My favourite coaching tools: Stephen R Covey's Four Quadrants For Time Usage

Caveats:
Another very simple and effective tool to provide, to teach, yet the power of habit and the interference of self-perception often means that coachees struggle to fully deploy the Four Quadrants and learn from the data they collect about themselves. Practice will be required especially by those who are "too busy" - in fact as a coach you may have to help your coachee capture all the correct details by seating yourself near them if possible.

I first read about this tool in Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (UK) (or US) which provides a link to a PDF containing basically the steps below. I believe the tool is actually presented in First Things First (UK) (or US) co-authored by Stephen and A. Roger Merrill which I have not read yet.

Required:
Sheet of A4 and a pen
A day in the life of the coachee
Ruler (optional)

Step 1: Help your coachee to create 4 quadrants on the piece of paper. Turn the paper lengthwise and draw a vertical line through the middle as well as a horizontal line also through the middle.

Step 2: Label Column 1: "Urgent" and Column 2: "Not Urgent"

Step 3: Label Row 1: "Important" and Row 2: "Unimportant"

Step 4: Pick a day in the life of the coachee where they will capture all the tasks and activities they engage in, on this matrix. A simple 1 worder should be sufficient.

As a coach with a very busy coachee, you might seat yourself nearby and create the same matrix for your coachee to compare with later.

Step 5: At the end of the day, the coachee should have approximately 30 words. Some might have as few as 5-10 (in which case your own observation version might be required, or simply more practice).

Step 6: Ask the coachee to guesstimate how much time was spent performing each of the tasks and activities noted.

Step 7: Now calculate the percentage of time spent in each of the quadrants

Step 8: Now label the top left quadrant as "I: Burned Out", the top right quadrant as "II: Change Agent", the bottom left quadrant as "III: Bored But Busy" and the bottom right quadrant as "IV: Fired"

You can use Rory Bowman's Public Domain picture to discuss the quadrants further:

Covey Matrix

Step 9: Put the date on the sheet of paper and have your coachee either punch holes and file it, or take a photograph and file that safely on email/computer

Step 10: Put a note in the calendar to repeat this exercise in about a month to see if there has been any shift.

Usually the 2nd and 3rd running of the tool by the coachee does result in a small change to the amount of time spent in Quadrant II - where Covey suggests people should be. This is because the coachee is trying to improve themselves, and are now aware of the danger of Quadrant IV "work", as well as, unfortunately, trying to improve/change to impress you as the coach. Make sure to reiterate that coaching is for their benefit and that they're trying to break bad habits and increase good habits to improve their happiness at work, to become more effective, to get promoted even.

Some coachees get quite excited and suggest creating and completing 1 of these every day but I advise against this as it just creates more data, which needs to be interpreted and could result in overload / not seeing the wood for the trees. Sometimes though, I do ask the coachee to put 4 questions on the wall/monitor in front of them at work: "Burn out?", "Bored?", "Fired?" and "Change agent?" which seems to have quite a positive effect for the first few weeks - until the new thought processes are more familiar.

Change is hard, and change takes time and dedication to make happen, especially to/for oneself. 

Or

Change is easy, can take place spontaneously fast, especially to/for oneself.

"There is no try" - Yoda

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: "What do I do that...?"

Caveats:

It is very very extremely extremely uncomfortable uncomfortable to ask for feedback the first time. But every time it is asked for, it get's a whole lot less comfortable. I teach my coachees to ask for feedback in this way, as well with their own customised 360 appraisals where the local HR system is insufficient in my opinion. But this caveat applies to really helping coachees take this first step, to requesting, and preparing them for receiving the feedback, and later on for processing what the feedback means and then deciding what to do.

I learned about this tool in 2007 on a soft skills training course and I don't know where the trainer found it. I have applied it successfully for my own growth approximately every 3 months for years and years now. I have also taught it to many others for their own growth for many years too. It is very simple, very quick, and extremely effective. Essentially this tool is also part of Peter Drucker's "manager's letter" which I previously wrote about.

Requirements:
A well selected colleague to ask in a safe environment
Paper/diary and pen

Step 1: Coachee thanks the colleague for coming to the meeting. Coachee explains that they would like to improve their effectiveness at work, and that this is 1 of the steps in order to do so. That this step is about understanding how others - the colleague - perceive the coachee.

Step 2: Coachee then asks the simple question "What do I do that helps you?". And remains open with facial expression, body language and speech whilst writing notes down on everything that is provided. When the colleague has finished, the coachee thanks the colleague for their input.

What Do I Do That Helps? Accept Your Feedback Whatever It Is!

Step 3: And now for the more tricky (cringe factor) question "What do I do that hinders you?". Again, thanks to the previous practice with remaining open and non-judging in Step 2, the coachee simply copies all the input down as it comes. This is not the time to process, nor is the time to defend. The job is keep listening and keep making notes, no matter what is said.

What Do I Do That Hinders? Accept Your Feedback Whatever It Is!

