by Facilitation Expert | Jun 5, 2018 | Meeting Agendas, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support, Scrum Events
A professional facilitator handles several types of assignments, from planning to design. However, most facilitators must also provide a method for securing the deliverable. Although a different role, the ‘methodologist’ responsibilities make up the most important part of preparing for many meetings.
How will you lead the group successfully with meeting design from the Introduction through the Wrap? You will find more than one right answer. Therefore, when weighing Agile vs. Waterfall benefits, consider how the Stacey Matrix arrays projects from the simple through the chaotic.
An Adapted Stacey Matrix: Agile vs Waterfall
Agile vs Waterfall — Stacey Matrix
Stacey’s original two dimensions included Agreement (among stakeholders) and Certainty (about cause and effect relationships within the project). Hence Agilists made Stacey’s matrix popular by substituting Requirements for Agreement and Technology for Certainty. Therefore, Requirements capture WHAT solution must be built and Technology unveils HOW to provide the solution. Consequently, the primary dimensions range from the clear or known, to the vague or unknown. The quantity of people involved gives a softer, yet third dimension that also directly increases the complexity. Therefore, the balance of this article discusses the five primary zones or areas delineated on the matrix. They include:
- The Simple
- Politically Complicated
- Technically Complicated
- Zone of Complexity
- The Chaotic
Five Zones Overview: Agile vs. Waterfall
The Waterfall mindset demands substantial, up-front planning. Agile frameworks launch quicker, with a much narrower scope during each increment (or Sprint when using Scrum). When the cause and effects are clear and mastered, Waterfall optimizes resources and returns on investment. However, as the customer’s scenario constantly changes, Agile permits adaptation and quick adjustment. Waterfall works especially well with large construction projects and broad-scoped hardware installations. Hence, Agile may be better suited for software products, where the market demands constant and frequent change. When tasks are clearly defined, the waterfall optimizes the sequencing and resource allocation. Therefore, results ought to be consistent, predictable, and repeatable. As tasks require frequent collaboration and adjustments, Agile lends a sense of quick response and flexibility not associated with Waterfall. The following table compares the attributes of the five zones. Most models apply identical content to the Complicated Zones. We split the zone into two because the challenges of each demand a different method. When the lack of clarity derives from stakeholders, plan carefully before proceeding (Waterfall). When uncertainty derives from the technology or software, consider the Agile approach, and prepare to change along the way. A brief discussion follows about each.
Zones Attributes
|
Simple
|
Politically Complicated
|
Technically Complicated
|
Complex
|
Chaotic
|
Positioning
|
Telling: Rational decision-making and control, orderly, traditional project management, and organizational development |
Selling: Political decision-making and control; compromise, negotiation, persuasion, coalition building, relationship building |
Consulting: Judgmental decision-making, ideological control, intuition, learning organizations, systems thinking |
Co-creation: Collaborative ideation, visioning, iterative improvement, knowledge management, creativity, innovation |
Disintegration or massive avoidance |
Focus or Control
|
Monitoring, Standards, Guidance. Evidence-based |
Negotiation |
Strategic or Adaptive Planning |
Learning, Creativity, Trial and Error, Empirical |
Disorder and chaos until novel patterns emerge. |
Planning Type
|
Operational or Predictive Planning |
Strategic or Adaptive Planning |
Strategic or Scenario Planning |
Adaptive or Scenario Planning |
Rapid action and improvising skills |
|
|
Relationships between cause and effect are evident. Apply best practices and use defined process controls. |
Cause and effect can be understood by analyzing or investigating the system and its mechanisms. Apply good practices. |
Cause and effect can be understood by analyzing or investigating the system and its mechanisms. Apply good practices. |
The relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance. Inspect and Adapt. |
No clear relationships between cause and effect even if inspected. The approach is to Act, Sense, and Respond and we can discover novel practices. |
Example
|
Drilling for oil in the Permian Basin. |
Improving air quality or building an oil pipeline through North America. |
Sending a payload to Mars or beyond the edge of our known solar system. |
Raising a child. Every child is unique resulting in unpredictable outcomes. |
“Running of the Bulls” (event held in Spain), or the turbulence in the tip vortex from an airplane wing |
Comments
|
A ‘right’ answer exists, best practices and detailed recipes, fact-based, traditional management |
Frequent disagreement about the value and purpose of the project |
More than one right answer possible, fact-based, coordination of expertise, reliance on techno-rationale |
Empirical methods focused on the identification, selection, and development of increments |
High turbulence, no patterns, tension, need to create stability, experience may hinder progress |
1. The Simple Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
When the final result or “DONE” of a project resonates with everyone, especially large projects, Waterfall stays an obvious choice. Relying on fact-based and evidence-based decisions, projects will advance in an orderly fashion, generating few surprises. You have all worked with recipes in the kitchen before. Not only are the activities clear and sequenced, but the results are repeatable as well. Best practices serve as the benchmark for both guiding tasks and comparing results.
2. Politically Complicated Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
As requirements become less clear, or even conflicting, waterfall may remain the best choice. How many project dollars have you seen wasted because people could not agree on the purpose or value of the project? Agile affords productivity while people are negotiating, but you risk working on the wrong stuff without the coalition building encouraged by Waterfall. Always remember – WHY before WHAT before HOW.
3. Technically Complicated Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
As the value of adaptive thinking increases, such as embracing innovative technology for the first time, the Agile mindset may be favored. When cause and effect must be analyzed or investigated, the Agile mindset becomes preferred. Knowing that more than one right answer exists, a clear and frequent feedback loop with stakeholders helps optimize decisions. Consequently, as Development Teams advance and grow, they become learning organizations, capable of increasing productivity and innovation.
4. Zone of Complexity: Agile vs. Waterfall
The empirical process control method demands Agile as conditions become increasingly complex. As contrasted with a fully defined process control (Waterfall), empirical methods demand transparency, frequent inspection, and adaptation. Therefore, Agile frameworks promote all three aspects or “legs.” Scrum, in particular, requires inspections at the conclusion of each Sprint. Teams receive immediate and prompt feedback to help modify later Sprints, without much delay. Do not forget to look at Agile, a mindset, as “Being” while Scrum, a framework, represents “Doing”. Hence, an empirical process depends on experimentation and continuous improvement to optimize the performance of project teams.
5. The Chaotic Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
Most recommend Kanban as an Agile approach to deal with chaos. With Kanban, there are no Sprints. Therefore teams, using WIP (Work in Progress), continually deliver and update their product backlog. Hence, as output increases, novel patterns may emerge to help projects migrate from the chaotic to the complex. In chaotic conditions, experience may be useless. However, experimentation may be invaluable. Therefore Act, Sense, and Respond – serve as one way out of chaotic conditions.
The Facilitator: Agile vs. Waterfall
In conclusion, what does it all mean to facilitators? Since most of us are called upon for the best method to conduct meetings, planning, negotiations, decision-making, etc., the methodological impact trumps the facilitator’s learnings. Hence, you begin to see where helping to manage the political uncertainty becomes paramount for many projects to succeed. You can also sense that ‘removing impediments’ becomes quite like ‘making it easy.’ In the Waterfall world when meetings evidence highly productive participants and output, our role shifts to that of scribe or documenter. However, with Agile, the role shifts to that of a referee, trying to clear a path so that Development Teams can do what they do best—build a new product. In both situations, when we have done our jobs well, it is time to get out of the way and be of service. Related Articles: http://www.designisdead.com/blog/making-sense-of-agile
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
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by Facilitation Expert | May 10, 2018 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Support
Have you ever heard someone say in a meeting “I don’t know why we’re doing this project in the first place?” Odds are, the meeting is being held to advance the project, not re-validate it. The person asking the question has now imposed their agenda on the group. They have forced scope creep [1].
Whenever meeting participants ask questions, they have shifted from the role of subject matter expert to the role of meeting designer. They have forced scope creep. By diverting attention to ‘their’ question, the group follows ‘their’ agenda. Consequently, they risk not having enough time to complete the meeting deliverable.
Getting Groups to Focus Prevents Scope Creep
Prevent Scope Creep
The hardest task to accomplish when leading a group of people is to get them to focus. Participants’ minds drift, twist, and become partially selective. When the right group of people assembles, they can accomplish any task at hand if the leader gets them focused. Yet they continue to drift, discuss, and argue about issues that are not within the scope of the meeting. They impose their own scope creep.
Expert facilitation saves an incredible amount of time and money. For one, a well-prepared facilitator knows the scope of the meeting and puts it in writing. As a result, they do not allow someone to discuss topics that are not in scope. This includes re-justifying the project. When people argue about the validity or purpose of a project, the discussion is usually NOT within the meeting scope. Yet only a conscious facilitator can police scope creep carefully.
Remember these two secrets to prevent scope creep in meetings.
First, the session leader or facilitator needs to make the meeting scope clear when the meeting begins, as well as secure agreement from the participants about the meeting scope. Frequently, meeting scope limits include geography, duration, or situation—capturing only PART OF the project scope.
Secondly, the facilitator needs to know the precise question the group should be addressing. When the facilitator does not know the question, ANY answer is appropriate. Most meeting facilitators should focus on context before meetings rather than content, by knowing the right questions and the proper sequence to ask them. They cannot afford to ask a DUMB question (i.e., Dull, Ubiquitous, Myopic, and Broad).
Scope Creep in Meetings is Costly
While it’s a well-known fact that scope creep kills projects, scope creep also dramatically impacts the quality of meetings. Based on our research with a Fortune 100 company, more than 50 meetings are required to complete an ‘average’ project. The average is computed as greater than USD$250,000 in value but less than $1.0 million in total cost invested[2]. Much, if not most, of the budget is actually consumed by the labor value during meetings, and most budgets do not reflect the costs of the customer’s time. And that’s where scope creep begins.
Expert Facilitation Can Reduce the Amount of Total Meeting Time by Half
Most meetings stay partially focused and on topic. They do not spend an entire hour talking about Monday Night Football. Participants typically offer up some good content. The problem is, that the meeting ends when the time is over, not when the meeting deliverable is complete and robust. Therefore, the deliverable of many meetings becomes the most despicable deliverable of all — another meeting.
