New Online Workshops

I’m proud to announce that PragmaticAll has launched a new set of online workshops. To start off, I’ve scheduled a few sessions of the acclaimed Balanced Backlog Management workshop which I’ve previously held both in-person and online at a few conferences and with various clients in-house.

I’ll be adding more online workshops soon. If there is enough interest, I will also host a few in-person workshops. And of course you can always contact me for an in-company workshop!

You can find all the workshop dates and booking info on Eventbrite.

Online Refinement training program

In March & April I did 3 online try-outs to check how some of my refinement exercises work online. Each try-out focussed on 1 technique:

• Story Mapping

• Example Mapping

• Object Exploration

All three try-outs went very well, so I’ve continued converting my refinement course material for online use. I’m now ready to do a full refinement training program online. The in-person version is also still available of course!

If you want to join one of the public courses, check out the dates on Eventbrite. If you’d prefer to have an in-company version, contact me to find out what the possibilities are.

Building empathy through music

I’m on a mission to do more experiments and to celebrate the inevitable failuresthat will occur. I’d like to share one of the experiments I did last week.

Picture this: two people sitting side by side on a bench in the woods, a few minutes walk from the office. In between them a mobile phone, playing a song that one of them (the “submitter”) has selected. The song has some emotional meaning to the submitter. They both silently listen to the song, concentrating on the emotions that they experience in the moment. When the song is finished, the other person (the “recipient”) talks about the emotions he or she experienced and compares that to the submitter’s emotional connection with the song. Will the recipient be able to experience the same emotions just by listening empathetically?

Sitting side by side on a bench (Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)

The experiment was triggered by a discussion about my experiences with back to back listening, both at the Liberating Structures Global Gathering in March and at the Immersion Workshop in May. We wondered if it could also be used to feel the emotions of the other person, particularly if the song was significant to them. Since we were worried what other people would say or think if they saw us standing back to back for several minutes, we went outside and tried it just by sitting next to each other, without physical contact.

We first tried a song with which I have a strong emotional link: “Let Him Fly” by the Dixie Chicks. The emotional change when we played the song was strong and my experimentation partner clearly identified what the emotion was. She could also relate it to one of the two significant events in my life that I associate it with.

Nightswimming (Photo by Emilio Machado on Unsplash)

Next we switched. My experimentation partner chose a song that was significant for her, but had less of an emotional load: REM’s “Nightswimming”. I struggled to identify the emotion. At first I experienced happiness, like a happy memory of an event or a holiday. But after that my own emotions and rational thoughts about the lyrics crowded in.

So what have I learned from this? I’m not completely sure yet. I don’t know if the second attempt didn’t work so well because it was a song with less emotional load, or because I’m not so good at sensing the emotion. I do know that it was an enjoyable experience (for me at least), and that discussing the songs and the emotions they stir up made me feel heard and respected. I still want to try this while standing back to back, but I’ll have to get over my fear of being misunderstood by others, particularly in the wake of #MeToo.

One take away for me is: just taking time out to explore emotions in a peaceful setting with another compassionate human being was very soothing. That in itself made it a worthwhile experiment. I am deeply grateful to my experimentation partner for doing this with me.

Celebrating Failure

Failure. Just the thought of possible failure can almost paralyze me. “I won’t try vlogging, I’d look like an idiot.”, “I won’t ask the manager why she wants to measure that, I’m sure it’s obvious.” or “I won’t start my own coaching practice, it will never work.”

These negative thoughts are powerful because they have been reinforced at school and at work for many years. Yet in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world, failure is inevitable. Avoiding failure is not realistic, the best I can hope for is to learn from failure.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Many people are uncomfortable in the face of failure. We celebrate success, not failure. We like answers, not questions. We promote winners, not losers. “Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t”, as the saying goes. It’s time to change our attitude towards failure, and I want to set an example.