Most times what is said is quite good, insightful and valuable. Exactly what we want for self-growth! This is partly because we "prime" the other person's thoughts, and set the tone of the feedback with the opening "What helps?" question. Psychology is actually really good stuff - when used appropriately!

Occasionally an inappropriate attack or negative criticism is passed, but this is extremely rare in my experience, and also in my many coachees' experiences. The great thing about becoming adults is that we realise and learn to tone down our childhood ability to be just plain horrible to each other without realising how horrible we're being! Adults treat these opportunities to provide feedback to colleagues with respect and sincerity, usually.

(only some 2 year old psyches are walking around in adult bodies sometimes get nasty with giving feedback - and you can learn a great deal about yourself from them also!)

Step 4: When the input is completed, the coachee again thanks the provider.

Step 5: SOMETIMES MAGIC happens at this point. This is when the colleague has just experienced a MOMENT and now wishes to receive feedback also. And the coachee now becomes the mentor of this new tool as well as the provider of respectful feedback.

Step 6: Final thanks and wrap up of the session.

After the session, the input is now analysed for interesting (positive, negative, confusing, learnings, etc) things which I and the coachee discuss. Occasionally the input causes an emotional response - be prepared! Self-growth and self-awareness is not an easy ride. Remember to breathe!

Reflect And Grow Your Self, Help Them Grow Themself By Your Example

Over time, as the people giving feedback and the coachee become familiar with the tool, and with each other in this new dimension of their relationship, there does exist the opportunity to clarify feedback where it is vague or abstract. To ask for specific objective examples and separate out the feelings and really increase the level of empathy and understanding of what's really going on at work.

This data collected is then used as input to the coaching plan. Sometimes some of the feedback is so powerful to the coachee that they write key items on post-it notes and stick them up on the refrigerator at home, or monitor - anywhere they can see them often, can see them at the beginning of the day and be reminded to repeat, or to not repeat actions/behaviours which resulted in the feedback.

I suggest every 3 months initially and then as the relationship between the feedback requester and responder grows and changes, a natural rhythm will emerge. Of course if the coachee is not seen to be adjusting problematic behaviour from the responder's point of view, eventually the responder will stop providing so it is important to take on board the feedback and work on any issues discovered - sometimes maybe not changing own behaviour but helping the responder change theirs using influence.

My favourite coaching tools: Peter Drucker's "manager's letter"

Caveats:
Coaching with Peter Drucker's Manager's Letter has a little similarity to my previous tool posting Record, Typeup and Playback. I think this tool can be used for everyone, including your Self :). I might use this Drucker tool instead of Record, Typeup and Playback or I might use it with. It really depends on the coachee, and the manager, and if there is a particular aspect that has been highlighted and we all need a little more information before proceeding in the right direction!

I discovered the manager's letter in the fantastic book Essential Drucker (Classic Drucker Collection) that contains 26 chapters by ONE OF THE management guru's - Dr Peter Drucker.

I cannot highly recommend this book enough to anyone studying management or anyone wanting to become a better manager. It's the only book out of the hundreds I own and have read that I actually underlined, drew pictures in and made comments in the margins. I love my books and keep them in pristine condition but Drucker's ideas, tools and writing style inspired me to break my rules.

A few years later I read his other incredible and inspirational book from the 1950's - The Practice of Management!

Words escape me trying to describe or summarise main points. Every sentence and every paragraph on all but 2 pages expanded my thinking in some way. It took quite a while to get through that one - a great deal of introspection and reflection of past management situations to recall and reconsider.

Required:
Text editor
Sufficient time

The coachee writes a 1 page letter to their line manager or their peer. In this letter the coachee:

Step 1:  Identifies the superior's job's objectives, and the objectives of their own job as they see them.

This is not a copy-and-paste out of an intranet web page or HR tool. It is written concisely and clearly in their own language, and from memory/current understanding of these 2 areas.

What matters in this step and in each of the next steps is that the responses are really the coachee's perception of reality, uninfluenced by any external things.

Step 2: Next the coachee sets out the performance standards that they understand and being applied to them.

Again, not a copy-and-paste, and again brutally honest, own language, own experience, own understanding.

Step 3: Then the coachee lists the things they must do themselves to attain the goals, and also lists the major obstacles to attaining the goals.

Often organisations are adept at creating vague, abstract and almost meaningless goals, weak actions (which are not actually changes or growth makers) to achieve the goals and transparent obstacles in order to not offend anyone and to ensure some HR or governance checklist is all ticked off. Here again, it is important to get total honesty from the coachee and list real items.

Step 4: Next on the letter is the list of things the superior and company do that help, and the list of things the superior and the company do that hinder.

This is basically one of the most powerful and simple 1-1 solicited feedback tools I ever learned, used, still use and now teach! I even wrote it up as another favourite coaching tool - What Do I Do That Helps You? What Do I Do That Hinders You?

