare a letter down and she she asked and she asked me I said, I've got no problem with it And and the the students had no problem with it and she brought she brought this baby along and it joined in and it was Playing with the lego and everything and and it worked out brilliantly So, yeah, I think had Yeah, it's just challenging our assumptions about what's possible and what can work. I think his name. She's a good name Mm-hmm We've had we we ran a session with back in Norway. You'll remember this pool And so we did a session at a conference in Oslo many years ago and My daughter just doesn't know what I don't know your kids. What do they think daddy does, you know They see me leaving down again with some boxes of lego and some post-it notes and no idea what I do So we had we had the opportunity so she came along and she she helped us teach a teacher workshop over in Oslo And she loved it the students loved it Um, yeah, it was it's good fun. Yes Yeah, my kids are even now they say Yesterday over dinner We asked my kids as we do every now and again What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do when you grow up? And my son said no my daughter said I want to work for a jellify, which is my company And I went really why it says oh you just you just looks great She doesn't have a clue what I do, but she just wants to work for me. I don't know why I tend to she said she wanted to work for a jellify I think she's gonna have a there's gonna be a hostile takeover of your yeah, maybe maybe He's gonna buy me out. Maybe Um, my kids they they really like like yours. They don't they have no idea what I do They they hear about it. They're like, what I've tried to explain it to them And they're just I'm not quite getting it and so they make fun of me now I give them a hard time about stuff all the time So they give a fun of me and so I like yep, my dad scrums the toilet or teaches people how to scrum the toilet One thing I will do before this whole lockdown things end is I will if I'm doing a class or an online session If we take a break Where all the cameras go off or people walk up I will cover and I'll switch my camera back on with my son In the seats and just see if we see how people react Just let him let him teach the next part of the makeup And he'll be standing in front of the screen smiling away Yeah, they love it. They love the whole um the the tech because I've um, my kids now because they're the home schools they've had access to uh, more lap the laptops of the ipad and the tools that they never really probably had the chance to use at school Because I've got I've got a few these things that they can so the things of her Filling in a worksheet, but doing it electronically with a pencil or an ipad. They've never thought this daddy. This is amazing I've never experienced anything like even flip charts on whiteboard pens. They don't get the chance to use a real Whiteboard pen. So they've just been they've been raiding my stationary cupboard So I'm using that despite the fact I'm not teaching in person classes My stationary levels are still dropping because my kids are just post-its They're just taking post-its out of my cupboard all the time But they love it and they've got post-its everywhere. I live there. They're at the dining room. So Yeah, it's good I found um, I found another interesting side effect of this and Oh, it's mesky gone.  I think oh, sorry. I was just grabbing a tissue real fast and says we're recording this We don't want to see you blow your nose. Yeah It's just like you you're just trying to send us a really subtle message there Those that aren't watching those there's a map that came up on the screen there But now I'm saying that um the there's sort of um icebreaker type thing We did a we did I I can't really take the credit for but I was speaking at a meetup group due to speak up a meetup group yesterday. Obviously I I couldn't um Because we can't travel but um, then I got asked to do A step in at another meetup group on the same day somewhere else And see would you do it virtually and so why don't we just do them both virtually? So there is one on and then it sort of grew so yesterday was a a collection of four meetup groups from completely different parts of the country And so we had about I think just over 200 people um joining through through zoom And so we had all these different organizers who got lots of different experiences of running different things both in person and virtually And they one of the one of the benefits that people have said in the past these meetup groups as well as learning is Is just meeting other people networking and and now you have the opportunity to meet people from different parts of the country And in this case different countries So at the start they did this virtual networking where they just dropped people randomly into um Small breakout rooms of two or three people and it was just who are you you know What what's what's the best thing that being part of a really great team that kind of thing? And where i'm going with this is that they didn't have a choice as to who they spoke to But in in a in a physical room you would yeah And you naturally gravitate to people that you feel safe to talk to for whatever reason Whereas here they didn't and again the feedback was Overwhelmingly almost I think it was I didn't see anything negative about it apart from they wish they had more time for it So yeah in in person you might do speed speed dating sort of two minutes here there and everywhere But they wanted they wanted four And everything takes a bit longer like you said But that that you you're getting past your cognitive biases and your that that sort of natural associations through the use of technology It's that tim harford experiment wasn't it jeff a cover of which book is in his book called mess. Is it messy When he talks about uh, they studied um conferences networking conferences where they are they A social experiment where they asked people to attend With the deliberate Intense that they were asked to network With people at a networking conference But they found that the people just gravitated towards the people that they knew even when they were told explicitly To network with people they didn't And we've all seen that our conferences that we we tend to gravitate towards people We know because you but that's completely natural because you want to talk about things that you share um, but with the benefit with zoom and it is a bit scary, but You can randomly Just throw people out into rooms with people that they've never met before I mean there is a risk A coincidental risk that they might know someone in the same room, but I think that's um kind of kind of Refreshing. Yeah, I like that Yeah, I do too. I think I think you guys do you guys know I this is completely unfair question. I can't imagine that you would be Do um, do you know the actual reason behind the virtual background feature? In zoom My guess my guess is people are self-conscious of like what's in their house and they don't want to share their background That's that's the case. That's what's coming out. Right. It's a good leveler. It's a good safety feature Um, I just wonder whether that was in the intent or whether it was sort of a happy accident or a feature That's got morphed because of how it was actually used, you know, you see a lot of those features Don't you it was designed for one thing, but people have used it for another reason and I think that's one of the most I would suggest possibly one of the most Surprisingly used features of zoom now And other tools because they've all pretty much got the same thing Yeah More people are using it now if you think you think more you see more virtual backgrounds than you have before I think if you'd have asked people to put a value on it It would have been really low, but no anyone that feature would be a lot higher based on how well Yeah, I've had a number of students have a lot of fun with with putting the backgrounds on and I and I feel like that's That's awesome. Like have some fun with it Like some guy took a picture of the office and I can't remember the the manager from the office just sitting over the cubicle wall So about those tps reports, you know, so he had that and back of them another one had What's that netflix show the the the lion not the lion king Tiger king. Thank you. Thank you. Had a had a background of the tiger king Behind them, you know, hey, it just made me chuckle every time I was I was looking at him. So I I agree. What's the um, you know, I I don't