My favourite coaching tools: The Five Why's / 5Y's

Caveats:

5 Why's is absolutely simple and brilliant for multiple contexts - both for individuals and especially for teams and groups. There is 1 caveat - the answers provided to the different level of "Why?" can sometimes lead off-course or way off-course. Part of the craft of learning to apply the 5 Why's successfully is some critical analysis/reflection to ensure you get relevant answers at each of the "Why?" questions.

Five Why's To Find The Root Cause Of Many Problems

I am not sure where I first read about the "5 Why's". It could have been in a management textbook that also covered Ishikawa Diagrams AKA Fishbone/Cause-Effect Analysis Diagrams. Certainly I found Taiichi Ohno's Five Whys tool usefully described in Esther Derby and Diana Larsen's Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and even more usefully described in Eric Ries' The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses).

This tool is deceptively simple looking and incredibly easy to get wrong.

Five Why's Are Not So Easy To Practice Successfully - They Require Practice And Reflective Learning

Required:

Paper and pen, OR Whiteboard and marker

A fault/mistake/problem/error that has occurred

Step 1:  Ask "Why did the fault/mistake/problem/error occur?"
            Answer "There was some reason in the some place that caused the fault/mistake/problem/error"

            E.g.
            Why did the presentation not work properly at the event?
            -> It was an MS Powerpoint 2010 version file and the computer was running MS Powerpoint 2000.

Step 2: Ask "Why was there that reason in that place?"
            Answer "There was something underlying that reason in some underlying place"

            E.g.
            Why did Daryl try to present his newer version on an older version computer?
            -> His laptop did not work with the room's projector

Step 3: Repeat another 3 times to get to 5 Levels.
            E.g.
            Why did his laptop not work with the room's projector?
            Daryl's laptop's video outputs were not compatible with the projector's inputs

Step 4: E.g.
            Why did Daryl not have a converter with him?
            Daryl did not call the venue in advance to check the supported interfaces

Step 5: E.g.
            Why did Daryl not call the venue in advance?
            Daryl was too busy and forgot

At First Glance The Five Why's Look Like A Linear "Drill Down" To Root Cause

Too busy to ensure a professional presentation? I think we need a new procedure ... but will it be about company employees who present at public events or will it be about company employees who are working on projects that are forced to work in crisis mode? Or...?

And I can imagine an alternate Step 3
A.Step 3: E.g.
               Why did Daryl not export his newer file to the older format to run the presentation on the older computer?
               Daryl was running late and too stressed to remember this feature existed

A.Step 4: E.g.
               Why was Daryl running late?
                Daryl left the office late

A.Step 5: E.g.
               Why did Daryl leave the office late?
               Daryl was doing some urgent project work that caused him to leave late

Perhaps we need those possible procedures above. Perhaps Daryl needs some management mentoring/coaching on his time management skills or his prioritisation mechanisms. Or on his confident knowledge of PowerPoint's features.

It is very important is that the underlying cause and/or location is queried at each level. Do some critical analysis at each response and ensure the coachee/team is drilling downward on a realistic path. Sometimes there are multiple paths to drill, spend the time and drill them all, especially until everyone is much more familiar with the tool, at which point you'll notice far fewer possible paths to drill down as people are better expressing the correct underlying cause and/or layer first-time.

The final Why often highlights a human problem. Typically a system improvement is the correct solution to ensure the human problem is not repeated. For individual engagements this is usually a training item and/or a couple of roleplay scenarios. For team engagements it could be training or a new procedure or an update to an existing procedure. Be on the safe side and read Four Days With Dr Deming - better yet get your coachee or team members to study it BEFORE they try to fix the wrong problem with the wrong approach (and accidentally make things worse).

Five Why's Help Teams Get Through Non-Linear Complexity And Often Identify Uh-Oh Root Causes Rather Than Ah-Hah Enlightenments!

Done correctly, it is possible to produce a correction action or step at every level uncovered/traced that would ensure that not only the level's specific fault in this instance is not repeated again, but also to prevent similar class faults - which is a major win!

Thankyou for supporting! Let me know how it goes!