Meeting leaders cannot control the scope if they are not fully aware of the scope of the project, the meeting, the agenda steps, and the questions the group needs to answer. While each scope is related, they remain discrete, and differences must be clear in the mind of the leader. However, when the meeting leader cannot articulate the scope, participants can freely talk about whatever comes to mind. Sound familiar?
While some contend that all too often participants get too ‘deep in the weeds’, we discovered that conversation in the opposite direction wastes more time. People talking about projects, programs, business unit objectives, and enterprise performance — all topics typically ‘out of scope’ for their specific meeting deliverable.
Scope Creep is the Opposite of Detailed Answers and Requirements
Unprofessional facilitators permit such discussion when they do not refine their questions. They typically ask broad questions when, in fact, they need detailed answers. They ask for the deliverable rather than aggregating the components that add up to create the deliverable.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say your group’s deliverable is a marketing plan. An untrained facilitator might begin by asking “What does the marketing plan look like?” Imagine the number of ways this question could be answered. Such broad, open-ended questions leave meetings wide open to scope creep. Rather, a professional facilitator would know, or have done her research beforehand, and understand that a marketing plan is a function of segmentation, targeting, positioning, media, message, etc., and thus a better question would be “What is the primary target audience for the product you’re trying to market?” A question is specific enough to produce specific, measurable answers.
In addition, if the question were “What are our top three market segments?” (another good, precise question) a trained facilitator would not allow one or two people to divert the group into a discussion over social media outlets, as such content (while relevant at some other point in the process) would be out of the scope of the question at hand. (For more on how to handle open issues click HERE.)
In the aggregate . . .
By systematically addressing a series of questions, answers fold together to create the meeting deliverable.
As soon as participants start arguing over issues unrelated to the details required to support the specified deliverable (ie a specific marketing plan for a specific product) they are imposing scope creep, and putting the team at risk of failing to deliver in the amount of time allowable. The facilitator must stop the discussions unrelated directly to the deliverable.
Quite simply, to prevent scope creep in meetings, the facilitator needs to know the scope of the specific question being asked. If they don’t, people can talk about whatever they want.
Understanding Scope Creep and Precision of the Question During Your Meeting
The Consciousness of the Holarchy Helps Prevent Scope Creep
The holarchy chart illustrates the narrowing of the scope, from the enterprise through the question being discussed in a meeting. The facilitator must provide precise questions that support the completion of agenda steps and the completion of the meeting deliverable. When the facilitator does not know the right question to ask, all hell breaks loose, and rightfully so, scope creeps . . . Do not let it happen to you. Also, see our discussion specifically on the Holarchy for further explanation. And remember, consciousness comes before competence.
[1]The Project Management Institute’s PMBOK® Guide describes scope creep as “adding features and functionality (project scope) without addressing the effects on time, costs, and resources, or without customer approval” (PMI, 2008, p 440).
[2]Size definitions are never the same for all organizations, but nearly all define “moderate” as projects with a minimum threshold between $50,000 and $1,000,000 total investment.
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
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by Jennifer Ledet | May 8, 2018 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Support
Jennifer Ledet Back in the day, when I was in school, I must’ve heard it several times a week: “Stop talking and get to work!”
Being a natural extrovert/Chatty Cathy, I was often in trouble for, well, talking too much. Maybe I’ve come full circle. Now I’m the one at the front of the room. It happened just last week when I was facilitating a meeting with an executive leadership team in Houston. The big difference is that I admonish these leadership teams to
“START talking and get to work!”
Rod Collins said, “No one – no single individual – is smarter than everyone,” and I think this is never more true than within organizations today. We can accomplish so much more together, as a team, than we can do separately. Whether you’re in a period of boom or bust in your industry, it is imperative that you tap into the wisdom of your team members.
It’s time for you, as a leader, to realize that you don’t have all the answers, and (gasp!) mayhaps someone else’s idea is better than yours. Successful leaders and organizations actively encourage input, discussions, and creative conversations amongst their team members.
Socialware . . .
Companies like Facebook, Yahoo, Zappos, and Google, (to name just a few), have got this figured out. They intentionally create workspaces where employees will have opportunities to bump into one another during the work day, primarily because they know that the best ideas and collaborations often arise out of water cooler/coffee pot conversations. This approach flies in the face of the common complaint of team members that they’re suffering from “death by meeting.”
In those traditional (and deadly?) weekly meetings most attendees sit there and stress out about the important – or real – work that they’re not getting done because they’re sitting in a meeting. I affectionately call those meetings “show up and throw up” meetings. You know, these are the meetings where you go around the table and everybody gives an update on their department or team. The problem is, no one is listening, and everyone is either on their smartphone or their laptop. And obviously, there ain’t much collaborating going on.
Personally, I think we need to rethink the way we do meetings. As a matter of fact, this isn’t only about making meetings more effective, but what I’m talking about is reconsidering the way we work together as a team.
TRY THIS WHEN BUILDING TEAM MEMBERS:
Adjust your mindset about your team and its meetings.
Traditionally, many leaders have thought of meetings as a time to tell people what to do. Instead, think of a meeting as an opportunity to draw out the ideas, insights, and collective wisdom of a very smart group of committed team members.
Make your meetings more FUNctional.
Re-create the feelings and atmosphere of the water cooler conversations in your meetings. Allow for a few minutes to share what everyone did over the weekend. Yep, you heard me right, and no, I don’t think this will be a monumental waste of time. Why? Because the more people feel like they know each other, the more likely they are to collaborate and share ideas.
Start with an agenda and send it out ahead of time.
Sure, you want to allow for some unscripted/offline conversation, but at the same time, you need to balance that with the need to cover the right topics and accomplish the goal of your meeting. Otherwise, folks will just end up frustrated.
Have a real conversation.
The more people trust one another, the more likely they are to share a free flow of ideas and opinions, AND, this is the kicker, the more likely they will be to disagree with one another. WHY, you say, would I want people to disagree? Simply because one of the worst (and most dangerous) things that can happen is that your team will engage in groupthink. Groupthink is when everyone goes along just to get along. You’ve probably seen this, or maybe you’ve done it yourself. This is when they say whatever they think the leader wants them to say. Challenging someone’s idea or offering a different perspective, on the other hand, is a sign that team members trust and respect one another. It’s like they’re having a conversation with a friend at the water cooler.
Idea Exchange
So back to the executive team that I was working with last week. Through an amazingly open sharing of ideas and insights, they came up with a strategy for becoming more agile, and innovative, and for improving employee engagement. They even figured out the key to whiter teeth and fresher breath. Just kidding. But they did accomplish quite a lot in one day. And all I did was encourage them to START talking and get to work!
YOUR TURN…
- How do you make your meetings meaningful?
- What’s something you do to encourage an open exchange of ideas and insights within your team?
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
by Facilitation Expert | Feb 6, 2018 | Meeting Agendas, Meeting Tools, Scrum Events
The Agile mindset demands frequent, and continuing, interaction among its stakeholders. Perhaps more so with Scrum, than other frameworks. From Daily Scrum activities to Sprint Retrospective events held every one to four weeks, Scrum facilitation yields an unspeakable value for Sprints. First, an update from its creators.
Scrum Guide Update, November 2020
Definition Enhancements Including Reference to Lean Thinking
Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.
The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, only defining the parts required to implement Scrum theory. Scrum is built upon the collective intelligence of the people using it. Rather than provide people with detailed instructions, the rules of Scrum guide their relationships and interactions…Various processes, techniques, and methods can be employed within the framework.
Scrum is founded on empiricism and lean thinking. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is observed. Lean thinking reduces waste and focuses on the essentials.
Changing “Roles” to “Accountabilities”
The entire Scrum Team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint. Scrum defines three specific accountabilities within the Scrum Team: the Developers, the Product Owner, and the Scrum Master.
Changing “Development Team” to “Developers”
The specific skills needed by the Developers are often broad and will vary with the domain of work.
Changing “self-organizing” to “self-managing”
Scrum Teams are cross-functional, meaning the members have all the skills necessary to create value for each Sprint. They are also self-managing, meaning they internally decide who does what, when, and how.
Additionally
WHY was added to Sprint Planning, the three questions have been removed from the Daily Scrum (and replaced with an “actionable plan”), and they changed the term “shippable” to “useable. Artifacts now stress commitments and the phrase “product goal” now equates to the product backlog.
Scrum Facilitation Framework
Unlike waterfall mindsets, Scrum Development Teams stick together for a while. Theoretically, if forever, they may be called tribes who never disband. As teams transition from product to product, each containing multiple Sprints, new stakeholders may appear. While the Scrum Product Owner® (SPO) remains largely responsible for the relationship between the stakeholders and the Scrum Development Team, the SPO also encourages direct communications, rather than isolating or protecting either group.
Interviewing and asking questions drive the ordering of product features. Therefore, the SPO remains vigilant about developing optimal questions, sequencing them, and listening to responses. Some of the product features contained within an Ordered Product Backlog[1] derive from interviews, rather than formal Scrum facilitation events, meetings, or ceremonies.
When You Facilitate Scrum Events — Here Are The Core Scrum Facilitation Skills
Facilitative skills fortify the Scrum Master® and SPO including:
Likewise, the entire Scrum Team (including the Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Scrum Development Team), operates more independently when using core facilitation skills. Arguably, we all remain more effective in embracing a servant-leader approach, even in our private lives.
How to Facilitate Scrum Events and Activities Requiring Scrum Facilitation[2]
Scrum Facilitation
Scrum Facilitation — Sprint Null[3]
Product Release
The launch of the Scrum team is typically driven when building a new product (software, hardware, or service). Throughout the following, as the words Product Backlog are used, they could refer to an intangible product or service. (Additionally, when certain words are capitalized, it’s because they are capitalized in the Scrum Guide or because they refer to an MGRUSH tool.)
Some refer to a product release project as an epic, a big chunk of work. An epic breaks into multiple themes, or features. Each theme or feature constitutes requirements or stories. Detailed story ‘slices’ may be called user stories or requirements.
The Scrum Guide does not use the terms ‘epic,’ ‘theme,’ ‘feature,’ or ‘story,’ and we strive to avoid relying on these terms as well. Since Mike Cohn, Kenneth Rubin, and others have used these or similar terms, we rely on you to adapt the Scrum framework and our ‘plain vanilla’ facilitation to guide you.