Step 5: The final piece of the letter is the coachee's proposal of what he/she wants to do over the next year to reach his goals.

Yes - the always important "call to adventure" that all such exercises conclude with. Without thinking through the next small change in the short-term future, that "thought precedes reality" stuff will not occur. So we have to lay the seed(s)/frame the future(s)/formulate the vision(s)...or just simply START!

The Manager's Letter should be deployed twice a year according to Peter's research and experience with the managers (and their departments) he was working with. I've not yet had the pleasure of seeing a second/followup letter but I hope my coachees who wrote it once with my guidance, at least write it for themselves, if not for their newly inspired managers.

Successfully deployed and used by managers and their reports, this rolling system of staying relevant and updating of goals and understanding in both directions is much better than forced HR/MBO systems which only uncover almost nonsense by only touching on 1 of the above 5 sections. Peter also advises that when used correctly, the manager can accept the letter which then becomes the agreed charter between manager and subordinate. But this really does require a substantial level of relationship between the 2 individual as well as trust within the greater organisation.

Drucker's Manager's Letter Helps Reports And Leaders Identify Gaps In Understanding And Plan To Align And Close Them

Of course, if there are surprises in the letter that expose some lurking misunderstandings, the chance to have clearing up conversation(s) and take corrective action(s) now exists! Before things go really bad unnecessarily. In general the writer and manager/peer/coach will have a good conversation to ensure everyone is on the same page before going further...and accepting the charter (modified or not).

Though, as coach, reviewing the surprises in the letters I have seen, and humbly inquiring - sometimes the coachee, sometimes of the manager - I have helped highlight how important every manager interaction and comment is. Subordinates constantly form incorrect impressions and hence behave in non-beneficial ways (good people making good decisions based on bad data). But once the correct intention is illuminated, things get better and easier! Alignment is a really powerful, commonsense thing to achieve in order to achieve greater goals together synergistically!

Coaching with Drucker's Manager's Letter can be used either as collection of data for reinterpretation, as well as to form a coaching plan. If taken "all the way" - to include the update with the manager - all parties are well primed for "Results-Based Coaching". Taken further, this Drucker tool can also be used in environments striving for deep democracy / sociocracy / stewardship - posts for another time!

My favourite coaching tools: Free online Visual Auditory Kinaesthetic - VAK - communication style preference assessment

Caveats
Some people really just don't get this, either. And, VAK confusingly can be applied to preferred/natural communication style, as well as to preferred learning style. This tool is for preferred COMMUNICATING style. (for VAK learning style assessment see my previous post: Free Online VAK Learning Style Assessment)

Again, this is a scaling assessment, and there are several around that you can download for free as well. I liked this for an online free tool as it is consistent with my previous more detailed ones in a proper psychometric test centre. Some tests actually highlight how strongly preferred the style is as compared to the others - this is useful to know as well, but I have not found it very useful for coaching purposes.

It does ask you for personal details at the end, but I managed to proceed to my results without completing the fields or providing real information.

Required:
Internet access
Quiet space
10-15 minutes

Step 1:
Give this link to the coachee:  http://www.new-oceans.co.uk/new/lsdi.htm. Again I think the best time to do the assessment is in the morning, before work really starts.

Step 2:
When the assessment is complete, you will have the 3 in preferred sequence for communicating.

You now have material you can use to support the coaching goals and plans where guiding communication is required (100% of the time?). Once you are aware of your own preferred communication style, and your coachee's learning style, you can tailor what you say to be much more effective. And vice-versa, once you know your preferred learning style and your coachee's preferred communication style, instead of "shielding out" inadvertently some information you are sent by your coachee, you can be more aware to receiving, albeit in your non-favourite style! I find coaching relationships where we both know each other's preferred learning and communication styles much more fun as it allows us to safely practice new approaches on each other, to prepare us both for using these tools with others that we are having "problems" with. Really useful stuff!

My favourite coaching tools: Free online Visual Auditory Kinaesthetic - VAK - learning styles assessment

Caveats:
Some people really just don't get this. And, VAK confusingly can be applied to preferred learning style, as well as to natural communication style. This tool is for preferred LEARNING style. (for VAK communication style assessment see my other post: Free Online VAK Communication Style Preference Assessment)

Again, this is a scaling assessment, and there are several around that you can download for free as well. I liked this for an online free tool as it is consistent with my previous more detailed ones in a proper psychometric test centre. Some tests actually highlight how strongly preferred the style is as compared to the others - this is useful to know as well, but I have not found it very useful for coaching purposes.

For this test you do have to give an email and some personal data which I do not like doing, and I got away with giving fictional.

Required:
Internet access
Quiet space
5-10 minutes

Step 1:
Give this link to the coachee: http://www.vak.solida.net/. Again I think the best time to do the assessment is in the morning, before work really starts.

Step 2:
When the assessment is complete, you will have the 3 styles - Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic in the coachee's preferred sequence.