My favourite coaching tools: SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Responsible person assigned, Timebound) Goals

Caveats:
The SMART/S.M.A.R.T. acronym has slightly different permutations depending on where and when people learn about it, and where and when they apply it. This is the version I use for the purposes of coaching.

SMART Actions, Objectives or Goals Make The Difference!

SMART Goals are extremely powerful change enablement tools for individuals as well as teams. I use them for 1-1 meetings (see my previous post: My Favourite Coaching Tools: 1-1 Meetings, and Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman's Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management ) as well as Retrospectives (see Diana Larsen's Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great). I also use them for individual coaching plans.

Required:
Some past/background information and/or knowledge and a desire to change something in the future.
Paper and pen

Step 1: I write up/down the labels I would like the coachee, or the team I am coaching to apply as:

      S - Specific
      M - Measurable
      A - Achievable
      R - Responsible person assigned
      T - Timebound

Step 2: Then I give some examples of bad SMART goals and rework them to better/good SMART goals, eg:

     "improve our office"

Is not good, because it does not come even close to fitting at least the acronym!

     S - improve our office
     M - it is tidy
     A - we can do this
     R - us all
     T - end of next month

This is clearer and agreed by the coachee/team that there is significant progress. However I now point out where possible problems could be - and I do this in any order as SMART is not necessarily order-specific!

     T - end of next month....?

Is the end of next month a weekend, a Monday or a Friday? Does it make a difference in our collective experience of deadlines? Is the change we're trying to bring about really that hard that it will take so much time to do? What is a more challenging boundary for the time? What prevents you from reaching this goal, and achieving the benefit, today? Tomorrow? And with these kind of questions, even for a hypothetical example, it is clear that a better goal and time boundary is more like which is clearer and "in focus":

     T - end of this week

But this too is not really specific enough as there are all sorts of things that can go wrong as ends of weeks have a nasty way of suddenly happening to people and challenging change goals get forgotten in the rush to get away, or get half-done. Is this the morning, noon or afternoon? Or is COB (Close of Business)? Compare to:

     T - By 12pm on Friday 8 June 2012.

That's specific! Anyone can now figure out if the goal was achieved definitely by that time, and, importantly the day, date and time is crystal clear and easy to remember/remind about if required which helps to ensure people keep the goal in mind - the sense of urgency automatically increases as the focal point draws nearer.

Now let's look at R... "us all". In team situations, I've found it more effective to actually name a leader for the goal, than allowing a team to loosely assign "team". This leader will execute the Measure and if the goal has not been achieved, encourage the team or provide feedback to the team. The team self-selects the Responsible Person Assigned who uses the opportunity to improve on the craft of servant-leadership.

      R - Joe Smith

Now I might flip to S ... "improve our office". What the heck? Does this mean get interior decorators in/architects/cleaners/new furniture/pictures on walls/pictures off walls/bring in a stereo/stop playing heavy metal/etc/etc?

A nice open question helps really get the problem space and possible solution spaces identified: "What of our office should be improved?". For instance "tidiness" might be more specifically phrased as:

      S - All our desks to be clear of food, cups, plates, litter, loose papers and dust

Which could be even more improved on by adding if "daily" as opposed to "weekly" is the true intent...to look professional when clients visit.

      S - All our desks to be clear of food, cups, plates, litter, paper and dust at the end of every day.

Right so far we have a very clear mental image formed of what needs to happen, by when and who will be checking it. How?

      M - "is tidy"

Is subjective! We're looking for 1 objective measure of success that the coachee/team and coach actually agree on (in this case the coach becomes a very cheap additional layer of assurance).

Again, the pause and wait for the coachee/team to come up with objective measures...perhaps

      M - There are 0 instances of food, 0 cups, 0 plates, 0 litter, 0 papers and no dust on any desk or table in the entire office by 6pm everyday

Extremely hard to argue that! And even more tricky to achieve if there are empty desks/tables in the office that are used but not "owned" by anyone. How to ensure accountability for "entire office" - which is more the motivation that we discovered along the way - a professional office that clients see when they visit?