To launch into a series of Sprints, we need to establish the product vision (or goal) and some of the objectives and reasons for justifying investment. The product vision establishes a baseline for moving forward.
Project charters could resemble anything from over thirty pages to a Six Sigma® charter that fits on a single page. We remain methodologically agnostic but suggest that all frameworks have one thing in common, a statement of purpose.
Purpose of the Organization
First, we need to understand the reason for the existence of the sponsoring group, the customer, or the primary stakeholder. While components like mission, values, measures, etc., may be found, you can also substitute our Purpose Tool to build a quick and consensual understanding of the general intent of the organization driving the product.
Purpose of the Product
Next, at a minimum, we need to establish the purpose of the product (frequently referred to as a project). Again, while teams may build an opportunity statement, situation analysis, etc., we can roll up the primary reasons for any product with the Purpose Tool.
In addition to frequent one-on-one and one-on-few sessions, along with ongoing Backlog Refinement, the Scrum framework requires four formal Scrum events for inspection and adaptation during each Sprint. They include:
- Sprint Planning
- Daily Scrum
-
-
Development work (including Product Backlog Refinement) technically an activity, not an event—typically more than one Refinement activity per Sprint
- Sprint Review
- Sprint Retrospective
As a coach, impediment remover, and generally serving as a neutral party, the Scrum Master remains well suited for facilitating Sprint Planning and Sprint Reviews. Occasionally, an outside Scrum Master facilitates the Sprint Retrospective so that the participating Scrum Master may contribute as a participant.
Suggested Scrum Event Durations per Sprint (maximum)
Based on a maximum four-week Sprint, the table shows the maximum allocated time for each Scrum facilitation event or activity:
A Scrum Master should project up to eight hours of Scrum facilitation per week. Allowing a standard ratio of 2:1 for thorough preparation, a Scrum Master could be directly involved in Scrum facilitation sixty percent of their time.
While many Scrum Certification programs explain the event details, few provide extra training on the facilitation skills required. While many, if not most, of our blogs provide insight into the servant skills of facilitators, our online and in-person training yields greater insight. Next, you will find helpful Scrum facilitation event agendas, inputs required, and comments about the facilitation challenges required to lead them effectively.
Sprint Duration
Scrum Facilitation — SPRINT PLANNING
Purpose
The entire Scrum Team conducts Sprint Planning to determine WHAT can get done over the next Sprint and HOW they will do it (high-level). Strictly time-boxed to eight hours duration for a four-week sprint and sized down according to the length of shorter sprints. The purpose is to identify WHAT will get done over the next Sprint and an approximation of HOW (high-level tasking) it will be completed. Specifically, Sprint Planning answers:
- What Increments can be delivered during the upcoming Sprint?
- How will the work be completed?
Required Inputs
- Product Backlog items (ordered by SPO)[4]
- Pre-identified potentially shippable product Increment (PSPI)[5]
- Development Team capacity (during the Sprint)
- Metrics, especially velocity
- Identified Sprint Retrospective action (Kaizen)
- Draft of Sprint goal from prior Sprint Review and current Sprint goal of the SPO
Deliverable
The Sprint Goal and the Sprint Backlog that upon customer acceptance will yield the Sprint Increment, updated Product Backlog with Kaizen. Optionally, an updated Product Vision and Scope.
Sprint Planning Agenda and How to Facilitate[6]
Sprint Planning Agenda
Scrum Facilitation — PRINCIPLES OF A DAILY SCRUM
Purpose
There are good meetings and there are long meetings but there are not many good, long meetings. The Scrum framework encourages the Developers to conduct a Daily Scrum (frequently a stand-up meeting). Other stakeholders (in addition to the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Developers), may observe and occasionally, the Scrum Master may be invited in as a facilitator.
Strictly time-boxed to fifteen minutes duration, the Daily Scrum may also be referred to as a roll call (usually morning) or a daily huddle. To amplify team cadence, conduct the Daily Scrum in the same place and time every day.
The purpose allows for inspection and adaptation that helps synchronize the Developer’s plan and activities over the next 24 hours as well as identify impediments for which the team requires outside support.
“Every day, the Developers should understand how it intends to work together as a self-organizing team to accomplish the Sprint Goal and create the anticipated Increment by the end of the Sprint.”
Required Inputs
- Sprint Goal
- Sprint Backlog
- Burn-down chart
- Impediment list
Three Questions Was Changed with Scrum Guide 2000
Because Kanban boards display what has been completed, the 3-questions approach has been modified to focus on impediments or blockers that may be getting in the way
“The Scrum Master ensures that the Developers have the meeting, but the Developers are responsible for conducting the Daily Scrum. The Scrum Master teaches the Developers to keep the Daily Scrum within the 15-minute time-box. The Daily Scrum is an internal meeting for the Developers. If others are present, the Scrum Master ensures that they do not disrupt the meeting.”
Pre-2020 Three-Question Approach
Approximating the format of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, modify three questions to meet your needs:
1. What did I do yesterday that helped the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? (or, What did I accomplish yesterday)?
2. Next, what will I do today to help the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? (or, What will I accomplish today)?
3. Finally, what impediments prevent me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal? (or, What obstacles are impeding my ability to get done)?
Motivational Version
1. What did you do to change the world yesterday?
(or, What did you accomplish since the last Daily Scrum)?
2. How are you going to crush it today?
(or, What are you working on until the next Daily Scrum)?
3. How you are going to blast through any obstacles unfortunate enough to be standing in your way?
(or, What’s getting in your way, keeping you from doing your job)?
Outputs
- Socialized plans over the next 24 hours
- Impediments and blockers identified
Comments
Standing, rather than sitting, ensures that meetings remain brief and discourages wasted time.
The Daily Scrum does not provide the time and place to solve problems. Rather, the Daily Scrum makes the team aware of its current status. If further discussion is needed, a longer meeting with appropriate parties can be arranged or conducted after the Daily Scrum with only the necessary participants. Topics that require additional discussion should always be deferred until every team member has reported.
Remember to have members focus on WHAT they are doing. Discussions about WHY they are doing it should be deferred to a planning meeting. Discussions about HOW they are doing it should be deferred to a design meeting or technical discussion.
Take an MGRUSH Certified Structured Facilitation class to learn WHAT the difference is and HOW to explain it.
Scrum Facilitation — PRODUCT BACKLOG REFINEMENT(S)
Purpose
Product Backlog refinement occurs as necessary and fortifies the product Increment expected over the concurrent Sprint. The Scrum Development Team meets independently. Others may observe or be invited for input. The Scrum Master stands alert to help remove identified impediments. On occasion, they may be asked to facilitate.
Deliverable
Updated Sprint Backlog and story tasking, along with potential impediments to be noted.
Considerations
Sprint Refinement
Scrum Facilitation — SPRINT REVIEW
Purpose
The Sprint Review provides an inspection and adaptation checkpoint for the potentially shippable product Increment built over the prior Sprint and includes the Scrum Team and stakeholders. Because stakeholders attend, consider a dry-run rehearsal before the formal session begins. Strictly time-boxed to four hours duration for a four-week sprint and sized down according to the length of shorter sprints.
Required Inputs
Some of the information that should be brought in or visually displayed include:
- Potentially shippable product Increments (PSPI)
- Ordered Sprint Product Backlog
- Metrics such as Velocity and Burn Down chart
- Sprint Goal
- Release plan including product and/ or release scope and vision (goal) and technical road map (as applicable)
Deliverable
An updated Product Backlog (and optionally updated Product scope and vision).
How to Facilitate
The next table shows you HOW TO facilitate a Sprint Review. There is more than one right answer and more than one right tool per step.
However, there is a wrong answer too. That is if you don’t know how you are going to facilitate the session before it begins. Make sure as the session leader, you know what “DONE” looks like.
Sprint Review
Scrum Team Tools
Some other tools that a Scrum Team might consider based on the suggestions and experience of the Scrum Master include:
Scrum Facilitation — SPRINT RETROSPECTIVE
Purpose
Here the Scrum Team inspects and adapts to impediments around the team’s efforts and results over the prior Sprint. Also, planning robust Sprint Retrospective activities helps the team get better while preventing boredom. Strictly time-boxed to three hours duration for a four-week sprint and sized downward according to the length of shorter sprints.
Arguably the most important meeting of all, intended to ensure continuous improvement, experts recommend three hours of preparation for a ninety-minute Sprint Retrospective.
Required Inputs
- Last Sprint Retrospective action
- Metrics (especially burn-up and burn-down velocities)
- Definition of DONE (for each Increment or theme)
- Process standards and practices (i.e., internal framework)
- Impediment list
Deliverable
An improvement plan with an identified focus on one action to improve over the next Sprint (Kaizen).
How to Facilitate
The next table shows you HOW TO facilitate a Sprint Retrospective. Keep in mind there is more than one right answer and more than one right tool per step.
However, there is a wrong answer too. That is if you don’t know how you are going to facilitate the session before it begins. Make sure as the session leader, you know what “DONE” looks like.
Sprint Retrospective
Other Creative Tools
- Amazon Review
- Five Why’s or Quick RCA (Root Cause Analysis)
- Lean Coffee
- Mad/ Glad/ Sad (Stop/ Start/ Continue)
- Participant Prioritization (using various tools over the life-cycle of the project)
- Post-it Note Affinity Diagram
- Remember the Future (Temporal Shift)
- Starfish
- Speedboat/ Sailboat
- Three Words
Scrum Facilitation in Conclusion
Finally, please remember that the Voting Method of prioritization does not generate higher quality decisions, only a bigger number. Consider some of the optional tools offered by MGRUSH as solid options for both prioritizing and conducting many of the activities found during your Scrum Sprint events.
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[1] The Scrum Guide was modified in 2011 and 2020. The Product Backlog became “ordered,” instead of “prioritized,” providing flexibility to the Product Owner to optimize value in his or her unique circumstances.
[2] ©2017 Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. Offered for license under the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. By utilizing this Scrum Guide, you acknowledge and agree that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons.