You now have material you can use to support the coaching goals and plans where learning is required. You also have the approach you need when explaining concepts to the coachee - a real time saver and much more enjoyable experience for you and the coachee as compared to approaching from the worst angle. And even more enjoyable if you're going to have to explain in your non-usual communication style. Personally, once I realised what my preferred/natural learning approach was, I realised why I was bored out of my skull and kept falling asleep in school and university lectures. Really useful stuff!

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.

Interesting ways to turn things around: If 1 person tells you...

There is an old story that goes something like:

"If 1 person tells you are drunk, then THEY are probably drunk.
 If another person tells you are drunk, then YOU are probably drunk!"

Let that sink in for a moment. There seems to be some truth in there, that applies not only to intoxication but to all our human behaviours!

A friend of mine added something like:

"And hence all the excuse and motivation you need to stay out and dance it all away before closing time/midnight/dawn!"

Perhaps dancing is one of your strengths if drinking is not! :-)

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!

My latest saying - Oil And Water Mix Only When Shaken

Oil and water don't mix, without a lot of shaking!

My favourite coaching tools: Positivity ratio

Caveats:

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, author of the book Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive provides an online and free lab-tested tool to assess an individual's positive emotions versus negative emotions. According to her research a 3-to-1 positive ratio leads people to the tipping point where they become resilient to any adversity and effortlessly achieve their dreams/private thoughts/musings.

A coachee who does not achieve such a high and healthy ratio has a lot of scope for seeing things differently, if they acquire the right skillsets and knowledge - with support from the coach and others of course. This tool can be quite emotionally challenging for people, so use it wisely, only with those who can cope well enough beforehand as you might not the right person to help take them from where they are now, to where they should be...a lot of the negativity might be outside work context, and if it is in the work context, you certainly have a lot of work to do.

Again this is a scaling test, so mood and environment are big - HUGE - influences on the results.

Requirements:
Internet access
Quiet space and 5 minutes

Step 1:
Provide Barbara's Positivity Test to the coachee. I suggest doing the assessment at the beginning of the day, before work really begins.

Step 2:
Discuss the results with the coachee. If the coachee wants to improve their positivity ratio, keeping an effective diary, other tools available on Barbara's website, and books like Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are good places to start, as well as of course whatever tools you as coach already have. You can once again set some goals and assist creating a coaching plan to achieve them!

My favourite coaching tools: Free strength finders test

Caveats:
Some people like to identify natural weaknesses and then work really, REALLY hard to try to overcome or diminish the effects of those weaknesses. Some people like to identify natural strengths and then work to improve those - basing the argument that there is a higher Return On Investment (ROI) on the time invested to take a good skill/behaviour to great. It is also far more enjoyable, and hence becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of improvement, and naturally diminishes the amount of time spent on doing weaker strength things. Success breeds success, and failure breeds something else.

This is another scaling assessment so I believe mood and environment affect the results. I learned from doing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment every 3 years or so, that my type shifts around. And this is sensible in my opinion as by knowing yourself better, setting some goals and working on different behaviours and attitudes, it is good to have the long-term confirmation that you are changing!

Possibly this strengthsfinders free online test is similar to a more comprehensive test which comes with a workbook - Strengthsfinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now Discover Your Strengths  (or co.uk) which sounds great! I have not looked into it.

Required:
Internet access
Quiet space
10-15 minutes

Step 1:
Give this link to the coachee: RichardStep Strengths and Weaknesses Aptitude Test (RSWAT). Again I think the best time to do the assessment is in the morning, before work really starts.

Step 2:
When the assessment is complete, you will have the "top 5" strengths (again, statistician George EP Box's "all models are wrong, some are useful" applies!). And a list in strength order of the other 29 the test apparently covers. There is some alignment between the MBTI and this RSWAT. And with this test you get a ranking order of 28 small types/aspects of the personality, so useful, in my opinion

You now have material again to either focus coaching goals and plans on making more use of the top 5, or making less use of the bottom 1, or improving skillsets around the bottom. All up to the coachee and your understanding and guidance!

My favourite coaching tools: The free online Myers-Briggs [personality] Type Indicator [assessment]

Caveats:
I feel you can use this tool with anyone, and definitely yourself too. There's enough useful information about Myers-Briggs on wikipedia here: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I received a professional evaluation a couple of years ago and as far as I remember there were a few more questions asked, and there was also confirmation of type strength after the assessment with the professional. All of my favourite coaching tools attract George EP Box's "all models are wrong, some are useful", and this 1 especially receives this treatment before I request coachees to undertake it. One of the issues with the MB test is that its results vary depending on the mood and environment of the person completing the assessment.

Required:
Internet access
Quiet room and time - I usually suggest the morning, before the work day really begins

Step 1:
Coachee completes the questionnaire at: http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/mmdi/questionnaire/
It is possible to only collect the free report - which requires either screenshots or saving the individual pages as PDFs, or to pay for the full the report. Usually the free is enlightening enough and to have a good conversation around.