think it was intended to have that much value But I think a lot of people have gotten a lot of value out of it. So kind of kind of a cool little example there Yeah, I I imagine it was one of those fun features The devs put in for their own amusement. Yeah And and actually it's turned out to have a massively beneficial side effect Yeah, the reason I think it's so important is because like a lot of people signed up to work, you know In person at a certain location And now they can't and and they feel they don't want to turn their camera on because it's like I don't want to show everybody I don't feel comfortable showing everybody my home And the virtual background gives them no excuse, right? Like, oh, yeah We can still have an in-person conversation You just hide your background if you don't want people to see you're in your kitchen And you don't want people to see your kitchen or whatever the the case might be So I think it's a I think it's a really nice Features as well. I've also fallen like playing with it has been really helpful for your people So at some of the clients have been at we just done some virtual happy hours And we just play with the tools and be like, you know, like everyone try a virtual background And like are people just do it organically and all of a sudden I was like, how do you actually do that? And like people just start playing with it in the settings and then they start figuring out There's other things they can do Um, and it's really helped them in you know future meetings because they understand the tool much better I just thought actually that combining that with something that I mentioned earlier on about that sort of positive start to things Maybe maybe in an icebreaker pool. We could set a virtual background that is a photo of a happy place You know, and when you're looking at the screen now, you've got that constant reminder of you on that holiday or China or whatever it is you and your family whatever and it's just that constant Happy happy happy or safe. Yeah, and the thing so I was just amongst me was Jeff I know that you did I think you did on this, um Webinar that you did this week was and it's links back to what molesty said about Checking in with people didn't you have something in there about used one of the features around polling That you could just get a temperature check on where people are right now as a way to click here are kind of Your levels. Yeah, really quick feedback how we do on an energy levels and because it's anonymous people don't Then they feel a lot safer to see. I need a break right now I mean, I I generally Well, if it was a class thing, I'd say, you know, if we're in person don't wait for the break Need a toilet and need a coffee go, you know My my skin has been thickened over the years for people walking out in disgust at my Just walking out for the toilet isn't going to hurt my feelings But yeah, it was it was a practical reason and because I didn't know how long people wanted to go between breaks It was learning But also just that sense of Asking makes people feel that actually they are they are in this is their thing. It's not my thing. It's their thing I've also used in zoom. They've got this Participants thing that you can turn on in the settings that's it's not on by default But if you turn it on you get a little extra options as a participant like go faster go slower. Yes. No Uh coffee break what you know, there's a bunch of different things that people can fit in there And as a host you can, you know, put that up on another screen or that's what I do And then I ask people to like give me feedback when I'm asking a question Like I'm going to ask rhetorical questions that are yes. No Hopefully you can throw it in there real quick or you need a break throw it in there quick And if I see things popping up, you know, especially for the large group, you know, you don't have to like call it out I can I can then help You know help that with my facilitation. I can use that information for my facilitation. So it's Do you think there is an optimum kind of number that you think works well for these I'm talking about kind of maybe more classes now as opposed to seminars or webinars What kind of numbers do you think you're you're aiming for these online teaching? Um I don't know. I'm gonna try to a large one in a couple weeks here. We're gonna try 30 Wow, that's that's gonna be big, but it's two two of us that are teaching yet. So I think that's yeah That's an important thing because you kind of when me Jeff and I are pairing on a course next month So I think the tag team element is probably even more important when you've got one person Because it's quite imagine it's quite hard to see that that feedback if it's not in a kind of poll results kind of charts If it's people clicking yes, no faster slower, it'd be quite hard to aggregate that data But if you've got someone's just looking at it and saying a lot of people Saying they need a break but perhaps we should call this short Yeah, I phone with large sessions having two people as Essential because one person setting something up in the tool the other person's talking and like You're getting the context and reading the room and well another person like sends them off or does something else Like there's a lot of this like you're both doing something and it do all that out of yourself would be really top Especially with a large room I think with zoom though like I believe If you are using that it's 25 people you can see on one screen from that gallery view So if you have to go to two screens as one person, I think that'd be tough. So maybe that's an upper limit to to think about Yeah, true Yes, I saw it in pairing is something When jeff and I first started teaching It was kind of It wasn't assumed but it was always encouraged jeff wasn't it probably because we were quite nervous about doing on our own But we tended to pair on pretty much everything and it's kind of something which is I think stuck with us And if we've got the opportunity to pair We're quite happy to do it and we we generally feel I feel like I'm benefiting because when I'm not Speaking I'm listening So it's a way to reaffirm what I'm going to say next or what but I'm thinking at the moment So but I think this is perhaps an opportunity especially given the fact that we've got more time We've got perhaps the opportunities now to to cross pollinate and pair I think this is um, yeah, I think pairing is is an almost an essential part of of re-skilling or Or practicing our art as trainers. I think it's generally a really good thing to do What was do you guys got different backgrounds or similar backgrounds? Um pretty similar pretty similar. Yeah, we were both developers at one point Jeff took more of a product on our role. Um, I took more of a scrum master role And then we both kind of became you know got into agile coaching became psts later in our career. So Um, but yeah We pair a lot even even though we have similar backgrounds We have different experiences with a lot of different teams, right? And we can bring those at different times. Yeah, and sometimes we're hearing different things And so we pair a lot we pair with other people a lot Uh, I don't know we've we just grew up with that like similar to both of you Um, when we were getting going when we were you know, even earlier on in our career When like Jeff was a product owner and I was a scrum master and we were working on the same teams Like we'd go into clients and we would pair in front of you know executive stakeholders And it just became a natural thing that we did all the time Uh, so I think I don't know. I'm really used to it. I love pairing. I grow so much from pairing Like me personally, it's almost selfish like when I teach a class and I pair with another Another instructor like I'm learning just as much as the students are and I always learn what from the students But I learned even you know, I feel like I went double because I'm learning from the other instructor and from the students So I love it personally I asked because when Paul mentioned to her when we were getting started that one of the reasons Yeah, it was because we were we were quite new and nervous and we weren't actually professional trainers and all that kind of stuff but equally We we did have quite a variety of skills So we'd have someone who who came up much more from the xp path who could Who could talk a lot more about technical practices than I ever could And you know, I paired with with Roman when he he can give very much a product feel and and I