[3] For empirical reasons to avoid the expression “Sprint 0 (zero)” see: Why using Sprint 0 is a cardinal sin for all Scrum Masters
[4] Depending on the level of resolution or specificity, items could be broad (epic), moderate (theme), narrow (story), or ready (story slice) …
[5] An increment is a body of inspectable, done work that supports empiricism at the end of the Sprint. The increment is a step toward a vision or goal. The increment must be in useable condition regardless of whether the Product Owner decides to release it.
[6] For a nice primer and overview of “How to Run An Agile Sprint Planning Meeting” see “How To Run A Sprint Planning Meeting Like A Boss (+ Meeting Agenda)” by Alexa Huston of the Digital Project Manager.
[7] PTO reflects Paid Time Off or other planned or surprise reasons for absences.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
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by Karen Synder | Jan 9, 2018 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Meeting Support
You probably don’t believe that silence is one of my favorite tools. Certainly, when I taught a presentation skills class to Johns Hopkins graduate students, they did not expect me to talk about silence! But I did. And at the end of the week, their final presentations showed how silence can be so effective.
When Mariah began her program, we all saw the power of silence take over. She paused. Then she made eye contact with her audience. She waited. Only when a room full of curious eyes were focused on her did she begin to speak?
We saw it when Kristin began her meeting with a question — neither simplistic nor overly complex — designed to transform an audience into a group of participants. She asked. She waited. Sometimes she waited five to eight seconds, and five to eight seconds of silence is longer than you might think! It’s very hard to listen to silence.
We watched Tad use silence in a marketing brainstorming session. There was a blizzard of ideas, but when the flurries slowed and then stopped, he didn’t move on. He waited, in silence, for a full 60 seconds. The best ideas of the session followed that silence.
And I know that skillful negotiators, like my colleague Michael, use silence in their work every day. I’ve heard Michael say,
“The person who speaks first, loses.”
I think he’s right, and how-to books on negotiation concur.
I like to use silence in the appreciation segment of a team-building session (my favorite part of these workshops!) when colleagues tell one another what they genuinely like about working together. The inevitable lull comes, and everyone looks at me as if to say, “Well, we did it. Can we go home now?” I just smile and wait, knowing that my silence will give them time to appreciate one another in a deeper way.
How can you use the power of silence in your work and life?
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Karen Snyder is an MGRUSH professional facilitation alumni. Having come into our class with quite a bit of coaching experience, she was not only an excellent student but a valuable contributor. Her article on the power of silence reminds us of Dr. Amy Cuddy’s research on ‘Presence’. Cuddy demonstrates that people answer two questions when they first meet someone:
- Can they TRUST the person?
- Can they RESPECT the person?
Others may refer to these two dimensions as ‘warmth’ and ‘competence’. Cuddy effectively asserts they clearly develop in the sequence shown. Trust always comes before respect.
Silence generates trust when the persona exudes warmth, compassion, alertness, and sincerity. Professionally, however, most believe that competence comes first. However, it does not develop until trust is established.
Dr. Max Bazerman claims the most powerful word in negotiations is “huh” — as in, tell me more. Listening, not speaking, makes you a more powerful negotiator. Likewise, silence can make you appear to be a warmer and more trustworthy person and facilitator.
Terrence Metz, MGRUSH Facilitation Training
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
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by Facilitation Expert | Dec 5, 2017 | Analysis Methods, Decision Making, Meeting Agendas, Meeting Structure, Meeting Tools
Previously, we defined ‘best’ as projects that performed well in an innovation test, focusing on the relative technology and market risks associated with new ideas (e.g., processes, products, etc.). With the Real-Win-Worth framework—designed for experienced facilitators and meeting designers, but equally valuable for beginners—we take this a step further by isolating the most promising candidates for success.
The Real-Win-Worth Three-step Screening Approach:
- How Real is the opportunity,
- To what extent we can Win compared to competitive options, and
- To what extent the opportunity is Worth doing?
MGRUSH has been a long-term supporter of decision matrices. With some leaning on George Day[1], the following questions provide the framework you can modify for your situation.
“The R-W-W (Real-Win-Worth) screen(ing) is a simple but powerful tool built on a series of questions about the innovation concept or product, its potential market, and the company’s capabilities and competition.” – George Day
The Real-Win-Worth approach provides objective scores but requires expert reviews at each stage. If the idea is ‘great’, but we cannot win—there is no need to go further. Even if we have the capacity to win, if the concept is not worth much, there is no need to go further. As a consensus-building tool, the Real-Win-Worth approach provides a disciplined method for exposing assumptions while identifying knowledge gaps (and areas of superiority).
Successful screening depends upon the quality of the questions you use. Therefore, to arrive at a consensual understanding of answers to the final question about each of Real-Win-Worth, develop a robust set of detailed questions. Because neither Mr. Day nor MGRUSH can tell you how to modify the basic questions for your situation, first understand the intent and then determine what you need to make an informed decision during each of the three stages.
To what extent the opportunity is Real
Consider two critical vectors. Value the feasibility of the product, service, or solution and the extent to which it is attractive (e.g., internal or external customers). Answer these factors by exploring the questions they contain. Eight representative questions are provided below. Rarely should the questions be posed as close-ended. Rather, by exploring the “extent” or amount, you develop varying degrees across the vector.
Typically, your best (perhaps most innovative) solutions will score higher relative to each other. For example, with question 2.2. (To what extent do we have the technology and expertise to make it?) Your range could be . . . Note the non-linear weighting suggested below, ranging from zero through nine. Ultimately the ideas that score best will pass on to the next phase or stage.
To what extent we can Win compared to competitive options
After determining the extent to which your customer demand and solution are both real, assess your ability to succeed against competitive options. According to Day,
“Two of the top three reasons for new-product failures, as revealed by audits, would have been exposed by the Can we win? analysis: Either the new product didn’t achieve its market-share goals, or prices dropped much faster than expected. (The third reason is that the market was smaller, or grew more slowly, than expected.)”
Begin by reviewing the additional six questions that explain the two factors of synergies and advantages. Then, consider pulling in the results from any research efforts to help answer the questions. Focus on an open-ended answer of likely outcomes or projections. For example,
To what extent the opportunity is Worth doing
Finally, the last stage addresses predictive factors including financial risk/ reward and strategic fit. Financial projections can be general or refined, but apply consistent rigor to everything you evaluate. Additionally, keep in mind that forecasts of financial returns from innovative solutions are notoriously unreliable. Day notes from his research that . . .
“Given the susceptibility of financial forecasts to manipulation, overconfidence, and bias, executives should depend on rigorous answers to the prior questions in the screen for their conclusions about profitability.”
The ranges you need to use should be modified for your scale. Remember that risk/ reward factors while specific, are nevertheless projections. Therefore, aggregate the group input for evaluation since the Wisdom of the Crowd suggests that nobody is smarter than everybody. Here are some illustrative placeholders for one of the nine questions suggested below.
Facilitator Considerations
Consider holding a facilitated session to collaboratively develop your evaluation criteria and key questions. You may find that having individuals score candidates privately, followed by aggregating the results, creates a strong foundation for decision-making. This approach ensures the session is grounded in collective understanding and diverse perspectives. Remember, the highest-scoring idea(s) may not automatically win, but it’s essential to avoid overanalyzing suboptimal options. Instead, guide the group’s focus toward the most promising candidates to make informed, effective final decisions.
Please consider the following Real-Win-Worth questions as guidelines, meant to be freely adapted and customized to fit your specific context. Additionally, toward the end of this article, you will find illustrative examples of questions along with a potential range of responses for each.
Real-Win-Worth Nodes
Real-Win-Worth Illustration
[1] See “Is It Real? Can We Win? Is It Worth Doing? Managing Risk and Reward in an Innovation Portfolio” which appeared in the December 2007 edition of the Harvard Business Review
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
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by Facilitation Expert | Nov 7, 2017 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Support
Successful leaders have one thing in common: Strong facilitation skills. What are the core facilitation skills (or, facilitator skills)? Which skills do you need to lead a successful meeting? Depending on who you ask, there may be:
- 6 Essential Facilitator Skills
- 9 Meeting Facilitation Skills
- 9 Facilitation Skill Competencies
- Top 11 Facilitator Skills
- and of course, many, many others
20,000+ hours of experience as facilitators and trainers of professional facilitators have taught us about one indispensable facilitation skill: the ability to remove distractions. Meeting leadership behavior can be guided by the simple question, “Is it a distraction, or not?” Subject matter experts will actively contribute when they all focus on the same thing, at the same time. Getting a group to focus provides a common challenge for any meeting leader.
We break down meeting effectiveness into three domain-general areas of skills. Each contains other, domain-specific skills. The three general areas include meeting leadership, facilitation, and meeting design—in that order. The mandala shows these primary skills. You provide other skills while confirming the group goal. Also, ensure that your people find the agenda acceptable.
Facilitation Skills
Core Facilitation Skills
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- Contacting and absorbing—noting both verbal and nonverbal behaviors
- Feedback—responding to participant’s contribution
- Clarifying—both expanding and focusing discussion
- Confirming—the validity of the content
- Challenging—meaning and assumptions
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- Assessing the current behavior—what are the risks, why they persist, what are environmental factors that may hinder progress
- Agreeing on goals for new behavior—what the new behavior will look like
- Forming a strategy for change—finding sources of support for speeding up the change
- Monitoring the success of new behaviors
- Feeding back to continuously improve the process
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Challenging
- Noting emotions, logic, and intuition in participants—being aware of their experience
- Describing and sharing beliefs
- Challenging opinions
- Managing—conflict
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Crisis intervention
- Appraising the nature and severity of the crisis
- Serving in a helpful way—helping to expand each participant’s vision of options, to mobilize each person’s sense of strength and coping
- Reinforcing actions—that which has been determined to be the answer to the crisis
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Leading
- Indirect—getting started (e.g., logistics)
- Direct—encouraging dialogue
- Focusing—limiting confusion and vagueness
- Questioning—guiding inquiries
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- Stating the problem/ issue and turning it into a goal statement
- Helping people express doubts or fears about why an idea “won’t work”
- Documenting options/ action plans
- Gathering information about resources, constraints, related goals or issues, etc.