Step 2:
Provide the coachee with the MBT detailed page, found off the high-level page here: http://www.personalitypage.com/html/high-level.html

Step 3:
Discuss the accuracy of the type and preferred leadership style with the coachee and see what insights are generated by discussion alone.

Step 4:
To develop more self-awareness, ask the coachee to think about the type of their spouse, family members, friends, favourite managers. I like to use the phrase my mother taught me: "birds of a feather, flock together" and another that Robert Cialdini's insightful psychology book (UK) (or US) taught me "we like those who are like us" at about this point.

Step 5:
To develop even more self-awareness, ask the coachee to think about the type of people they've had problems with in the past, their least favourite colleagues, least favourite managers. I like to use the phrase "oil and water don't mix, without effort".

Step 6:
At this point, it is possible to identify either a strong or weaker area and thus supporting skillset and behaviours that can be even further explored and/or improved on with confidence - especially if the coachee is for instance in different kind of organisational culture that is in opposition to their natural style.

* Interesting - or for more confirmation in my own experience - for certain roles in some organisations I have deployed this in, it was possible to collect several results from a number of people and begin to see similarities that must stem from the hiring decisions and career path management. Great insight! And really, not bad for a few minutes of a free tool!

My favourite coaching tools: Archetype Cards

How to use the Archetype Cards in various ways to help illuminate other perspectives with which to understand or act from for Self for others. Ancient civilisations all around the world have described archetypes in their mythology and religious systems. Carl Jung also contributed greatly to current thoughts about them in psychological studies.

Archetypes Inform Us A Great Deal About Ourselves, Others and Humanity At Large

The Caroline Myss archetype cards are easy to use by anyone, and are designed to help find and/or illuminate the sub-personalities / sub-personas / archetypes that are most active in the personalities - personal realities - of the people who use them. Cards like these are great for turning a lot of abstract and hard to grasp theory, into a practical approach to finding deeper personal truth and meaning.

This archetype cards writeup is about the understanding self perspective, before deciding a course of action to change some thing(s), when guiding self or others :)

With a deep enough commitment and explanation, sceptics do tolerate a sensible coach facilitating this exercise with the coachee with kindness, gentle humour and positivity. The archetype cards may look a little out-of-place in work environments (like tarot, oracle or angel cards to the uninformed). So, be sensitive and sensible when using them - more discretion in a safe environment is often beneficial for the coachee's experience.

Background:
Over the years I've attempted to define my value system, my principles, my motivations, my behaviours etc. And then understand them. And then feel better about my life. But I learned over time that the tools I was trying were not helpful to me - not fit for purpose nor for use. Then I was introduced to the Archetype Cards (UK) (or US) by my coach in 2011.

But let's go back in time a little, and share some stories!

My journey to discover my personal values started off with being given a blank piece of paper and told to "think hard", and "now write down your most important, or top 5-10, values" which left me with "writer's block" pretty much every time. Eventually as time ran out, I would scribble down things that sounded "good", and hope I would be able to live up to what I thought I wanted to be like. And not long after that I would feel guilty and wonder why I thought I had this value X but constantly broke it.

Then the tools got more sophisticated, and I was given a sheet of "values" and told to circle the top 10. Again, as time ran out, I would circle the ones that sounded "good". And have similar experiences as before - leading to guilt.

The tools got even more sophisticated and suddenly I had 60 odd cards in my hand with "all" the possible values, and I had to sort them, halve the pile, halve it again and again, until I had just 10 or 5. And inevitably I would reach a pile of 30, and really struggle to bring that down to 29, let alone 10. I could not tell which values were actually mine, and which did I want to be!

Every time, I felt I had just managed to pick some [semi-]random words that sounded good. Every time it was deeply unsatisfying to me. Over the years of working, I noticed a similar thing happening to my career - I do not fit into a box! (certainly not a small, typical org-chart box anyway)

So whilst pondering what this all meant in the background, another coach showed me Caroline Myss' Archetype Cards.

Required:
Quiet room
Big enough clean table
Archetype cards (Archetype Cards: An 80-card Deck with instruction booklet UK or US)
Pen and paper

Optional but not required:

1. Read the instruction booklet that come with the archetype card set
2. Read the Sacred Contracts book describing the archetypes in the card deck as well as more: 

Sacred Contracts?? Seriously? That title sounds "out of this world" weird! And, YES! Coaches (like me) read a lot of different things! The wise ones discover(ed) that fundamental human truth exist everywhere!! :-)

For the coach: Type all the card names, light attributes and shadow attributes into 3 columns in a spreadsheet

Step 0: Shuffle the archetype deck and make sure all cards are pointing the same way.

Step 1: Spread the archetype cards out, face down and let the coachee pick a random card. Make a note of the archetype.

Step 2: Put the random card back and shuffle the archetype deck again. Give the deck to the coachee to look through so that they get an understanding of what is really in it. Explain light attributes are typically considered "good indications" and shadow "warning indications". Explain that archetypes are a model, and that no model is 100% right, but it is valuable nevertheless at providing a few valid insights.