can play a different hat I think that having those two different perspectives Paul and I are more than happy to effectively contradict each other in a class and Not around a fact, but around an experience or a perspective or an opinion or a preference And I think we we used to worry about presenting a united front But I think we've gotten older. I think people get more from the fact that there are multiple ways of seeing something Um, you know, if you can disagree with someone that you're good friends with then that I think that sends a few different messages out into the room Which are positive Yeah, I've had some of the best um Training experiences, but I've also had some of the worst feedback from a paired Training staff and you might not remember this Jeff, but this was a long time ago it was a client Where they um, and they asked someone to pair with me that I wasn't perhaps familiar with and I hadn't met before the day And the it was just it just didn't work And I think it was there was like you said Jeff, um, what see there was there was contradiction there was difference of opinion, but it was destructive and it was You'll I think you're wrong and I think in fact it was confusing because you were saying we should do it this way But then Paul's saying we should do it that way and it it was confusing with muddled So I think there's a there's a sweet spot here where it can be quite you've got color commentary There's our friend Nigel would say is in terms of you've got one Uh commentator that can back up and add some more detail without never really going off on a different tangent But it can if it's too opposed It can be quite confusing for the students so they don't really hear what the rights or what they're the constant messages Yeah under price rather than a yes, but approach right exactly. Yep Yep, because I've had that too where I pair to people where it's that no, but and man That's a painful thing because you're just trying to like Okay, how do we like bring this back together? You know, so they're getting Uh a good message here and it doesn't look like we're fighting up in front of the room Right like or in the back room Yeah, that's that can be a challenge. I think you're right though It's the mindset you have to like be level subtle like this is where we're going and there might be some nuances where we Disagree and I think understanding like we agree. I'll agree This is the baseline and then like here's the ways that you could approach it And here's why you would pick one or the other and he has his opinion on his preference And I have my opinion and that's okay. I think when you get to that point That's great, but like if it's a core fundamental thing in your and um and you're disagreeing on that people are going to be confused so It I think that also kind of highlights, um, you know, just how few binary things there are in Complex work right in knowledge work, right? You know, we are I think a fairly standard question is hey, we don't we don't have a scrum master. Are we still doing scrum? Well, no, if you're taking away something from the framework, you're you're not doing it. You're doing something else and that's fine um, but You know Okay, we're our daily scrum, you know, we talk about this and that are we doing it wrong? I don't know. Maybe um, maybe in in paul's experience. Yes and boobles experience. No, but there's very few binary things To say no, this isn't the way or yes, this is the way you have to do it There's just Again, we've been we've been talking about zoom, you know, quite a bit for the past You know, what is it now 40 40 minutes? But there's going to be people out there that are using teams or uh, I don't know discord or Any of the other probably 50 different communication tools that are out there And if it works for you, awesome, like that that's how you're choosing to solve the problem Um, and your experiences are going to be shaped around those You know, the your experience is going to be shaped in that way. So Have you found anything that hasn't really Translated well yet to the to this new world or is it something that just you just haven't got ran to yet? Is there still a sticky problem that you know you haven't addressed yet? Mm-hmm. I I think starting so I'm I'm kind of I'm at a client right now and I'm starting in a new area and building rapport Individually with people. I would normally just have a lot of these little one-off conversations We have these little coaching moments walking from one meeting room to the next Sitting down and like hey, just show me what's what you're working on Look like someone like you're struggling on something. Those are just harder to get to you don't hear about them as much You don't get the side conversation You know, just that serendipitous event of like overhearing things And so I'm That's one of the things that I think I just have to put a lot I'm put trying to put more effort into and be conscious about Um And just be cautious that hey, I might not have all the rapport built up in this new area as fast as I Normally would because we're not having these conversations that Would just come naturally, you know in the past. Yeah One one of the things so that I've run into Um You know, we've been talking quite a bit about tooling and tools are certainly going to help us solve some of the problems that we have now with in a virtual world, but um One of my favorite movie quotes is um, you're so your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could They didn't stop to consider whether or not they should. Um, it's from Jurassic Park if you're not familiar with it But I feel like Sorry, um, let's see. Uh, what's the have you seen that one? I would have got that Jeff Goblin, right? Yes, exactly Um, the cool Jeff knows no films. Okay. Well, I'm glad I'm glad I could throw one out there that he's familiar with But but I think about that from a tooling perspective Just because you can use a tool just because you find it exciting to use as a trainer or a facilitator Doesn't mean your students care about it. You know, um I've had students in these virtual one was just using an ipad So he didn't even have a computer and that was a different scenario that I had to take into account And I know people get excited about mural or mural these other tools Of my alarm just went off to let me know to wake up I know people get excited with these tools To to use them, but it's just encouraging people to also think about from a student's perspective or your customer's perspective What is that like for them? So just because you can use these really neat shiny new tools that are out there Doesn't mean you you should and maybe just sit down and consider from from that perspective whether or not You know, are you really giving your your customers a good experience with using these tools? Even though you find them really cool Yeah Yeah, one of the things I have have heard is that um And again, I'm learning from experience that one of the first classes I did and I I think probably was a bit confusing Is that students in classes tend to like the simplicity of staying with one tool Or whatever that tool might be rather than drifting between multiple different ones and I was probably guilty of trying to And force people to say well now we're going to use Google jam board and now we're going to switch back to using Zoom come back to the zoom call now because we're using that and now we're going to use the whiteboard on zoom and all these different Because that's just what I knew at the time And it's just what I had access to and I knew that I'd used it before but Trying to keep it as simple as possible is to keep the focus on one thing Rather than trying to use a hundred different tools is probably An easy tip to pick up another aspect of fear And we don't learn when we're scared We can't know and There's an element of fear of what people are going to be looking in my house. Okay. I can put a virtual background All these different aspects if I'm worried about not being able to use a tool properly or look foolish with a new tool Or then that's another aspect that's going to limit my ability to learn so I was interested Yesterday so my natural instinct mainly because I'm technically limited as well In that it takes me quite a long time to to pick things out poor Constantly having to hold my hand through experience Teaching me how to use Miro and things and I'll get there but it takes me a while Um, and so I was we were doing this meet-up group across four meet-up groups And they obviously had their