My goal

I need to accept my failures, even celebrate them, as long as each failure teaches me something. Why? Because I believe that if I want to continue to do interesting work, I need to continue to develop myself. The best way to do this, is to experiment and get out of my comfort zone. Which in turn means I’m inevitably going to fail.

So, how am I going to achieve my goal? I know myself well enough: I need a target, preferably a public one. For eaxmple, the best way for me to sport regularly is to sign up for an event, like a Triathlon. Better still, get people to sponsor me for that.

Setting a public target usually works well for me

So here are my targets. By publishing this post, I’ve made them public. Please hold me accountable if you notice I’m slacking.

Experiment each week

I’ll set myself an experimentation target: for the next quarter (July through September 2019) I will do at least 1 experiment each week. By making experiments a routine, I hope to overcome my resistance to trying new things, and to reduce my fear of failure.

Not this kind of experiment! (Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash)

Admit and celebrate my own failures

I’ll regularly take time to identify my own failures. I’ll share my failures with appropriate humility and I’ll reflect on what I can learn from those failures. My target: starting July 2019, I will write a LinkedIn status update once a week with some of my failures and what I’ve learned. After doing so, I’ll give myself a reward of some kind (like a nice beer, or a good book).

Failures can be small things. For example, I might come back to somebody the next day and say “I feel I was too dominant in yesterday’s meeting. I should have asked you for your ideas first.” Another example: I planned a try out for a new workshop. It was my first attempt to do a public workshop, and I only announced it a few weeks in advance. Of course, I didn’t get enough registrations. I’ve learned that I need to allow more time, and spend more effort to promote such workshops.

Let’s celebrate failure (Photo by Keith Luke on Unsplash)

Celebrate together

I’m all set to start experimenting and celebrating failure. On my own if need be, but I’d much prefer to celebrate together. Will you join me? Let me know in the comments below by sharing your experiments and failures!

If you want to know more about the different kinds of failure, or about how to encourage people you work with to share their failures, why not join my workshop “Creating a safe-to-fail environment”?

Using Liberating Structures to increase empathy

On 28th and 29th May 2019 I was part of the Design Team that facilitated a Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop. During this 2 day workshop we guided participants through more than 20 different structures, including LS in Development and some variations on Liberation Structures. It once again reminded me of the insidious power of Liberating Structures to forge organizational change.

There is a lot to say about a 2 day Immersion Workshop, but in this post I want to focus on one small aspect: using Liberating Structures to increase empathy.

As a Design Team, we deliberately set up the start of the first day to promote a feeling of safety. The structures and invitations we used helped people make a personal connection. In the afternoon of Day 1 we built on that with a string dubbed “give and get help”. That string consisted of: Back to Back Listening, Heard, Seen & Respected, and Helping Heuristics. What struck me is how powerful it can be to have somebody pay attention to you for a few minutes. Too often we are busy looking good by offering advice. By being forced to listen without saying anything (a common element of all three structures), we are forced to pay attention and suspend judgement. This builds a much deeper connection than an ordinary conversation.

The structures we used on Day 1 of the Immersion Workshop

How we increased empathy

Sometimes increasing empathy is remarkably simple. As one participant remarked after Back to Back Listening: all it takes to bond with somebody is to stand back to back with him or her for 2 minutes with your eyes closed. In Back to Back Listening, pairs of participants stand back to back for 2 minutes with their eyes closed while listening to some music. (In this case: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough). After that they discuss how that felt and what they noticed. Then they step in each other’s shoes: they listen to the same music, trying to be mindful of the other person’s experience in the first round.

We then asked the same pairs to do Heard, Seen and Respected (HSR). Sitting close to each other, one person would have 5 minutes to tell a story of a situation in which he or she felt not heard, seen or respected. The other person would only listen - commenting or asking questions was not allowed. After 5 minutes they switched roles and repeated the exercise. This was followed by a short debrief. One person commented that talking about a situation in which you didn’t feel heard, seen or respected with somebody who is fully present and intently listening to you can be a healing experience.