Step 3: Depending on how self-aware the coachee is, you need to do this part of the exercise in different ways and it takes longer/shorter. You're aiming for about 10-24 cards, but this is determined really by the coachee, not the coach or some rulebook. It is a sliding scale that will become visible only once begun.

Ask the coachee to now go through the entire archetype deck, look at each card's name especially, and briefly on the light attribute.

Very self-aware: ask for the coachee to pull out any archetype card that resonates with them

Not self-aware:
1. Ask the coachee to pull out all the cards they like, as fast as possible
2. Ask them to check the discard pile again and pull out cards they overlooked, as fast as possible
3. Now ask them to go through the "like" pile and discard any that are definitely not some aspect of "them" that they play/show at least once per day

Step 4: Ask the coachee to "cluster" the cards that they see are related/connected to each other in some way as quickly as possible. To ensure they're doing it correctly ask them to explain the relationship/theme/pattern they're interpreting when 1 cluster is 3 cards big.

Step 5: Once the affinity clustering is complete - looking for 4-8 clusters approximately, again this depends on the coachee. Ask the coachee to come up with a short sentence / a descriptive phrase for each of the clusters. Sometimes they might only choose 1 word, sometimes that is enough. It is their journey...so balance carefully what you know, what you think you know, what you think the coachee knows.

Step 6: Ask the coachee to write their own Light Attributes and Shadow Attributes for the clusters - using concise sentences or phrases. AVOID single words, comma separated.

Step 7: Record all the information - cluster names and card name members, all the Light Attributes, all the Shadow Attributes

* Tip copy the card names, Light Attributes and Shadow Attributes from a spreadsheet, into a spreadsheet just for this coachee.

Step 8: Now take a copy of the card names and their attributes. Ask the coachee to edit the attributes to better reflect themselves. It could mean deleting the entire attributes, or changing from multiple to single or from single to multiple. Changing from external to internal focus or vice-versa. Essentially change it to themselves.

DONE!

This information is now in 4 categories:
1. Random
2. The "like" pile
3. The clusters, cluster members, and cluster attributes
4. The edited for self

You now have 3 categories (2-4) that can be used as reflections of the values and principles of the coachee!

Either or all of the 4 categories, or specific members of these categories, can be used to ground coaching goals and plans around. The Random card can be used as a beacon to draw attention to learn new skills, or as a mirror to compare against, or as a single card to represent the coachee.

Thankyou for reading! Let me know how your practice works out!

My favourite coaching tools: The record, typeup and playback

Caveats:
I feel you can use this tool with anyone - no matter how open/closed you/they are. You can use it for yourself even. However I do realise that it is possible some thing(s) might come up/be mentioned that require a much more safe environment and a much more experienced+educated counsellor to really deal with appropriately. Try to avoid those things.

Required:
Quiet room
Pen and paper
Knowledge of Johari Window (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window)

Optional, but HIGHLY desirable:
A sensible/sensitive enough recording device (that you have previously tested) is preferable but this exercise can still be extremely fruitful without

Step 0: Record the date, start time and coachee name on the paper - remember to record the end time as well. Make sure your own mind and body are comfortable and restful - you too will be fully engaged in this session for it to go well!

Step 1: Make sure your coachee is focussed and engaged and happy to be recorded. If the coachee is happy, start the recorder, else put the recorder away. Prepare for much note taking.

Step 2: Ask the coachee to pick the start date. Usually in a work environment I ask for the date to be when they met for interviews or their first day at work. Take brief note of the date and try to understand the coachee's body language.

Step 3: Ask them to try to cover as much ground as they can in 15-20 minutes - their timelined biography of what they did, what they learned, what they felt, how their career progressed. Usually the coachee is really good at timeboxing the story they're telling, not that it matters too much. What's important is capturing what is remembered and very important - how it is remembered. Make notes, and make notes of questions that you might want to raise to get more of the story and emotion surfaced.

Step 4: Ask the questions and record the answers - look especially for areas which you believe might be important in the person's work life that were not mentioned (obviously this depends on how well you know the person by this stage). Avoid questions that are beyond the scope of the relationship you have with the coachee at this stage

Step 5: Wrap up and explain what happens next, make sure the coachee is comfortable and thinks enough was said (you can paraphrase the timeline). Turn off the recorder and take a note of the time! End the session.

Step 6: Get some headphones, play the recording back to yourself slightly slower speed, and type everything that was said. You don't have to analyse it, but you need to make sure it is an accurate type-up of exactly what the coachee said - beware of the shortcuts you would and DID take mentally during the interview. Type what the coachee said, and how they said it - if they giggled, or hummmed, or errrrrrred, or paused... make sure to catch their words, not your translations. Initially you think this will take a long time, and it does, but you do get better at it, and your typing does improve a great deal! This is because your WIP memory expands a great deal it is exercised more thoroughly and intensively.