own preferences and oh, we should do this and we can use this And it was all great stuff. And I was a little bit worried That it was going to be a bit overwhelming So in the end we we had Zoom as the as the basis which had its own polling feature built into it, which was great Um, they wanted to use breakout rooms, which again was part of zooms. They didn't have to go out. That was great They used mentee to gather some some information while in one of the breakout rooms and they used Slido to gather questions and at both questions and even that probably too much They managed it and you know, they they all the the comments afterwards where it's just like really well integrated and how many times did you rehearse which we didn't For my benefit Jeff, what's mentee? So mentee meter, I think is that is the full term but basically it's just basically it's a website and you enter into a code And you get your own particular version of it. And once you're there you can then add Data whether it be a comment a question or what have you it just shows up and scrolls up on the screen word cloud or It's it's again relatively simple as much good tools are Um, but quite powerful at collaborating. I mean, we we were using it at the client But I was I was that before lockdown anyway, even when we were all in the same room It was a good way of getting You know that sort of one word feedback at the end of the planning session or a retrospective or something A good way of getting crowdsourced feedback anonymously Okay, um and presented in a pretty way. So I guess what I'm saying that I absolutely agree mainly from my own Default of I struggle with technology More than more than I should But equally people are pretty adaptive Um and can can cope with quite a lot of it's if it's made simple for them One thing that I'm doing is um like even with zoom like you think everyone knows zoom But it's like they don't maybe don't know these extra features that are there And so I I spend five to ten minutes on a lot of meetings Like especially when it's a larger group or it's people that I'm not, you know, normally working with Explaining zoom if we're using mural we explain how to use mural like just you have to take time every Every time you use a new tool to explain it to your point Jeff because people get worried about that And then they can't participate or they just you know, they disengage or whatever the thing is that they're gonna do Um, so I think that's an important thing to just take some time explain the tool Maybe you teach somebody something new and then they use it, you know in the next meeting that they're in so I think that's important And one of the benefits of again doing these we're looping back now to where we started But these ice breakers if you do the ice breaker or whatever it might be In within the tool it almost gives that creates a little bit of safety that I can chat with one person who might have Done that before within that tool so they can talk me through how to how to add my How to add an important image to the to the whiteboard or how to Create a sticky note wherever it might be so anything like that you can do but we started to We're Jeff and I experiment with with the course we're running next month But we're probably going to give people a bit of work up front to do so as a way to introduce them to that tool expose The tool to them a bit earlier before the class starts and ask them to upload something or ask them to Create something in their own time So they don't feel like they're under under pressure within a class setting to do it on timer So they can perhaps do it a bit slower pace so things like that I think will probably ease people in but yeah, it's an assumption We make that everyone's using the same tools, but in fact a lot of people aren't Yeah, have you one thing I'm thinking about So running a class here in a couple weeks and we were talking about different a checklist to go through And like do we do it with people to make sure they're actually doing it like let's test their speed Let's test their mic. Let's test video make sure that all works Let's make sure they understand how to add a sticky note like you were saying or you know to these tools these Let's give them the the basic rundown in small groups so they can feel You know confident going into this course And is that something that we should do so I don't know if Jeff have you tried that yet with the I know you've done six or seven Jeff musky Have you tried something like that yet? Yeah, so One of the things that I'm Well rob and I with with responsive visors quick plug there but In and I think this is likely true Well, I know it's true across the sdo scrum.org and I assume scrum alliance as well, but like We have been I mentioned earlier rebuilt the entire thing intended for virtual training We're not sacrificing the quality and the experience for the students All right that that that thresholds should still be at the same level So I'm very particular and I do we we demand As part of the class That you come and do it takes five minutes, but you have to do a pre-check with us And so the pre-check is going through all the tooling It's making sure that you're comfortable with zoom that you know how to use it what to expect when we use a breakout room I'm checking their speeds because Let's be honest. We've all been on those meetings from hell where there's lots of background noise There's bad latency coming through people that are talking over with one another I'm not going to subject a student to eight hours of that Or 16 right for a two-day class. So It may sound harsh, but there's a bare minimum And I'm I'm doing it because there's a quality level to this stuff. So I want them to feel comfortable I want them to understand the tooling and I try to keep it as lightweight as possible But it's also to make sure that it's it's not going to Detract from the quality of the class for the other students So I In we by extension Are very particular about that And in fact, we won't send them the meeting invite for the actual class until they come to the pre-check So it if they don't come well, they they can't come to training So this this opens up an interesting philosophical kind of worms guys And because one thing that you sort of brought to my attention rescue is the idea that maybe not everybody has a computer Yep And by extension not everybody has high speed internet and as a are we Are we at the risk of creating an elite level of access to training rather than You know making it open open to all not only financially, but equally within your own home Is that are there levels that you have to get to before you can get training which I'm not saying that's that's your intention in any way to but as an interesting parallel I just find this I just find this absolutely Fascinating and it just made my lightened my not just my day, but my week When I heard about this And I don't know whether this is particularly going to translate particularly well to you guys, but I'll go with it Anyway, so I'm a big sports person. I love sport And obviously there's not a lot of sport going on right But one sport is carrying on and that's darts And what they're doing is these darts players they've got their darts boards in their own houses and they're effectively playing over video conference Playing proper tournaments proper matches against one another So one one guy's got his darts board in the in the kitchen another one's got it in there In their bedroom and so on and they just got their camera set up and they got a referee on the video call as well And and you know a couple of people So one of the darts players said, you know my my darts boards on my on my landing I don't know if that translates well, but upstairs dances If the dart comes out of the board and I have to go down 15 steps to get my dart I just love the fact that these professionals have been brought down to our level But there are a couple of really so we had a really big Landmark this year in the uk Where a female darts player beat a male darts player for the first time In a professional tournament live on tv And so she became an absolute superstar And that was one of the the sort of barriers to entry had been broken down and it was amazing Now she's she's been invited onto the regular tour with with it with it with all the male players But she can't participate in this tournament because her internet speed isn't good enough Um and she said, you know, I'm trying to get my my internet fixer that I can play The world number one can't play