- Helping them develop decision criteria
- Selecting a backup
- Archiving learning
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Reflecting
- Opinions and beliefs
- Experience and evidence
- Using content—repeating the main message for clarity
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Rhetoric (word choice)
- Parsimony—i.e., expressing the most with the least
- Language command—properly applying the parts of speech
- Capturing meaning in terms used and understood by the participants
-
Summarizing
- Pulling themes together
- Reinforcing the big picture
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Supporting
- Creating a climate of trust and respect
- Aiding in a healing method that helps to counter any attacking forces
We break down each domain-general skill into domain-specific skills. Most of our blogs further explain each. Here we provide a simple listing.
Domain-specific Facilitation Skills
The domain-specific skills below have been sorted alphabetically, as opposed to frequency, importance, etc.
1. Meeting Leadership
1.1. Awareness of local culture, life cycle, and terminology
1.2. Consciousness of roles in meeting
1.3. Understanding the holarchy and reason for meeting
2. Group Facilitation
2.1. Active listening and reflecting rationale
2.2. Biases: challenging participants and questioning
2.3. Communications and rhetorical precision
2.4. Consensus building and shared ownership
2.5. Context versus content
2.6. Environmental control and real estate management
2.7. Ground rules and participant behavior
2.8. Group development and performance
2.9. Interventions: Managing conflict and distractions
2.10. Neutrality, non-verbal, and observation
2.11. Output capture and visual stimulation
2.12. Thinking styles and heuristics
3. Meeting Approach, Design, and Methodology
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- Agenda building and tool identification
- Constraints: ease, resources, and timing
- Continuous improvement and participant feedback
- Creativity and innovation
- Daily Scrum and Retrospectives
- Decision-making continuum
- Decision-matrix and decision quality testing
- Definitions, glossaries, and lexicons
- Distributed teams and virtual participation (e.g., video presence)
- Documenting
- Experience adapting and backup planning
- External resources
- Focus: Avoiding many to many
- Interviewing and participant preparation
- Introductory activities (e.g., icebreakers)
- Managing content while maintaining neutrality
- Meeting purpose, scope, deliverable
- Planning, analysis, and design approaches
- Preparation using an annotated agenda
- Prioritization options
- Problem-solving prototypes
- Risk assessment and measurement
- Scoping
- Scrubbing nouns and verbs and mitigating modifiers
- Tools selection and use (repeatability, scalability, and versatility) especially:
- Work breakdown structure and team charters
- Wrap or review activities (e.g., Parking Lot)
Why Do Facilitators with Skills Fail?
There remain a lot of talented facilitators who fail in their sessions. Poor meeting design explains the primary reason for meeting failures. Most groups want to show up, want to contribute, and want to do a good job—yet meetings frequently fail. Why? They don’t know how. Meeting design remains the secret to structured meetings.
A good facilitator could operate successfully in various environments and cultures. To be successful, they need the right agenda, method, and tools. Unfortunately, most organizations do not teach meeting design and the facilitator is forced to take on a role they are not trained to handle.
Our alumni know that we frequently compare facilitation skills and attributes to those of a Navy SEAL. We stress the importance of remaining invisible (ie, neutral), focusing externally (ie, NOT on one’s self), and embracing a strong sense of service to help others—to make it easy.
This is the first time we have recommended a hit in the face.
This extract derives from an article written by Chris Sajnog, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL Master Firearms Instructor and a Neural-Pathway Training Expert. For the entire article, turn your browser to Twelve Ways to Live Like a Navy SEAL.
Mr. Sajnog stresses freedom and independence to help others through collaboration and focus. Thank you Mr. Sajnog for your service, inspiring thoughts, and articulate words. Special thanks to Gr8fullsoul for his inspiring blogs, and pointing out Mr. Sajnog’s article.
Hit in the Face Traits
Use this list of traits found in a competent facilitator. Continue to the list of actions you can take to improve yourself.
- Active — You need to be moving, doing, or functioning at all times. Ideas and theories are great, but action gets things done.
- Brave — Brave doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid. It means YOU ARE, but you continue despite your fears.
- Confident — A warrior is sure of himself and has no uncertainty about his abilities.
- Decisive — Displaying no hesitation in battle is vital to survival.
- Disciplined — Once you have a plan and confidence you can fulfill it, and have the discipline required to stick with it.
- Loving — A warrior has confronted death and understands the value of life. Warriors whose lives are in balance are peaceful, unselfish, and compassionate of others. The love of others gives the warrior the energy to constantly train for battle and the strength to survive once he’s there.
- Loyal — A warrior needs direction, and that comes from being faithful to a cause, ideal, or group. Loyalty keeps you guided along your path.
- Patient — Having patience means bearing pains or trials calmly and without complaint.
- Skillful — Having the right mindset is vital, but learn a skill set to match.
- Strong — Have a determined will in all that you do. A strong mind can make up for a weak body, but not the other way around.
- Vigilant — You never know when danger is going to come knocking, and you need to be prepared to react appropriately.
Facilitator Actions
Thus, actions you can take to become a better facilitator include:
- Become a master at what you do. Everything in life is either worth doing well or it’s not worth doing at all.
- Embrace competition. Sign up for a race, a fight, or just challenge someone to arm wrestle. Prove that you’re better than someone else at something or work until you are.
- Find something you’re afraid of and go do it. Everyone has fears — warriors (facilitators) overcome them.
- Have a set of NUTs (Non-negotiable, Unalterable Terms) and live by them! Things you’re not willing to compromise in life, period.
- Start establishing routines and habits in everything you do. We are what we repeatedly do.
- Start practicing some form of martial arts — if you’ve never been hit in the face, go find out what it’s like.
- Work out. It doesn’t matter what you do. Breathe hard and sweat.
- Write down your goals and core values. If you don’t have a map for your life, how will you get where you want to go?
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
by Facilitation Expert | Oct 11, 2017 | Analysis Methods, Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Meeting Support
Alex Osborn, the driving force behind the concept of ‘brainstorming,’ shared a timeless message with public relations professionals in 1948 that remains just as relevant today. His message is especially pertinent now: while facts and scientific research can clarify public issues, evidence alone ‘cannot find solutions unless populated by new ideas.’[1] These ideas often emerge through public relations innovation.
Now, consider the democratic virtues of service, learning, and community building,[2] as outlined by Brian Aull, Ph.D., a professor at MIT. Public relations professionals have a unique opportunity to add significant value to these virtues, particularly in strengthening service and fostering community building within a democratic framework. narrow your scope of understanding to democratic virtues.
Innovating Public Relations to Enhance the Service of Others
Public Relations Innovation
Emotional understanding often holds more weight than intellectual understanding in typical community decision-making processes. As President Lincoln once observed,
“If you would win a man to your cause, first you convince him that you are his friend.”[3]
People don’t change their behavior based purely on facts, but on how those facts resonate with their personal experiences. For instance, most individuals aren’t truly afraid of heights—they’re afraid of falling, or more specifically, the impact of landing.
The greatest barrier to social progress is complacency. People resist change because they fear losing the things they’re attached to. Public relations professionals and other change agents can address this by emphasizing how old attachments can coexist with new ones, rather than framing the past and future as mutually exclusive. Integral thought, not separatism, becomes critical.
PR professionals should aim to simplify complex concepts for the public. Economic information often fails to resonate with the average person due to its complexity. Infusing more creativity and imagination into communication strategies could prevent the use of ineffective, uninspiring techniques. For instance, many organizational mission statements sound alike and fail to captivate or engage their audience. Seek the passion when you want to make an impact. Elmer Wheeler, a friend of Osborn’s developed the expression, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.”
Community Building Requires Public Relations Innovation
Locally, many municipal challenges demand better solutions, including waste disposal, water access, and traffic safety. What often captivates the public, however, is unusual and unexpected behavior:
“. . . Buffalo safety authorities have dramatized the virtue of good driving. Instead of handing out summons, the police have been handing out flowers. On one evening, patrolmen William Collins and James Kelly ordered 25 drivers to the curb, then complimented them on their careful driving and handed them fresh orchids.”[4]
Internationally, how would one ‘sell’ America to the rest of the world? An overabundance of caution often stifles new ideas, yet innovation is desperately in need of a sponsor—particularly in regions like the Middle East. It is more ideas, not fewer, that will drive real impact. While this article does not explore ‘ideological weapons,’ it’s safe to say that greater imagination could hardly be less effective than many past efforts.
Since it’s unlikely that the federal government will establish a team of creative thinkers within the State Department, perhaps the professional PR community can step in as a transparent and effective surrogate. With Osborn’s encouragement:
“Maybe such a brainstorming group is a bit far-fetched; but, surely, we need somehow to put more creative power into our international salesmanship. We need more boldness. We need to look up to, not down on, audacity in ideas—just as we look up to audacity in armed conflict . . . If the armed forces need a General Staff to create our military strategies, don’t we need a creative group to pan our peace strategies?”[5] (italics are from the original author and source)
Who is better suited to think creatively about international strategies than the professional PR community?
Greater Public Relations Innovation Leads to Higher Quality Decisions
Recall the principles of The Wisdom of Crowds[6] and the logic behind it: groups are capable of generating more ideas collectively than the sum of their individual contributions. One person’s thought can spark an idea in someone else, leading to insights that might not have surfaced independently. This dynamic, often referred to as a ‘chain reaction,’ shows that both groups and individuals make higher-quality decisions when presented with a wider range of options.
When addressing national problems, it’s not necessarily the smartest individuals we need, but the most creative minds. So, what are some simple strategies to fuel the funnel of imagination and foster consensual ownership and shared responsibility for actions and next steps?
Use Specific, Detailed Questions to Spark Greater Idea Generation
More ideas foster solutions, especially when fighting problems proves ineffective—as it often does. Viable options emerge when they offer more attractive alternatives.
Asking the right questions accelerates the development of the best ideas. Broad, unanswerable questions like ‘How do you solve global hunger?’ won’t lead to actionable solutions. In contrast, more focused questions, such as ‘How can we improve food storage capacity in Somalia?’ can spark ideas that contribute to a larger solution.