* As an aside it is interesting and educational for you/yourself to also take a note of what you thought you heard, and what was actually said!

Step 7: Read through the type-up and make notes for yourself about what you see that the coachee does not - this feeds into the Johari Window rooms. I've found spiritual and leadership potential, I've found root causes of huge levels of frustration and anxiety at work, trust issues and lots lots more.

Step 8: Have another session with the coachee. Ensure they are safe and engaged. Provide the type-up document, and the audio file back to the coachee. Ask the coachee to read through the document and if there is anything missing, add to it.

Step 9: Now you can give the coachee some work to do and this is where you need to be a little creative sometimes. You've now uncovered some things - either content, emotion or personality - in this person's [life] story at work over this period, that they're not aware of - and it might be good to educate the coachee about Johari Window at this stage.

Often there is enough in the type-up for the person to really think about, and together you can plan some coaching goals and work to achieve them to improve an aspect even at this stage.

Often there is more, deeper work that can be undertaken by the coachee on their journey if they become more aware of it. However you, as coach, in this session, are not allowed to give direction. You are allowed to design 1-2 "filters" though to help the coachee sort and categorise things, which might make them more aware of things about themselves they are currently blind to.

I used different filters for coachees to apply successfully in the past:
- Mad / Sad / Glad
- What Went Well (WWW) / What Did Not Go Well (WWW) / What I Learned (WIL) / What Puzzles Me (???)
 - I lead / I followed
 - Drop / Keep / Improve
 - Motivations: Health / Mental / Spiritual
 - Recognised for / not recognised for

And I am sure there are many more. With the categorisation done, allow the coachee to reflect back to you what it means. Sometimes they have many questions, sometimes they don't understand what they have just done, sometimes they do not profess to having learned anything new or worthwhile from the time invested.

But often they do, sometimes they even see the things you see. Sometimes they see things you did not (the rose-tinted spectacles take a long time and much practice and reflection to become clear!).

Whatever they outcome is though, the coachee now has material and some idea(s) about what coaching goals to prioritise and work towards with your help.

Step 10: Make some notes for yourself about how the session went, the type-up, what you learned at the various stages, and what the outcomes were. How did the coachee's body language reflect different things as they were saying them, and did this concur when you asked the questions? This is also about continuous self improvement, in order to help others on their journeys much more effectively.

See also my post on Peter Drucker's "manager's letter" which can also collect incredibly powerful insights into the work experience of a coachee.

Waltzing With Bears by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

Why I recommend Waltzing With Bears:
Reason 1: It is a very fast read covering many topics concisely and accurately
Reason 2: It is the best book I've read about risk and managing risk
Reason 3: And the shortest best book on estimating


It has been 3-4 years since I read this book and I still recommend it to every PM and PMO and any other team member who is interested in the topics in it.

What is to be done for the single biggest blocker to an agile transition?

I've been interviewing a number of candidates for a role in my team of Agile Coaches these past few months. One of the topics we like to discuss with candidates is that of "serious resistance".

I've reflected on the topic a great deal over the years, as well as read several books and articles, discussed here and there at various conferences, trainings and war story sharings. It is not an easy topic, and its clear that many "new process/practice" people run into it constantly.

Through all this, 2 approaches dominate:
1. Back off, and attempt to influence via the resisters influencers
2. Fire/promote

AKA:
1. Do nothing
2. Do something radical (AKA change your organisation, or change your organisation)

Both sound lose-lose to me.

Today I had a slightly different thought - what if the pressure/focus was turned instead to the resister's line manager? What if the line management was forced to accept the accountability that comes with the management position and actually conduct coaching/mentoring 1-1 sessions with the resister? What if the line manager's job was on the line instead? That seems to me to have far bigger and quicker impact potential...possibly at the actual root cause of the problem!

:O

Thankyou for reading!

My latest saying - Together We Stand At Least A Chance

Together we stand...at least a chance!

Strange ATM / Cash Card bug?

I recently had a cash card from a major UK bank.

I used to put it in any ATM / Cash Point, punch in my pin, and get access to the services. I used to be able to draw statements and check my balance. But as soon as I tried to draw money, immediately the machine would eject my card and give me the error message "Temporary error processing your request. Please try again later". No matter which machine or bank I tried, always the same result.

A while ago, friends of mine in that space told me about the ATM / Cash Point algorithm. And the only really significant thing that I remember, is that the machine only actually authenticates your pin against your bank once you select the service that requires authentication... eg balance request, mini statement, draw money.

So...what was going on? I have thought about it for a while now, and still no idea. When I eventually contacted my bank, they told me not to worry as clearly the faults I was experiencing were temporary faults that existed only the Cash Point machines. Yet all my data points told me something else was happening. Eventually the "helpful" call centre operator suggested I just get a new card. Which I did, and it did solve my problem.