because he's got dogs and a baby and it's it's too noisy with a dog's barking I just think that's hilarious The world number one can't play because his dogs are too noisy But do you know what I mean that there's yeah, we've got it. I don't know how we sold that yeah, it's so You're right. It is it is a little bit of a moral quandary and I think Maybe not such a big deal for scrum training but what I would extend this out to is my both my my sister and my brother-in-law are teachers in the walkie public schools and MPS has Unfortunately a large amount of students that are on whatever the equivalent is of of the food program Because they don't they don't get enough food and so they get free food when they come to school And I'm going to butcher these numbers So let's just say let's make up easy round numbers But something like 50,000 students are on this program And so when MPS went virtual or when the whole pandemic started these kids can't even afford food They don't have home internet And there was no option to teach them So now granted that's not all MPS students obviously But there was such a large number of these students that didn't have home internet that They just there is no teaching going on right now because okay, even if they had internet Do they have a laptop? Do they have a phone? Like how are how are they getting access to this information? So It is a hundred percent legitimate question And I feel like it is a question that we as a as a society should maybe start to to think about You know when we're talking about inequality and like these kids and they are kids They didn't make poor life choices that put them into these into these situations. That's just the hand that life dealt them How you know, what what is what are the choices that we as a society make and say This this is okay, or it's not okay. And what are we going to do for that? So this is a much deeper topic with it, but I think it's a it's a legitimate question For the for the constraints of scrum training for the time being i'm okay saying that this is how it needs to be Um, but who knows in the future that may change and But that's that's part of the reason jeff and I do our podcasts like we we love giving back You know, we we we don't there's no commercials that we put on there Maybe one day, but you know, that's that's very far down the road Jeff runs the meetup in madison with with chad buy or another awesome pst in the community We do these things one it raises us up. So there's some benefit for us, you know seen as thought leaders and whatnot But we like giving away the information that we that we have so um, I I do think there's some altruism that that's going on inside of there, but uh, at least for the training online, I feel like it's It's a not the compromise isn't the right word, but i'm i'm comfortable with with how we're approaching it for right now Yeah Yeah, it's uh something that I just have to admit i hadn't really it's very it's very difficult to Well, I suppose it's easier for me to say it's easier to to see through your your own privileged lens and I you know I see That a lot of people I have I work with do have this and it's you just don't notice what you don't notice Yeah, until it's put in front of you, I suppose um, and yeah, so Some it's come to my attention. I think oh, I don't actually know how I would Resolve that, you know Yeah, I mean though the one student that did come through with without a laptop I mean it was fine. He just uses ipad And he had zoom was running on his phone and then he uses ipad for for the activities and it worked out well, but I I've never even thought about how I would handle the situation if somebody just had a phone It'd be like they're listening on a conference call and like I don't know. Maybe maybe you could argue something is better than nothing But I I don't even know what type of experience that would be for them as a student as well I know we've been trying to be creative with the one client. I'm working with and you know, some people They're remote and they might be in the north woods up here in wisconsin and there's not really great internet They're just not a choice like where they live and they can't they can't get it and they have multiple people trying to access The internet to both work from home, you know husband wife And they just can't do the video They can do audio if they and they can both work or only one of them can work So like after we've talked through it's like, okay. Well, this is the only thing that works What other options are there and so we said well We could use, you know Your cell phone and use dlt network up there and that could work and you'd kind of dial in the two But I get it like that's not your work cell phone. You only have so much data like, you know, can't do that all the time Should we can we be choosing are there certain, you know meetings where it's like, yeah, this is really important We should probably have video for it and there's other ones where like it's okay not to have video And so we've had these conversations, you know to your point, jeff of like There's real constraints, but like what workarounds do we have? Are there anything we can do? Um, how can we get uh, you know, you know level set the level of communication that everyone's going to be on? Um, when it's the most important and so I think gotta be creative. I think we're all learning in this and uh be open Oh Be out of the possible Yep great We've been recording for a while, uh, we've we've kind of hit our time box Uh, we break every hour, right?  Yeah Team mastery Um, is that out yet? Oh, just got it. Okay I mean, I've got the other two. I just wasn't sure if that one was out yet By the time this uh podcast is out it will be on it will be on jim. Yeah Um, it's it's difficult to get it around the world these days, but uh, not impossible. Hey, I Because I I get them on audible. Um, yeah, do you I think you narrate them Have you in the past? Yeah. Okay. Are you narrating this one as well for for audible? It's all done. It's in um, it's in review at the moment Okay, it's all the automated technical review. It's just in the queue to be listened to and approved by a human some poor little Human somewhere I was gonna have to listen to my book and I checked that it uh, it meets whatever criteria they got before they put it out to sale, but yeah All right, awesome because pages are so 1990. I I like being read to And you know the soothing sounds of cheff wad's voice. It's just it's it's pretty good. So Oh dear Cool. No, is that what about you guys anything? So this is great. We we've um It's it's really nice to be able to get people in the uk to be more aware of other Podcasts out there. It's something that we get contacted regularly about and it's great to introduce them to to you guys if they hadn't already Come across you. Is there is there anything in particular you want them to know about? um, there is a conference that um, We were gonna do it's in iowa. Actually, it's called icdr agile and it went all virtual Um, it's a really good line of the speakers and it's really open to everybody now that it's virtual So it's not there's no no constraints to joining that one. So that's april 30th It's an all day conference. We're gonna be doing breakout sessions and different things like that They try to get the whole social aspect of a Uh, a real conference. So it'll be an experiment. I think that's gonna be pretty great if this gets out before then um, also ISD ICR agile, so if you just what we can we can put it like in the show notes Um, or you can just google that icr agile. We don't read and just want to be told Yes, exactly for all most people ICR agile, okay. Yes, got you. Yeah, that's coming up and then um I would just say, you know, we all of us have courses. So you know, let's check those out on our pages and stuff But um, that's those are the big things for me. How about you jeff? No, nothing on my side man. Just just love and life. So Paul anything you want to plug uh, well, we can just mention our our um, the agile pubcast We're doing during these lockdown times jeff and I are opening up the the doors of our virtual pub on a friday In the uk, it's kind of uh, 5 p.m. fridays. So we're we're well open to Any international customers who'd like to come and join us for a virtual drink It's um, just literally freeform chat meet some people you might not have met before networking and Sharing some stories and sharing a beer with with me and jeff on a friday evening. So you're more than welcome to join us awesome All right, it was very enjoyable guys. So Thank you for for for organizing it Awesome. Thanks for joining us. This was awesome Very good