In the world of processes, we might think of a simple equation like Y = f(X + X + x + x), where ‘Y’ is the outcome and ‘X’ and ‘x’ represent variables that contribute to it. To generate more ideas, it’s essential to focus on asking questions about the large ‘X’ or small ‘x’—the components of the process—rather than directly asking about the ‘Y,’ or the outcome itself. For example, instead of asking, ‘What is the marketing plan?’ it’s more productive to explore specific areas like segmentation, targeting, or positioning.
Some types of questions that inspire more detailed thinking—and that PR professionals might consider—include:
- Any unsuspected facts that can be brought to light? (Look at the opposite, reversal, and vice versa)
- How can the message or delivery be modified? (altered, changed, motion, sound)
- How can the seemingly disparate be combined? (combination, correlation, or synthesis)
- Laws of association that might include questions about:
- Contiguity or nearness,
- Contrast
- Similarity
- The query method suggests primary elementary school learning; namely:
- Why (important, necessary, or beneficial)
- Where (could, should, does) it occurs
- When should it occur
- Who (could, should, does) it
- What (could, should, does) need to occur
- How (could, should, does) it get accomplished or completed
- What can be borrowed or adapted to our needs? (illumination, inspiration, parallels)
- Where can we substitute? Or, rearrange? (interoperability, placement, sequence, surrogates, timing, transposition)
- What should be added, multiplied, or magnified? (dimensions, exaggeration, frequency)
- What should be subtracted, divided, or minified? (dimensions, exaggeration, frequency, understatement)
More Ideas, Less Judgment: Fueling Public Relations Innovation
More ideas are always better, so focus on capturing them without judgment or immediate discussion. This article isn’t about how to analyze ideas, but rather about the importance of capturing them first and analyzing them later.
Historically, early American settlers exhibited tremendous ingenuity—or faced the risk of starvation. Similarly, cultures that foster and inspire the most imagination will be the ones that thrive. The PR community can play a key role in driving that ingenuity by showcasing creativity and imagination, setting an example for the rest of the world. Encouraging creativity may not always be easy or natural, but remember: ‘only hard religions succeed.’[7] Similarly, generating imaginative ideas also requires perseverance and dedication.
[1] Osborn, Alex, “Your Creative Power—How to Use Imagination”, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1948, pg 308.
[2] Aull, Brian, “The Triad—Three Civic Virtues That Could Save American Democracy”, Amazon Digital Services LLC, 4th ed 2017, Preface.
[3] Osborn, pg 295.
[4] Ibid, pg 311.
[5] Ibid, pg 317.
[6] Surowiecki, James, “The Wisdom of Crowds”, Doubleday, New York, 2004.
[7] Dawson, W.J., “The Autobiography of a Mind”, Century Company, New York, 1925, pg 41.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
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by Facilitation Expert | Oct 10, 2017 | Analysis Methods, Meeting Tools, Prioritizing, Prioritizing
Project portfolios focused on the best opportunities, and accelerate innovation. So how do you build consensus around the term “best”? George Day’s article[1] provides excellent logic to help you drive a consensual view of risk analysis.
“The risk analysis matrix employs a unique scoring system and calibration of risk. It helps estimate the probability of success or failure for each project based on how big a stretch it is for the firm.”
Risk analysis tells us that “best” is a function of something. The two main vectors identified by Day include the intended market (x-axis) and the product or technology (y-axis). The charts below show the ranges. Both axis range from “Same” to “New” to the company. Since each question to be asked (below) yields five points, the x-axis extends 30 points with six questions and the y-axis extends 35 points with seven questions.
We modified Day’s original questions that were biased toward product development. Therefore, while product development represents one type of project, we have expanded the rhetoric to embrace various project types. Modify the questions further and adapt them to your own situation.
The Risk Analysis Matrix
A project’s position on the matrix is determined by its score on a range of factors, such as how closely the behavior of intended customers will match existing customers (internal or external). Thus, consider how relevant the company’s brand or reputation may affect the intended market and how applicable its technology capabilities are to develop and provide life-cycle services.
Assessing Risk Analysis Across an Innovation Portfolio
Risk Analysis – Failure or Innovation?
Internal Positioning
Product/ Technology
Take Time To MODIFY
Providing a set of questions relevant to every reader requires broad and less meaningful phrasing. Therefore, take time to modify the questions above to reflect your personal environment, market conditions, and constraints. You might even expand or contract the number of questions to more fully embrace your project parameters and culture. Remember that the key to building consensus is getting a group of people to focus on the same thing at the same time. Additionally, never underestimate the value of sharp and appropriate questions to drive consensus.
Begin to interpret
A portfolio review team—typically consisting of senior managers with strategic oversight and authority over development budgets and allocations—conducts the evaluation, with input from each project’s development team. Team members may rate each project independently and then explain their rationale. Or, time permitting, conduct a facilitated workshop to build consensus around each factor and score.
Drive consensus by isolating reasons for any differences of opinion and appealing to evidence and your organizational holarchy. The determination of each score requires deep insights. The resulting scores serve as a project’s coordinates on the risk matrix. According to Day:
“When McDonald’s attempted to offer pizza, for example, it assumed that the new offering was closely adjacent to its existing ones, and thus targeted its usual customers. Under that assumption, pizza would be a familiar product for the present market and would appear in the bottom left of the risk matrix. But the project failed, and a postmortem showed that the launch had been fraught with risk: Because no one could figure out how to make and serve a pizza in 30 seconds or less, orders caused long backups, violating the McDonald’s service-delivery model. The postmortem also revealed that the company’s brand didn’t give “permission” to offer pizza. Even though its core fast-food customers were demographically similar to pizza lovers, their expectations about the McDonald’s experience didn’t include pizza.”
Once completed. . .
. . . the risk matrix typically reveals that:
- Organizations have more projects than they can manage well, and
- A majority of projects cluster in the bottom left quadrant of the matrix, and a minority skew toward the upper right, where impactful innovation occurs.
Expect an imbalance between incremental improvements and breakthrough innovation. Discounted cash flow analysis and other financial yardsticks for evaluating development projects are usually biased against the delayed payoffs and uncertainty inherent in massively innovative projects. Again from Day:
“What’s more, minor projects tend to drain R&D budgets as companies struggle to keep up with customers’ and salespeople’s demands for a continuous flow of incrementally improved products.”
The risk matrix provides a compelling and structured visual display to stimulate facilitated discussion. Professionally facilitate discussions and dialogue about the mix of projects and fit with strategy and risk tolerance. Next take a deeper dive into what we cover in our next article, on Real-Win-Worth (R-W-W). R-W-W develops a closer look at each project’s prospects and according to Day represents:
“ . . . a disciplined process that can be employed at multiple stages of product development to expose faulty assumptions, gaps in knowledge, and potential sources of risk, and to ensure that every avenue for improvement has been explored.”
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
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by Facilitation Expert | Sep 29, 2017 | Leadership Skills, Meeting Agendas, Meeting Support, Meeting Tools, Planning Approach
To build an action plan (or, a strategic plan) that transfers ownership and accountability to your meeting participants, begin with the right questions, in the right sequence.
Be one of the few facilitators who understand that ownership transfers instantly because participants offer their own “WHO does WHAT by WHEN,” the primary components of any action plan. Consequently, whether you’re planning includes strategies, initiatives, projects, activities, or tasks, when thoroughly completed, an action plan answers the following ten questions:
(Please note in the sections that follow, the highlighted terms link to tools that facilitators may use to build the activities that comprise an action plan or a strategic plan).
Action Plan (or, Strategic Plan) = Assignments
1. Why are we here?
First of all, find the passion. While many MBA textbooks refer to this first step as a Mission, much of the military-industrial complex refers to it as Vision. Yet both answer the same question first, which is why we show up. Therefore, responses to this question fill in the blank landscape and provide a rationale for subsequent team actions. For example, why are Marriott employees in the hospitality industry? They could be in financial services, energy, etc. Capture the passion for showing up here and now.
2. Who are we?
Frequently referred to as Values or Guiding Principles, answers to this question describe the accouterments that describe or weigh down the participants. What do they carry with them? What do they wear? How will they treat each other? Different types of people may share similar passions, such as mountain climbers, yet are very distinctive in their personalities (e.g., climbers using ropes versus trail walkers).
3. Where are we going?
People sticking together amplify their chances of success. Many teams prudently select a common view that guides their direction. While most MBA textbooks refer to this step as Vision, some refer to this as Mission. And yet both approaches answer the same question of direction by agreeing on where the group will go.
4. What will measure our progress?
No proactive endeavor succeeds in a complex marketplace without measurements. While some consulting firms define Objectives as SMART and Goals as fuzzy, other firms use the exact opposite definitions. We are not biased by the term used, but promote the concept that there are three different types of criteria: namely, SMART (i.e., specific—frequently referred to as KPIs or Key Performance Indicators), fuzzy (may be subjective, such as “a great view at the top of the mountain”), and binary (such as, “reach the summit”).
5. What is our current situation?
Frequently viewed as four lists, robust TO-WS actually contrasts two dimensions. The first dimension captures stuff within the group’s control, frequently referred to as strengths (plus) and weaknesses (minus). The second dimension captures stuff the group cannot control and is referred to as opportunities (plus) and threats (minus). A weakness that can be mitigated is NOT an opportunity because it is controllable. A group of mountain climbers might be agile (strength) and resource-thin (weakness). Additionally, they face a break in the weather (opportunity) or an avalanche (threat).
6. To reach our goals and objectives, what must we do?
To generate consensus when prioritizing hundreds of options, TO-WS analysis begins to transfer ownership when participants own their analysis. While typically much can be done, groups and teams only have time and resources to manage the most important stuff. As a result, our quantitative approach to TO-WS analysis simplifies complex situations and ensures consensual understanding. (NOTE: Many call this SWOT analysis but you should build the external Threats and Opportunities before tackling the internal Weaknesses and Strengths.)
7. To what extent will these actions guarantee our success?
Alignment ensures the proper balance of WHAT is being done to reach the objectives (created to ensure reaching the vision). Use an open-ended approach, as in asking, “To what extent does this WHAT support reaching this objective?” and NOT the traditional, close-ended approach that suggests, “Does it?” Consider using the Bookend method to prioritize which actions have the greatest impact on reaching the objectives.