I can only think that there was a "magic sequence" of numbers encoded somewhere in the chip / magnetic strip of that particular card which was causing a very nasty bug on the various Cash Point hardwares/softwares to show itself. Lucky me.

Or unlucky them...could such a magic number really exist somewhere and be used somehow to cause a buffer overflow attack on what I've pretty much taken for granted is a well and truly stable set of components and systems after all these years?

These kinds of puzzles is why software, software engineering and software quality will always keep me interested.

Scaling Software Agility Presentation by Dean Leffingwell

This is a followup to one of my previous book recommendations - Scaling Software Agility by Dean Leffingwell

You can access a summary basically of the major themes Dean focusses on for Scaling of Agile: Scaling Software Agility (pdf)

Thanking Your Teacher

Teachers' Best Thank You Present

"The best way of making an offering to your teacher is to practise what you have been taught"

- HH The Dalai Lama from "The Essential Dalai Lama"

...you can also thank THIS teacher/me by clicking any Google advert (it costs you 0), or buying my recommendation or anything else you happen to want from amazon.com/amazon.co.uk after following one of my Amazon links!

Thank you! ;-)

The Ideal Student

Lama Tsong Khapa in one of his "Great Exposition" writings stated that the 3 principal qualifications of an ideal student are:

1. An objective and open mind
2. The intelligence to judge between right and wrong
3. The enthusiasm for and interest in the subject

Reveal to others

Dharmakirti said that there is no way that you can reveal to others that which is hidden to yourself...

Studying without the desire

"If you study without the desire to relate what you are learning to your own life through practice, you run the risk of becoming hardened or apathetic"

- HH The Dalai Lama - "The Essential Dalai Lama"

What's Up With All The Cynicism in IT?

At SPA2009, I had a little session titled "What's Up With All The Cynicism in IT?". It was unfortunately quite time reduced from my original plan, but I did manage to impart a little knowledge of Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats method to a group of 8 varied participants, who did supply quite a bit of "food for thought".

I've published my presentation, and the outputs of the group work sessions on the SPA2009 wiki: What's Up With All The Cynicism In IT? Outputs

SPA2009

Also known as the British Computing Society Software Practice Advancement Conference, 2009. I attended SPA2009 from Sunday-Wednesday (5-8 April 2009) and was really pleased that I did! There were a lot of new faces, a lot of old faces, great new topics and content on programming, process and people stuff. There were some strong opinions that people were passionate about and argued the merits of - a great learning and networking event!

Best View of London

On 27 March 2009, after living in London for 2 years, I got the best view of London I have had yet!

I was fortunate enough on this day to be flying back to London Heathrow, and arrived over the UK as the sun was beginning to set. I had been napping on the flight until then, and awoke to the plane circling south of the O2 Arena.

Round and round we went ... the green scenery below getting darker and darker. The sun dipped lower, and the City's lights started coming on. Spectacular! The City itself...the tall buildings etc - all I could think was "google maps, with perspectives, eat your heart out!"

And then finally, we were allowed to proceed to Heathrow ... over Picadily Circus, over Hyde Park, South Kensington ... following the Thames River back ... over Kew Gardens ... and then we were landing.

I am now hoping that my next return flight on 17 April will come back at sunset again, which is possible because the clocks went back 1 hour :)

Introduction to Agile for Traditional Project Managers by Stacia Broderick

I just found this really good Introduction to Agile for Traditional Project Managers presentation that Stacia Broderick put together for Agile 2007. I am quite comfortable with what she says, and the relaxed pace that she presents it at. A well "knit" session integrating some good points from various influences and showing some solid experience she has clearly encountered in real world situations.

Hosted on InfoQ: Introduction-Agile-Stacia-Broderick.

Stacia's blog site: Agile Evolution Blog ... is not all "agile" focussed, but some gems are scattered. :)

I think it's a good complement to my Agile Introduction recommendation from about a year ago: Agile Project Management - a place to start though at 1 hour 26 minutes it is a little longer. But I think the time invested is worth it.

Thankyou for supporting!

The Inventor of the Wind-Up Radio

It is quite a good read from the inventor of the Wind-Up Radio - Trevor Baylis.

It covers great ground about inventing, inventors and a couple of other relevant topics: Trevor Baylis OBE.

Don't Shout At Your Computer!

An engineer shows what happens to harddrive performance if the harddrive is subjected to vibration, in this case, loud noises emanating from his shouting near them. ARGHHHHHHHH!.

Another wiki going places...

While doing some research for a last minute Sri Lanka holiday, I found this wiki that I was previously unfamiliar with. Content is good, growing fast, recent and accurate (for Sri Lanka at this time). If you want to avoid using a tour operator for your trip, you could do worse...wikitravel.

SANS Institute Publishes Experts-Agreed List of Top 25 Coding Errors

Some top people in the software industry, as well as critical organisations, have come together and agreed on a list of top 25 programming errors, and provided discussions and ratings on each. The information is well presented and easy to read: Top 25 Programming Errors.