These questions/fine tunings are discussed and eventually negotiated ... the Responsible Person Assigned takes notes if this is for a team! :-)

And finally, with such a clear picture in mind for S, M, R and T the final buy-in from the coachee/team is the A. Is this Achievable?

      A - Yes, this is achievable!

It is extremely important that the coachee or the team fully buy-in to this goal otherwise motivational energy to do something different is going to be lacking and most times the uplifting goal will not be achieved or it will be achieved but undermined. In which case the session creating the SMART goal is a partial waste of precious time.

And perhaps another 1-2 examples like this, or perhaps into Step 3 - letting the coachee/team attempt for themselves!

Step 3: Now I let the team have their first attempt:

     S - improve team culture
     M - team is happier
     A - we can do this!
     R - us all!
     T - tomorrow!!

The first time I saw a team copy my poor example it stunned me. Then I realised, especially over time and this copying occurred repeatedly, it's the simplicity and first thing people trying this for the first time do: they take the first step they feel comfortable with, and have seen in the recent past. And know they will be able to improve it with my assistance - as I showed them in the worked examples. And many seem to find it fun to start so obviously wrong!

Anyway, in this example it looks good, and it sounds good - HOORAY! It even fits the acronym slots, so HOORAY x2 for the coachee/team! I sometimes even say encouraging things like "I truly admire your passion and enthusiasm and am encouraged by the rising energy levels.... however, this is not a good SMART goal for the following reasons..." or "I like this start to this goal! And already it is clear based on the worked examples what has to be fixed - so who's first with a suggestion?" Pretty much repeating all that was said in Step 2, in different orders and constantly using the worked examples as reference point.

The main thing is to get everyone collaborating and praising successful steps in unfamiliar territory. Giving people the confidence to try.

For example - I help the coachee or team iterate through their SMART goal attempt and improve it incrementally - this helps get a lot of buy-in from each participant who collaborates and agrees to the exact wording (2 of the jobs of a facilitator is to ensure everyone in the room is heard and is also contributing).

      Is "improve team culture" specific?

"Kind of", I might say "...but improve means different things to different team members!". The same for the word "team" as well "culture". At this point I pause......and eventually the coachee or the team start to brainstorm a different way of saying what they want to say. At this time I encourage a bit of divergence of ideas for a while as some of these are relevant for other parts of the acronym if not specifically for Specific. After enough time I encourage convergence by playing back the ideas that have emerged and a better Specific statement at this time might begin to look like:

   Team:
      We have fun together
      We go for lunch together
      We go for lunch together to the Fabulous Restaurant that we now all agree on together

   Individual:
      Produce a high quality weekly team report
      Take my weekly report to my manager and discuss what parts are good, and what parts can be improved.
      Take my weekly team report to my manager and discuss in detail which parts can be improved and set SMART goals for each of those parts so that I fully understand the required changes and their importance.

After iterating these kinds of statements, very specific pieces of the puzzle are teased out and produce excellent SMART Goals! As the coachee/team become accustomed to the required level of specification, and the forces that are experienced during their creation, they get better and better at this.

Thankyou for supporting! Now go score!

SMART Goals Objectives Actions As Clear Outcomes Benefit All Striving To Make The Change A Reality

My favourite coaching tools: 1-1 meetings

Caveats:

1-1 meetings can be intimidating, especially for those who have had none or very few, or they've been used by managers purely for reprimands instead of growth opportunities.

I've learned what I know through experience and reading - especially I think Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby's Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management is a must read for running successful 1-1's.

Requirements:

Safe quiet space - sometimes hiding in plain sight eg in canteens is also a good place so long as you can still hear and see each other perfectly.

Notepad and pen - I advise using low-fi as much as possible as they are less intrusive and always work. Easy to update later, and refer back to before your next meeting.

Optional:
Highly recommend scheduling 1 hour sessions every 2 weeks way in advance at a time in the diary of the coachee that is a good time - preferably not straight after their hard meetings and preferably not when they are most needed by their team members or managers for important things. Change takes concentration, focus and commitment - as coach you can't control these but you can be skilful in making them more possible.