Welcome to the Bioexcel building blocks lecture of this Bioexcel summer school edition 2021. My name is Salamos Pital. I'm coming from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona and I'm leading the Bioexcel workflow team. Tomorrow we will be doing the live session with Janice also from IRB and POW from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which are the main developers of the Bioexcel building blocks library. We have two lectures today from 35 to 40 minutes, so the introduction on the Bioexcel building blocks library and the introduction about the biomolecular simulation workflows using this library. And tomorrow we will have a live session, a tutorial, we are going to work with a protein complexed with a small molecule, the setup of the molecular dynamics simulation in Gromax using the Bioexcel building blocks library. But also we will have a couple of query and answer sessions, one for the theory, the introduction that I'm going to give you today and one also for the tutorial tomorrow. So we'll have time to discuss about many different things tomorrow, but today we are going to see the introduction on the building blocks. So let me start with the introduction of the Bioexcel Center of Excellence. I know that Rosen talked about that on Friday, he gave you a short introduction about what is the Bioexcel Center of Excellence. What I wanted to tell you is just where are the workflows of biomolecular workflows within this Center of Excellence. So, as you know, Bioexcel is a central hub for biomolecular modeling and simulations that we are many different partners from Europe, and we are coordinated by the KTH in Stockholm. And our area of expertise is here from the atomistic structures to the macromolecular and macromolecular complexes scratching the cell structure. Our main goal is to enable better science. And we wanted to do that with three different, dividing the main goal in three. So improving the performance and functionality of the key of our key applications. And I will tell you in the next slide what are these key applications. Then providing support to non-experts entry-level experts and also advanced users. And finally, developing user-friendly computational workflows. And this is where the biomolecular workflows are in Bioexcel. But first of all, the key applications are Gromax for molecular dynamics, BMX for free calculations, free energy calculations, Hadoq for protein docking, protein protein docking, protein vegan docking and protein DNA docking also. And finally, CPMD and CP2K for QMM. And I'm sure that you're familiar with these codes and you will be hearing from all of these codes in this Bioexcel Summer School. Also, we are giving a lot of support and we are giving support in using different webinars, training events as the one, schools as the one that you are attending this week. Conferences, also industry visits and we have a forum where you can ask everything that you want to ask regarding our field of biomolecular simulation. But what is the main point for us and the most interesting point for us is the workflows, biomolecular workflows. And to achieve this goal, what we want to do is to generate biomolecular workflows that are easy to be built, easy to be used, available, reproducible and portable to many different infrastructures, platforms and shareable with the scientific community. And we are doing all of that in collaboration with the Elixir European project following a set of software development best practices that I will introduce you in one slide in this presentation. Okay. Why are biomolecular workflows so important for us and we should give a step back and think about what is a workflow and workflow. I'm sure that you all have a workflow. You have run a workflow or you have even developed a workflow in your professional life. A workflow is just a group of processes, sequential processes like this one that you run one after the other where one of these processes can be many different tasks at the same time. But at the end what the workflow is generating is a set of results. And if you stop for a minute and think about what is a biomolecular workflow, I'm sure that you will think about, okay, in the last workflow that I have run, I needed to download, for example, a structure, a PDP structure. I need to convert between different versions maybe models and missing piece of the structure, maybe run a docking or parametrize some ligand or run chemo informatics things on the structure, run molecular dynamics, maybe quantum mechanics or maybe a hybrid QMM. Then after the simulation you maybe need to or I'm sure that you need to analyze the results, the trajectory. Maybe you are interested in running free energies and I'm sure that you will do some kind of data analytics that is, you know, the state of the art analysis on the simulations nowadays. All of these different processes are completely connected to all of these many different programs that we have available in our field. MD, GROMACS, AMBER, NAMD, docking, Hadoq, Autodoc, Autodoc, Bina, QM, parametrization of ligand, chemo informatics, machine learning, analysis, many, many different. And I'm sure that you're familiar with most of the programs that you see here. The problem is the reality is that when we start working on a workflow what we typically end up having is something like that which is a shell script with different steps, one after the other. This one produces a result that is used for the second one that produces another result that is used for the third one and so on and so forth until you have the final results. These shell scripts, and I'm sure that you agree with me, they have many, many problems, usability problems. So if you wrote this kind of shell script two years ago and you want to execute it again today, I'm sure that you will find many different problems. You will not remember what were all the different lines doing. You will have problems with the software in your machine that will be updated from the one that you were using two years ago. You have interoperability problems from one step to the other. If you're using the same software system, that's okay. But if you are using many different software tools as you saw in the previous slide, then I'm sure that you will end up having interoperability problems between the different steps. And very important, if you want to share, if you want to port or reproduce this workflow in another machine, this is really complicated because you need the same version of the same software, the same dependencies installed in different systems. And finally, if you want to scale that, if you don't just want to run this workflow once, but you want to run it in a high throughput way 200 times, then I'm sure that you will have a problem. You will need to write something else different from this JavaScript. With all these things in mind, we started a project at the beginning of BioXL that was called BioXL Building Blocks. And this is where the idea of the BioXL Building Blocks started. So what are the BioXL Building Blocks? Actually, the idea is really easy. The concept is just that the BioXL Building Blocks are, the BioXL Building Blocks library are a set of Python wrappers on top of different tools. That means that at the core of our wrappers, we have an execution of a tool, a script, a library, but at the end it's an execution. That needs input parameters and produces output parameters, of course, output files, sorry. And what the wrappers are doing is only adapt a set of parameters, input files and configuration files that have always the same syntax to the local input parameters that the tool is understanding. And it does exactly the same for the output file. So the tool is generating output files and we are adapting these output files to a set of output files and log files, which always have the same syntax. That means that basically this Python wrapper that we are adding this layer is adding a compatibility part from one building block to another, making all the building blocks interoperable between them. On top of this Python compatibility layer, we also have an external layer that is called workflow manager adaptation layer that makes these building blocks compatible with different workflow managers. And I will tell you more about that in the presentation. So the concept is really easy. We have building blocks that are completely interoperable between