8. WHO does WHAT?
Frequently called Roles and Responsibilities, over twenty varieties of RACI models, all promulgated by different consulting firms, answer the question WHO does WHAT. Our approach appends each assignment with WHEN it will be done, how much FTE (or, FTP)[1] is required, and what type of resources will be requested—resulting in a consensually owned GANTT chart.
9. What should we tell others about our progress?
Wouldn’t it be great if we sounded like we were all in the same meeting? Most call this step a traditional communications plan. We call it Guardian of Change because of the bias found in some organizations where the best ideas are NOT approved; rather the most charismatic “Champions” obtain approvals (a scary thought if you are a stakeholder).
10. Who will report back on open issues?
In your professional “Wrap” review your work, manage the “Parking Lot” or open issues, confirm a quick communications plan, and get feedback on how you did as the facilitator. Consequently, if you facilitate these ten questions, the group will understand, own, and live by WHAT it agrees to do.
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[1] FTE equals Full-Time Employees roughly equivalent to 2,000 hours per year. FTP equals Full-Time Person (FTP) and also equates to roughly 2,000 hours per year.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
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by Facilitation Expert | Aug 31, 2017 | Meeting Support, Scrum Events
Agile’s Scrum Master facilitator techniques ensure that business communities get quick and responsive results. Constant feedback helps teams prioritize and make adjustments. A Scrum Master facilitates against impediments and for product owners’ requirements to support development team efforts. Scrum Master’s experience and discipline prove that every structured meeting should embrace ‘agile’ practices.
Professional facilitation lends essential skills to the Scrum Master role because an agile environment demands frequent meetings. Much of what Scrum Masters have learned applies to your meetings as well. Basic Scrum Master facilitator techniques include:
Leveraging Agile Scrum Master Facilitator Techniques
- Asking open-ended questions
- Bringing people together who should listen to each other but don’t
- Consensus building where everyone wins, NOT voting where there are winners and losers
- Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed, including preparing and post-processing results
- Helping the Development Team to continually improve their methods
- Mediating conflicts that arise during product development
- Providing visuals (eg., agendas and other information radiators) that provide focus and enable measurement of progress
- Providing a variety of activities to stimulate breakthrough, employee engagement, and product innovation
- Removing impediments to the Scrum Team’s progress
- Structured collaborative tools—too many to list here but many of them are also used in waterfall and traditional phase gate approaches
- Timeboxing and constantly pushing the Pareto Principle to get the most out of the least
Clear benefits derive from an agile approach supporting Scrum Master facilitator techniques including:
- Documented and shared knowledge about product and process decisions
- Early identification of high-benefit opportunities
- Encouraging flexibility and adjustments around unexpected developments (that always develop in projects)
- Frequent re-assessment to identify appropriate acceleration or course corrections
- In-depth exploration of more evidence and factors than normally considered by unstructured, intuitive methods
A Scrum Master Facilitator Generates Focus
Keeping participants conscious to “be here now” burns a lot of fuel. Additionally, keeping multiple concepts in mind, at the same time, is virtually impossible. Highly intelligent individuals can rarely think about more than four concepts at once, and thinking about only two at once is optimal, therefore . . . Focus. The hardest part of any session is getting a group of people to focus on the same thing at the same time with a common meaning and intent. Be sure to keep the energy flowing and take a break(s) if necessary.
- Conduct frequent breakout sessions to keep the energy flowing.
- Consider ergonomic stretches and breathing exercises to keep participants vibrant.
- If necessary, use timeboxing rather than burning out participants. A subsequent meeting can pick up where you leave off, with fresh energy.
- Schedule the most important stuff early in your meeting and, when possible, schedule the meeting for the first part of the day.
- We believe that two ten-minute breaks are superior to the traditional fifteen to twenty-minute breaks traditionally offered. We do project counting timers, however, and do not allow breaks to become eleven minutes (or longer). Do NOT penalize people who are on time by waiting for people who are not.
Demand Evidence (Think Deeply)
Challenge the intuitive, short-term thinking for support that takes a long-term view and deeper insight into implications and consequences. What are the deeper associations? Because the cost of omissions, that is ‘missing stuff’, is exorbitantly high (especially with information technologies). We need to value and appreciate some of the longer exercises that may be required to bring discussions to a higher level. By challenging and demanding evidence, the facilitator removes the myopic view from participants and forces them to be integrative with their thinking. But understand, that causal diagrams take longer than ideation sessions.
Visual imagery also stimulates making it easier to analyze. Images (i.e., iconic) and sketches (i.e., illustrative) are more efficient for capturing complex relationships than narrative (i.e., written) terms. If you work in a multi-national organization, graphical displays mitigate some of the challenges associated with translations and transliterations. Mapping stimulates—the power of patterns remains unchallenged and continues to be supported by most scientific research across a broad spectrum of disciplines. Mapping, such as logical models and process flow diagrams, makes it easier to identify omissions and more fully explain the complex relationships that exist among the components being discussed.
Write That Down
In addition to providing visual stimulation, if it is not written down it will be forgotten. In other words, if it is not written down, it does not happen. Do not waste everyone’s time, please write it down. It is easier to delete later than to recall what was said, “back then.”
Zen of the Experience (use all the senses):
When physical/ spatial, visual, and sound (and optimally even taste and smell) harmonize, we create more vivid associations that improve our memory recall. Who cannot recall the smell, standing at the seashore, of an “ocean breeze”? To amplify your meeting’s ‘Zen’, use analogies. Educators have known for centuries that learning is amplified when explained via analogy or metaphor. For nearly thirty years now, we have been promoting the use of analogy or metaphor as a way to explain the agenda and how the pieces fit together.
Combining the Scrum Master facilitator practices makes it easier for your participants to act on knowledge accessed and developed during your meetings and workshops. For additional activities to support your sessions, search for some of the many tools we provide that support collaborative sorting, experience prototyping, idea generation, and other simulations that build consensus and higher-quality deliverables, FAST.
Experience and evidence for the preceding derives partially from Cara Turner, who discusses proof about the relationship of agile methods and neuroscience at her blog site, facilitatingagility.com. Cara, along with numerous authors and scientists she cites in support, refer to key practices proven to improve both decision quality and project quality.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
by Facilitation Expert | Aug 10, 2017 | Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Agendas, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support, Meeting Tools
Below are eight habits we call meeting killers that every facilitator, or meeting leader, must avoid.
Neglect to prepare your participants in advance.
Meeting Killers: Have you ever been in a meeting where someone asks: “So, what’s this all about?”
People attending a meeting should know the purpose of the meeting before they accept. Since their input is presumably valuable, provide them with a pre-read package. Participants should show up properly prepared to make the contributions they seek. That’s why we call them subject matter experts. Read our article on “Meeting Announcements” for other meeting announcement considerations prior to shipping your pre-read packages.
Penalize people who are on time.
#7 – Disregard the use of any ground rules.
Meeting Killers: Imagine it’s one of those days when you have two or three meetings back to back. Time is precious, so you make sure to arrive on time, only to discover the meeting will be delayed (and possibly run late) because the session leader insists on waiting for latecomers.
As a professional session leader, do NOT wait for people who are running late. You do NOT want to penalize people who are on time. You don’t even know if the people who are tardy will show up at all, so start promptly.
If someone does show up late and needs to be informed or updated, pair them off with someone and ask them to go in the hallway for a quick debrief, while you continue.
The last thing you want to do is stop the meeting and review (i.e., repeat) what has already transpired. Do NOT penalize everyone else and force them to waste time reviewing things they’ve already heard once, twice, or even three times. Note that the first ground rule we recommend is “Be Here Now”. Control context and be an enforcer, not a wimp. We also recommend starting your meetings five minutes after the normal start time. Conclude five minutes early. Be the one kind enough to know that participants deserve a few minutes between meetings to attend to stuff. Enhance your track record with punctuality and your reputation will soar.
Don’t have a deliverable or any concept of what DONE looks like.
Meeting Killers: Have you ever been in a meeting where everyone seemed to have their own discrete and sometimes competing purpose?
As a professional leader, it’s your job to ensure everyone fully understands the purpose of the meeting. Professional leaders always have a vision of success. More concretely, they can visualize what the meeting will produce or deliver. Steven Covey used the expression “Start with the End in Mind.” We prefer the expression of knowing what DONE looks like.
Don’t have an agenda or any structure.
Meeting Killers: Have you ever been in a meeting where one comment (or one person) suddenly sends the discussion—or, worse yet, the entire meeting–in a completely new and unrelated direction?
As the meeting leader, it’s your job to prevent meeting scope creep from the beginning until the end. Limit discussion unrelated to your deliverable. Your agenda is a road map that tells the group how you are going to get them to the deliverable. There is more than one right answer, so do not permit any arguments around context. As a leader, you have predetermined the best way, given your constraints, to get there. Not having an agenda is truly the ‘kiss of death.’ Our curriculum focuses on agendas and tools. We provide many specific and useful suggestions for building agendas, here are a few:
Begin every sentence with the word “I” as in “I think . . .”, “I want . . .”, “I need . . .”, “I believe . . .”, “I feel . . .”
Meeting Killers: Ever heard your meeting leader constantly refer to themselves in the first person?
As a leader, you should consistently substitute integral terms and pluralistic rhetoric such as we, us, and ours. Make sure everyone knows that this meeting is NOT about you. Walk the talk by controlling your rhetoric.
Better yet, don’t shut up. Start talking and never stop.
Meeting Killers: Ever go to a meeting and say nothing?
Why? Because the leader spoke one, long sentence from the beginning of the meeting to the very end. When anyone else is speaking, rarely should you, the leader, interrupt or cut them off. Remind them that you are servile, and the meeting serves to support them.
Disregard the use of any ground rules.
Meeting Killers: Have you been to a meeting where everyone is head down, buried in their laptops or phones?
Do not permit dysfunctional behavior. If everyone behaves and does whatever they want, you might as well not have a meeting. The adage, don’t text and drive applies equally well for a meeting. A meeting where participants aren’t paying attention (i.e., texting or checking email) is bound to end in a wreck—one where the damage means economic loss for the company. If email must be responded to, ask them to take it out into the hallway where their keyboard inputting is not such a distraction. Build and use ground rules. You’ll be glad you did.
Ignore your virtual or remote participants entirely.