Step 1:

The trick is to have an open discussion, full of open questions. At the beginning, it seems a bit strange for people who have never done this before to know what to say, what to ask, so it is important to build up a relationship by taking an active interest in discovery about what is common to both. To discover the opportunities where you can offer some advice or shortcuts, to discover other areas where you may need more tools or data from others to truly help the coachee.

I generally give my 1-3 minute intro, and ask the coachee to do the same, picking up on common career moments, or outside interests, or phrases or - whatever catches my attention. And then start to ask questions around those things, ensuring as I do that the coachee relaxes. If the coachee does not relax, there is always a next time to try again. While coaching is not counselling, deep relationships are still established and must be done sensitively and sensibly.

I take notes especially of things I can do outside the meeting to help - for instance referals to other people, books or websites. Towards the end of the meeting I setup a working agreement/plan about what I will do for the next meeting, and what the coachee will do eg meet someone, read a web site. In the early days the "homework" I give is usually short and used as basis for conversation in the followup 1-1 meeting.

Step 2:
I like to summarise the meeting in an email, especially what I have to do and by when, and what the coachee has to do and by when. For some coachees, this might be the opportunity to complete an Myers-Briggs for me/them (see Free online Myers-Briggs Type Indicator).

The way I create these summaries is important and simple. After every meeting, I summarise in email by forwarding the previous emailed summary. This creates a rolling log that is extremely easy to manage, always backed up by email servers, and a simple format to check progress - dates, timeline sequence, agreements, what was done, what was not done, etc very easy, and I've successfully used weekly rolling logs in this way for over a year. But this does not replace my low-fi notepad and pen for during the meeting - I sometimes also end up drawing things!

Step 3:
I do my "homework" (or actions if you prefer such speak). This begins to form the basis of trust for someone who does not know me - I do what I say, repeat, repeat. And I hope that the coachee is also doing their "homework". Sometimes I drop-in and check if I can help to ensure that the actions are being done - especially in cases where progress is slow or non-existent. I like to discover what in the workplace could be blocking the coachee - in order to strategise to unblock progress.

Step 4:
The 2nd 1-1 about 2 weeks later. It usually goes a lot smoother as the ice is broken and there is progress to report on both sides, and some homework to specifically discuss and put effort into. Or, there is no progress and this too is something to specifically discuss and decide to put further effort into or not. In opt-in engagements, people opt-in by doing, and they opt-out by not doing. There is no right or wrong as it is all about what can be done with the time and effort allowed.

I like to hear about what work problems were encountered since the previous 1-1. What they thought about the homework, what questions they have now for me. Then I like to clarify and rephrase my understanding. If there is homework output/outcomes then we discuss that for a bit (helps to know a lot more about the homework you've given in order to have a fruitful and enlightening discussion!).

During all this talking, again I am making notes like in the first meeting. And I am checking each item on the agreement list of what the coachee achieved, and what I achieved. Usually this cycle results in a couple more actions for both of us, and then I request the next piece of homework....

And this essentially is how I use 1-1's. They're status meetings, repeated, to enable shared understanding and for me to offer help as well as point in the direction of useful things as homework for the coachee. This inevitably creates more work for both of us - just enough for us to do in the 2 weeks inbetween.

Some tips:
If the homework is too much, then it is not completed - for either of us.
If the meeting is too long, then summarising it is too hard - try to always leave wanting more!
If there is no progress, and it seems like there won't be before the next session, decide together to stop sessions until there is enough slack time again for the coachee to continue their growth plan

For extra depth in getting 1-1's right, I also highly recommend Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

My favourite coaching tools: Clustering

Caveats:

No caveats - so far over the years I have been using this, sceptics and even those who know the technique and have a feeling about what will be revealed, all use it willingly and correctly.

I first experienced clustering during a software project retrospective facilitated by 1 of my seniors in 2007. Since then I've read up on Esther Derby and Diana Larsen's Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (Pragmatic Programmers) must have book, as well as Luke Hohmann's Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products and Services, and seen just what gold clustering produces!