them. That means that we can use them in a really easy way and put them together to build our own workflows, biomolecular simulation workflows. And once we have our workflow, then we can run the workflow. And to run the workflow, we can control the workflow with different workflow managers. Graphical user interfaces, workflow managers such as Jupyter Notebook, KNIME, Galaxy are also HPC based workflow managers, as for example, PyComes. Okay, as I was telling you at the beginning, we are following a set of best practices for to develop the building blocks. And we are doing that in collaboration with the LX European project. And we are using the fair principles that were used typically for data, but they also can be exported to software development best practices. And that means that our software is now findable. It is registered in different portals such as the BioTools portal. It has its own website where you can find everything that you need to know about the library. It is benchmarked by this OpenEvent infrastructure in LX here. It is publicly open using GitHub repo. It is findable through search engines as Google using bio schemas. It is documented and this is the accessible part documented very easy to use because it has all the documentation in standard. Read the docs, open API for the rest API, common word for language description for all the building blocks for all the different tools that we that we are wrapping. We package all the software in Conda. And I will talk about this Conda in a minute, Conda packaging, Docker containers, singularity containers, so very easy to use in different machines. They are interoperable, of course, by definition because this is the concept behind the main idea behind the Python wrappers. And it is really reusable. For example, with the exported and you would see examples of that Jupyter notebooks that we have as a demonstration tutorials or Galaxy. Even NIME or even our own web servers implementing the workflow. So it's really a fair software. Just a minute to let me just introduce you the Conda packaging system because I think it's really really important. And with that, that's perfect because this is the, the software that we are going to use tomorrow in the live session. If not, I strongly recommend you take a look because it is really convenient for reproducibility and we are using it a lot in our development for the library and also for the workflows. So with this Conda packaging, what you can do is to generate a closed environment in your computer. So taking this example, person number one, he has, he or she has a computer environment with these programs and these versions of the program installed. It implements workflow, runs the workflow and the workflow is giving results which are fine using these programs with these versions in the closed Conda environment. He or she installed all of these software tools with these versions. It runs the same workflow and the results are exactly the same. But then when he or she tries to share this workflow to another person, person number two with, which is working in another computer environment, having different software installed and different versions of the software installed. If he or she tries to run the workflow, then the workflow gives an error, the software is missing and the software has different versions and I'm not compatible with the software. If instead of running the workflow in the computer environment, it runs a workflow in a closed Conda environment that you can easily reproduce from the Conda environment from person number one's computer. Then you can run the workflow and you can obtain the same results because the environment has exactly the same programs and versions that were used in the first execution. And we are relying a lot on this concept of packaging of all the dependencies for a particular workflow to reproduce these workflows. And you will see that in the second lecture and also tomorrow in the live session. Okay, coming back to the BIOSL Building Blocks Library, we gather together these building blocks that were doing a same, let's say functionality in different modules. So for example, all the building blocks related to molecular dynamics with Gromax where they are containing a BIOSL Building Blocks MD module. Those that are wrapping amber tools are containing the BioBB Amber module and the same for the modeling tools, machine learning tools, virtual screening tools, input output tools, that means retrieving information from biological databases, analysis of molecular dynamics trajectories, modifications or information that you want to change or modify or extract from PDB files, chemoinformatics, free energy calculations and we are still working on many others every day. So interaction potentials, coarse grain, algorithms, DNA specific analysis and simulations, etc. All this information, it's gathered together in one central website which is called BIOSL Building Blocks. You have the URL here, we are going to use a lot this website tomorrow but just for you to know and I'm going to present this website very quickly at the end of this presentation. But I just wanted to show you now that one of the sections of this website has all a table with all the different modules with links to the GitHub repository where you can find all the source code, links to all the documentation and read the docs, links to all the Bioconda packages, docker containers, singularity containers that you can download and execute in a really easy way. If you click on one particular module, for example, analysis, you will get a list of all the contained building blocks. If you click on one of the building blocks it will open you a read the docs documentation for the particular building block. But what I want to show you now is that if you click on one of these Bioconda links you will be able to download and install in just one single line, one particular Bioconda package that contains all the dependencies needed to run all these different wrappers that are contained in these modules. So for example, for the analysis part, analysis of molecular dynamics trajectories, if you type condi installed in your machine, of course you need to have the conda packaging system installed. If you type condi installed, it will automatically install for you, create a new environment for you with these dependencies, Humber 2019 and Gromac, so that you can then run all of these building blocks without having to install anything else and you can reproduce that in different machines. The syntax, this is important because I was telling you at the beginning interoperability is a central piece of the idea of the Bioconda building blocks, and that means that we need a standard syntax for all the different building blocks, and this is the syntax. The syntax is you need to import a module, define inputs and outputs, paths to your file system, properties that are parameters of your particular tool that are being wrapped, that is being wrapped, and then you need to launch a building block. Very easy. This is an example. This is the EditConf tool from Gromac's package that creates a solvent box. You need to import the module, then create, define inputs, outputs and properties, input, output are two files in your file system, and properties are the parameters. In this case, I want the box to be cubic, and I want the box to have one angstrom, one nanometer, because this is Gromac's, of distance from the protein to the end of the box. And finally, you launch the building block with the inputs, the outputs and the properties. This is all you need to know to run our building blocks, and I will demonstrate, I hope that I can demonstrate you during this presentation and also the live session tomorrow, but you may be wondering how do you know these inputs, outputs and properties that you have to define to launch the building block. So these are specified in the documentation for each of the building blocks. In this documentation for the EditConf building block, you have parameters that are mandatory, input, grow, output, grow path, and also the properties that you can define. And let me show you a couple of examples so that you see that the synthesis is exactly the same for all the different building blocks. For example, if you want to, if you are interested in mutating a residue, in this case an arginine here for an alanine here, the same position, different residue, you just import the building block, define inputs, outputs and properties, in this case an output and the property. I want to modify arginine 