Really being listened to - a wonderful gift

We continued with Helping Heuristics. We did this in groups of 3, with participants taking on the role of the client, the coach, or the observer. Helping Heuristics has 4 short rounds (2 minutes) of interaction, followed by a debrief. Each round is slightly different:

1. Quiet Listing: similar to HSR, the client talks, the coach listens.

2. Guided Discovery: similar to Appreciate Interviews, the coach accepts what the client says without challenge, and asks open questions.

3. Loving Provocation: similar to Troika Consulting, the coach can also give advice and may challenge assumptions that the client has.

4. Process Mindfullness: the client and coach work together, building on each other’s statements and questions.

5. Debrief: the observer shares patterns and insights that emerged; the client and coach expand on that.

The progression of steps leads to a more empathetic and constructive conversation; the “coach” is more likely to leave his/her ego at the door and focus on what the “client” really needs. Doing this three times allowed each person to take on each role. People were amazed how useful 10 minutes of Helping Heuristics can be.

A natural Team - thanks to empathy

I’m no scientist, but I’m convinced that more empathy helps in many different ways. People feel better if they are heard and respected, and they can work together more effectively. One example of that is the Design Team itself. Several workshop participants told us that the Design Team worked very naturally as a team, and they wondered how much rehearsal this required. Well, very little! I’m convinced this is largely due to the way we bonded as a team. As part of the preparation, Barry and Christiaan arranged for us to go to Hamburg together for a few days, to host a Meetup there. The main purpose of the trip was to bond as a team. We achieved this by doing things together and by sharing stories with each other, often through improvised Liberating Structures. By taking the time to talk and listen to each other, raising our empathy for each other, we became a good team.

Bonding in Hamburg (Photo by Barry Overeem)

Many thanks to my companions on the Design Team: Barry Overeem, Christiaan Verwijs, Edgar Stormbroek and Saskia Vermeer-Ooms, and to visual facilitator Thea Schukken who joined us so naturally at the Immersion Workshop.

The Design Team. (Drawing by Thea Schukken)

The danger of looking good

Many times a day we manage our image by controlling information in social interactions. This often happens subconsciously. We almost automatically decide to withhold our opinion because it may be unpopular, not ask a question because we may look stupid, and we certainly won’t admit a mistake because others may look down on us.

The free exchange of ideas, concerns or questions is routinely hindered by interpersonal fear far more often than most managers realize.
Amy C. Edmondson - The Fearless Organization

We spend a lot of effort on looking good.

The danger of looking good is that you could end up dissatisfied and the team or organization as a whole will underperform. High performing teams have a climate of openness and trust that makes it easier to be your true, imperfect self.

So how can we encourage that climate of openness?

Research suggests there are a few things leaders should do. They are easy to understand, but difficult to master. One of those things is to ask powerful questions.

Asking powerful questions begins with the right mindset: the mindset of a “don’t knower”. If you believe that there are many things you don’t know, and you believe your staff knows some things you don’t, that’s a good start to being able to ask powerful questions.

The next step to asking powerful questions is to listen attentively. It helps if you can keep your opinions, advice and interpretations to yourself and focus on the other person. Just doing that will help you to come up with relevant questions.

If you want to practice this, as well as learn other techniques to encourage a climate of openness, come to one of our workshops “Creating a Safe-to-fail Environment”.

Image by Linda van Sinten

Creating a safe-to-fail environment

Together with Linda van Sinten, I’ve created a half-day workshop to help leaders improve the psychological safety in their organisation. We want people to experience psychological safety, not only explain what psychological safety is and how teams can benefit from it. The workshop is suited for formal and informal leaders at any level of an organisation. During the workshop participants have lots of opportunity to practice, and the handout we provide ensures you can continue to build on this after the workshop.

The core of the workshop consists of three exercises in which participants explore each of the three categories of Amy C. Edmondson’s book “The Fearless Organization”:

• Set the stage;

• Invite participation;

• Respond productively.