Requirements

Either a clean wall or large clean table surface

1 or more participants

Cards, Post-Its, or similar small, low fidelity things that are easy to pick up, have some information on them, and place somewhere else (for brevity, I will refer to these as just cards)

Step 1:

Each card contains either some writing (eg data collected from team members during a retrospective, news articles) or some graphic (eg pictures, photos, Archetypes, etc). Spread all the cards out and get the group to have a look/read through them in a timebox.

Depending on the size of the group, the number of data cards, 5-10-15 minutes should be sufficient for each timebox. It is the pressure of the timebox that drives the right outcomes in a group setting, but for 1-1 sometimes a little less pressure is more beneficial - be guided by your coachee!

Step 2:
Again setting the timebox, ask everyone to cluster: everyone has to find cards, attempt to keep them on the surface or near, 1-at-a-time, and move that card closer to one or more others that the card is related to in some way either obvious or not. Essentially we're facilitating the creation of categories without names (so far) that are important to this group, in this data, in a consensus building way.

Step 3:
Often the wall or table is too small for the group and/or number of cards, and often some members of the group like to stand back and watch, rather than participate. Your job as facilitator is to make sure every person moves several of the cards, and participates/contributes to the creation and destruction of the clusters. I often just use a "line up" method and request people to move back as I think they've had enough time, and request people to move forward as I think they have not had enough time.

A major team-building side-effect/benefit of a small room/surface at this time, is that people actually have to talk to each other and negotiate with verbal or non-verbal cues as they try to move past each other - which all adds up to better team understanding and cohesion! Of course this adds to Health and Safety concerns, so be sensible.

Step 4:
Once the clusters are settled, as facilitator you need to quality check them. Are all the bugs in the bugs cluster? Are all the specification problems in the specification problems cluster? And all the risks are in the risk cluster? And all those others we're unsure what to do with, they're in the miscellaneous cluster? Right?

WRONG! However, to extricate from the above incorrectness, a useful way is to take each miscellaneous card and recluster as much as possible from the unuseful clusters around that.

Alternatively, request the group to try again, this time finding other relationships such as timing, specific people, specific technology failures, specific bug etc etc ... and see what cluster data then appear. And then ask them to try again, and again, until really, there are some real and new themes that have emerged!

Step 5:
Now ask the group to collaboratively name the clusters according to the following rules:
1. Short concise descriptive sentences are better than
2. Short descriptive phrases are better than
3. A list of words are better than
4. A single word

And rotate the writer of the cluster name for each cluster. The group has reach consensus - again a great team building activity to practice in low-risk non-crisis moments! The name of the cluster is written typically on a different colour card, or with a different colour pen, or font, and is usually underlined to distinguish it clearly from "data cards".

If a good name can not be agreed on by consensus, often it means the cluster should be broken down again, and this is a good thing! People, especially in fast changing environments, learn more from retrying than just getting on with old themes, old behaviours, old attitudes. This is a high energy, exciting, engaging, positive, great thing to do, not boring, unless you're letting the person or group members do it wrong. A little uncertainty, discomfort goes a long way to really getting to the heart of [hidden] matters.

At this stage, for the coaching technique of clustering, we're done. We have allowed underlying themes hidden in data cards, to emerge into categories that are somehow, and some why, important to the individual you're coaching or the team you're facilitating, who have been making consensus after consensus, and not really trying to out-think the future consequence of the enjoyment they're getting from this physical exercise. And if you then "litmus test" the discovered themes, generally the coachee or group members agree they would never have suggested those as areas where there is some weakness or strength to be explored further with goal setting and plan creation to achieve.

Clustering can be used for so many purposes where there is data, and you're trying to let hidden themes  emerge.

(*tip, if you ever need to use post-its, experiment with them to find the best ones for your purpose. Usually you would want "super stickies" in bright neon colours. Also, these days post-its also come in A3 size even - perfect for walls where tictac or bluetac has been banned, and much cheaper than the really cool Magic Whiteboard which I also use and think is great for complex ad hoc charts!)

Thankyou for reading! Let me know how you get on when you practice!