5 to an alanine and then launch the building block. And you obtain, in this case, wrapping the modular tool, mutate the destructor. Another example, clustering of a molecular dynamics trajectory, you import the building block, you define inputs, outputs and properties here, and you launch the building block and you obtain a cluster, a set of an ensemble of structures from a molecular dynamics trajectory. And you see that it's exactly the same syntax. And going a little bit further, you can join together, as I was telling you at the beginning, one building block, two, three, four different building blocks. In this case, downloading a small molecule from the PDV, adding hydrogen atoms to the PDV using open bubble, minimizing the hydrogen atoms, the energy using open bubble again. And finally, paramaterializing this structure with the hydrogens to be used in a molecular dynamics simulation. And this is a workflow that you can easily run and you can find it in the demonstration workflows that we have in the website. Those are the demonstration workflows that I was telling you. So this is one particular type of the website where you can find many different workflows in Jupyter notebook format, in this case, for example, a protein MD setup, but you will find automatic ligand parametrization, protein ligand complex MD setup, which is the one that we are going to use tomorrow in the live session and also free energy calculations. And also we have a brand new one with a protein ligand docking example. Okay, I wanted to give you a couple of success stories to see that what we can do with the BIOXA building blocks library. The first one, I'm going to be quick because I don't have time, but the first one is an example that we run a couple of years ago with a widely studied, one of the widely most used and studied enzymes in biochemistry, which is a part of, part of a kinase because it's following the glycolysis and also because the mutations affecting the structure. They are known to cause anemia disease. And actually what we wanted to explore is what these different mutations, how these different mutations were affecting the dynamics and the flexibility of these bacteria. And for that, we downloaded 200 different annotated mutations from Uniprot, some of them pathological, some of them not. And we simulated all, modeled and simulated all the 200 different mutations in one single job using these pycoms workflow manager using the adaptation layer, the external layer on the BIOXA building blocks. That allowed us to run 200 simulations, model the simulation, the mutation, prepare the simulation and run the simulation. All of, each of the simulation in four different nodes in the Marino Stone supercomputer in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center using almost 40,000 different cores in one single job. And this is the result with 200 different folders with all the simulations that we are now exploring and trying to understand the differences between the flexibility and what the mutations are, how the mutations are affecting these dynamics and flexibility. So after that, we went to something a little bit more complex than that. And in this case, we moved to the EGFR, Pedermal Growth Factor Receptor. Again, another widely studied enzyme that is known to be related to many types of cancer. In this case, the overexpression of this EGFR is ending up in cancer, but we have FDA approved drugs that basically are stopping the function of this EGFR and those are the ATP competitive inhibitors. But unfortunately, we know that some mutations that are appearing in the last years, they are giving resistance to these FDA approved drugs. So we wanted to explore how these mutations are affecting the binding of these drugs. And for that, again, we run a massive amount of molecular dynamics simulation using the library. And with these simulations that were run for the wild type protein, for the mutated protein, for the protein with all the ligands attached and with also the protein and the mutation with the ligand attached. So all the different combinations, then we run free energy calculation and all of that to explore the impact of these mutations on the ligand binding affinity. And we use the workflow that you will see also in the last days of this BIOXEL summer school in the PMX lessons that is the fast growth thermodynamic integration workflow. And finally, we used exactly the same approach, this fast growth TI for the exploration of the mutations, of course, on the COVID-19. In this case, this is the COVID-19. I'm sure that you will recognize the virus. These red protuberances here are the spike protein, which is this protein here, that sometimes one of these receptor binding domains goes up. And when it goes up, it tries to be attached to the human cell, this angiotensin converting enzyme from the human cell. And then it is the starting of the invasion process in humans. So we can explore the mutations on this part here, on this region here of the receptor binding domain of the virus where basically, for example, here it is the well-known British variant. It's exactly here in the interface between the virus and the human cell. But we can go one step farther and not just looking at the mutations here, but looking at the mutation that appeared from the mutations that make the virus that is affecting the bat different from the virus that is affecting human. We know that there are almost 30 different mutations to go from one to the other, but we can explore one by one the difference, the ligand binding free energy for all the different mutations here, and then sum up all the results. And I'm not going to spoil you, but the manuscript is submitted and it's being checked also experimentally. So we are very proud of the use of these biological building blocks for a particular study with very impact nowadays, which is the COVID-19 zoonotic transference here. Okay, so you have all this information in the paper that we published a couple of years ago. We are very proud of being recognized by the European Commission as one of the high potential innovations of last year. But what makes us really proud is the usage now of renowned groups in the field, especially about the online tutorials that we are developing. That has these two it says are exceptional. We are very proud of that. And these tutorials are the ones that we are going to use in this tomorrow in the live session, and I'm going to introduce you in the second lecture today. Okay, there's much more about building blocks. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm going to stop here, but just let me tell you that we have many different tutorials in the website. I recommend you to take a look at the website. All the information is there. So we have common word for language examples, pressed APIs to run the building blocks from your own computer, but running the building blocks in another computer in a remote computer, no need to install anything in your own computer. A common line workflows, which is the approximation that we used in these access stories, we have a web server, we have examples on Galaxy and also on NIME. So I will recommend you to take a look at the website. Okay, so we are going to see the website tomorrow. I'm sure so I'm going to skip these slides of the website. And just tell you, just as the last one before jumping to the next lecture, that you have the possibility also to build your own building block and you have all the different steps to build your own building block in the website. So if you are a developer and you want to integrate your tool in the building block, you can do that. Just follow the steps that you will find here. Last slide as a summary, the BIOS building blocks offers tool interoperability mainly, and with this library you will be able to build workflows in a very easy way and we are going to see that tomorrow. It offers you repressibility of the whole workflows and portability and we will see that in the next lecture and we'll tell you about the conda packaging of all the workflows of the whole workflow. But you need to know that the BIOS building blocks are not magic, so you still need to know about the tool that is being wrapped because most of the properties, parameters of the tool, you need to know what they mean and what they are. And you still need to build your own workflows, but don't worry because we will take a look at these two complicated points in the next session about the workflows tutorial, so please stay with me for the next lesson. Thank you.