We ask participants to take examples from their own environment in which they feel that psychological safety is lacking. All exercises are interactive. We use liberating structures, visualisation and movement to help participants to explore what is required to make their situation more psychologically safe.

We use wooden frames to make the re-framing more tangible

After a warming up exercise in which we explore the question “What does Psychological Safety mean to you?”, we assess the initial feeling of psychological safety. This is followed by a short explanation about psychological safety and frames. This leads into an exercise to find frames in the current situation that hamper psychological safety and to reframe them.

The second part of the workshop explores how the right questions can create more psychological safety by encouraging employees to participate and share experiences. Workshop participants individually create a question that “invites participation”. Their question is perfected in small groups. We provide a cheat sheet to help ask powerful questions tailored to inviting participation.

The final part looks into responding productively to different situations. We invite a small group of participants to discuss possible responses in hypothetical situations. We provide a simple process to switch who participates in the discussion, and other participants have a chance to ask questions.

The workshop ends by re-assessing the feeling of psychological safety in the same way as at the start, and discussing the lessons learned. Participants receive a handout with useful tips and links to additional resources to help them build a safe work environment.

Coaching with stories

We tell ourselves stories. Some of these stories have a profound impact on our behaviour. As a coach, I seek out unhelpful stories and help the coachee to reconfigure their story into a more helpful version.

For example, a coachee may tell herself “I don’t have time to do the things I want to do, because I have so many obligations.” The obligations are perceived as a fact, unquestioned. As a result, not having time becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is not up to me to reconfigure the coachee’s story; my role is to help her explore the story and find alternatives. I might think that some obligations could be relaxed or dismissed, but that may not be true for the coachee. It could just as well be that the obligations can be done more efficiently, or that the obligations themselves could be seen as things she wants to do. By keeping my solutions to myself, or even not allowing them to enter my mind in the first place, I can better help my coachee explore what is true for her.

Listening intently to someone’s story requires presence and silence.

To do this requires that I am fully present, letting go of any preconceptions of the “right answer” or the “good outcome”. My role as a coach is to hold up a clean, clear, and loving mirror for my coachee so she can more openly share her stories in order to discover the resolution she is seeking. I do this mostly by being quiet and by listening intently. Although I am still learning, I do feel this style of coaching suits me well.

Instead of worrying about what ought to occur in coaching, I can focus on the coachee and her story, being fully engaged with what is happening without being attached to it. In this way I help the coachee change her story and thereby upgrade her working models.

If you’re inspired or intrigued by this, contact me for a free introduction with no obligations.

The Scrum Master knows best

“My team doesn’t do what I’ve suggested.” “Why does the team keep doing <insert undesired behavior>?” “They don’t understand <my pet practice>.”

I love to talk to fellow Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches. Somehow I can more easily see my own failings by discussing their behavior. One of my failings comes from thinking I know what is best for the team.

Sure, if I stop to think about it I know that I’m not smarter than a handful of intelligent people. But every now and then I forget. I notice something and immediately jump to a conclusion: this is bad, and I know how it could be improved. Scrum Master to the rescue!

Photo by NEW DATA SERVICES on Unsplash

Only, my team isn’t fooled that easily. They’ll look at me in a way that says: “Are you serious? What do you know about software development anyway?” Perhaps in the past I would ignore that, muttering “Oh ye of little faith”, confident that if they just tried doing it my way they would be enlightened.

At least these days I know to stop and listen. On a good day I’ll even stop before I jump to a conclusion. Instead, I’ll offer my observation to the team and ask their opinion. Amazingly, they usually do a good job of deciding if it is important, what the underlying problem is, and what could be done about it. Occasionally I ask some powerful questions, offer some suggestions, or challenge their thinking (for example by pointing out how it goes against one of the agile principles). That’s all I need to do, the team does the rest. The best part is: they come up with better solutions, they don’t resist the proposal, and I still get credit for helping them improve.