Meeting Killers: Notice how teleconference or video-presence participants contribute much less frequently than live participants?
Remote folks are frequently ignored. Begin with them instead. Do not string them in at the end for additional comments. Ask them to take the lead. If you take a round-robin approach, start with them. If you create a virtual seating arrangement, put them upfront. However, make the ground rules apply to them as well. No multi-tasking, working on email, or shopping.
SUMMARY: MEETING KILLERS
Follow the suggestions above to ensure that the output and next steps of your meeting are clear, certain, and shared. Wouldn’t it be great if participants left the meeting saying:
“It’s pretty clear what I have to do next to add value.”
What are we missing? Let us know and reply with some irritants we left out. Enter your comment or reply below.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
by Facilitation Expert | Jul 13, 2017 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills
With facilitation today there is no common, shared body of knowledge. In part, because facilitation is a fuzzy word and widely applied, there is no single definition — making Facilitation Certification fuzzy as well.
In North America, there are three primary methods for certifying professional skills and knowledge. None of the methods is necessarily superior or inferior when compared with each other.
- Association; e.g., Project Management Institute, Scrum Alliance, etc.
- Service Provider; e.g., Microsoft®, Oracle®, etc.
- University; e.g., Georgetown University, UCLA, etc.
First, consider the credibility of a facilitation certification:
Successfully complete a rigorous, five-day MG RUSH course to earn Certified Structured Professional Facilitator (CSPF) status, a premier facilitation certification
- Facilitation: The definition of the word facilitation is applied in many ways. There is no central body defining or controlling what facilitation is or where/ how it is applied. A search via Google or Bing returns many disparate uses of the term facilitation. Definitions range from facilitation among business groups, social groups, mediation, and dispute resolution, to teaching/instruction, community development, and many more.
At MGRUSH our instruction in facilitation supports all of the mentioned situations. Through a structured approach, we focus on business and organizational challenges, especially planning and understanding requirements. We cover workgroups, projects, executive sessions, board meetings, and workshops of all types and durations.
- Certification: Most professional certifications include these elements:
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- Body of knowledge (BoK), representing best practices and best of breed for industry standards
- Minimum level of practice with the certifiable skills and knowledge in appropriate, demonstration situations
- Test(s) or other repeatable, comparable, standards of the skill and knowledge being practiced
There are three global associations that provide certification focused exclusively on facilitation. They include the Association for Talent Development (ATD), the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), and the International Institute for Facilitation (INIFAC).
There is no central, unambiguous standard-setting agency. However, the IAF focuses its promotional efforts on the “core competencies” of facilitation. There are less than 500 IAF Certified Professional Facilitators (CPF), most of them outside of the USA. The INIFAC facilitation core competencies are quite similar but their requirements are more stringent. There are less than thirty INIFAC Certified Master Facilitators (CMF) worldwide in 2018.
The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation published in 2005 provides a compendium of articles written by 30 authors, assembled around a set of core competencies. See the comparison charts below. Neither the IAF nor INIFAC provide facilitation training through their organization. Rather, they rely on outside experts such as ourselves to prepare students.
Related associations include the International Business Analyst’s Association (IBAA), Project Management Institute (PMI), and Scrum Alliance
Both the IAF and the INIFAC operate in a manner similar to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the International Business Analyst’s Association (IIBA), or similar associations. They provide a body of knowledge, and certification testing, and rely on Registered Educational Providers (REP) such as ourselves for training on the core competencies. Current BoK includes the Project Management Institute’s PMBok (Sixth Edition, 2017) and the International Business Analyst’s Association BABok (Third Edition, 2015). We rely partially on our certification and endorsement among these and other Associations as Registered Educational Providers to justify the certification of our robust curriculum and proven teaching methods.
For in-depth training on facilitation, students depend on the best efforts of commercial organizations (like ours), universities, and clubs/ associations. Frequently, the university certifications derive from trainers that also teach for us, or our competitors. No university can satisfy the rigorous requirements mentioned above (body of knowledge, testing, experience, requirements, etc.) without borrowing heavily on the knowledge codified by others, such as our MGRUSH Professional Facilitation curriculum, classroom immersion, practice, feedback, and testing.
Thousands of companies provide varying levels of certification for the products and services they provide. Motorola famously certified Green Belts, Black Belts, and Master Black Belts from its very own, Motorola University before the intellectual property for Six Sigma® was purchased by Underwriter’s Laboratories.
Microsoft®, Oracle®, and hundreds of others in the Information Technology space continue to provide certification by product type and role. Needless to say, a certain cachet derives from branded certification that exceeds that of independent associations that are not privy to all the working parts of proprietary solutions.
There are various clubs/ associations that promote facilitation (in any of its many meanings) as a means to build community and share tips and techniques. They generally promote whatever form of facilitation the local association/ club prefers.
Among commercial trainers, MGRUSH provides some of the most long-standing, recognized, and well-developed facilitation trainers and certifiers available. Our MGRUSH Professional Facilitation Reference Manual augments nearly one thousand documents, templates, and visual aids available online. Thus, our alumni instantly access our body of knowledge, downloading agendas, tools, and methods. The integrated resources contain contributions by the trainers, students, and others who are continuously testing in the field. We also apply a soft test to the usefulness of our certification by mentioning our training in students’ resumes. With our longevity and deep content, students frequently include our certification in their CVs and Biographical Sketches.
Discover how our structured form of facilitation creates amazing results, proven to make you a better leader.
The competencies gained from our rigorous training are inspirational and practical, you will love the results. For information on claiming your educational units for the IBAA, PMI, or Scrum Alliance click here.
For a comparison of the three Associations’ various core competencies for facilitation scroll down. We also demonstrate to what extent our MG RUSH Professional Facilitation curriculum covers the IAF core competencies. (MG RUSH does not provide IAF certification. Nor are we formally endorsed by IAF. For IAF certification guidelines, please visit their website.)
If you want, drop us a note and we’ll send you a table that compares over twenty facilitation certification organizations. We have compiled attributes such as:
- Facilitation certification class pricing ranges from USD$11,000 (Ten Directions®) to $200 (Lego® Education)
- Facilitation certification class durations range from one day (various) to sixteen days (UCLA—plus offsite reading and exercises).
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
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by Facilitation Expert | Jun 15, 2017 | Facilitation Skills
Even the best facilitators in the world will fail miserably if they don’t show up prepared. Anyone can succeed with enough forethought, as shared with us by an MGRUSH Alumna.
“Workshop success! I’m happy to share that yesterday’s SE Asia Region planning workshop went off wonderfully. My boss and VPs all commented that it was clear a lot of thought and care went into the format, sessions, and questions, all to good use.”
Workshop Success: Professional Training
Workshop Success — Bubble Chart
If you want to get better at facilitating, nothing beats immersion and practice.
“Again, I want to emphasize how useful our MGRUSH training was. I’ve used it, shared it, and need to connect with HR to tell them how useful it was. Multiple people have caught me to say one-on-one what a great success this workshop was, and they credited how I facilitated in particular. The coaching you provided was tremendously helpful and the prep work I did really made a difference.”
Workshop Success: Balance Listening and Reflecting
Effective facilitators do not stand idly while others speak around them. They force content to go through them so they can provide reflection. Visual reflection is frequently more effective than audio-only reflection.
“Managing the flow of conversation (through me) was one of the more successful differences I saw in this workshop. I spent most of my time recording at the flip charts, referencing our posted agenda or objectives, or the takeaways from previous steps. I asked WHY frequently, asked for clarification of terms, and prompted for more detail at various times.”
Workshop Success: Maintaining Control
Never lose control of context. As a process police person, your group depends on you to prevent scope creep. Keep track of progress as it relates to time and work remaining so that you can modulate meeting tempo or cadence.
“Perhaps most telling is that we did not have any conversation hijacking in this workshop! (Sally) did not dominate the conversation. (Frank) did not steer us off course. We did not find ourselves somehow on a tangent or incorrectly focused on in-the-weeds details. When such drifts started, I would remind the group of the high-level focus, take the conversation back to the objectives or the intent of a particular step, and we’d flow back on track quite well.”
Workshop Success: Do Not Facilitate Context
Never ask a group about context, such as “How do you want to make that decision.” They need you for contextual leadership, not for content. Exude confidence around the method you manage and depend on them to fill in with their content.
“One thing in particular worth sharing really stuck for me. When challenged on the agenda or sessions, was my role was clearly to provide the appropriate structure. I do not open up unwieldy options or choices to the workshop participants (such as “which countries would you like to discuss today?” as I was repeatedly asked to do!), but instead framed that in order to meet our objectives for the workshop, we needed to focus on specific areas and decisions. The scope discipline was so helpful, and I really felt the confidence in holding to that because of our training days.”
Workshop Success: Annotated Agenda
Nothing beats a solid, well-scripted annotated agenda. When done well, you should be able to pass your annotation on to someone else to facilitate. Remember, it provides the play script for what to say and do.
“Also helpful were little notes to myself throughout the day, when I would worry I was too quiet that that was actually OK if the conversation was on track and flowing well, or when I’d notice ‘ugh- I just said >I< again!’ It helped to capture responses verbatim (no need to synthesize while facilitating). It was good to be aware of things in a way that was calm and mindful, but not get flustered. My sense is that I have you to thank for your approach and feedback. It was so supportive and constructive in a way that built up my skillset. It didn’t introduce securities or sensitivities around ways to be even stronger. Thank you for that!
Workshop Success: Alumni Resources
Don’t forget the value of the nearly one thousand files and documents you can download with your alumni password. If you lost yours, simply write us for an update.
“I also wanted to pass along the materials used. Your feedback about simple but impactful changes in the presentation–colors, aligning the coding, etc., were great tips. The pages I prepared in advance used the banners and colors more consistently; those items made on the fly (like the competitor sheet) do not reflect the same care.
Workshop Success: Graphic Stimulation
We are confident you remember that a picture is worth a thousand words. Agile has resurrected the value of writing things down and moving them around. Don’t forget that a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures.
“The bubble chart! The attendees responded really well to creating a bubble chart of our priority countries. I posted sticky dots so we could move them around and debate their placement as a whole. The size is reflective of market, and the colors were reflective of regulatory status– emerging, developing, or mature. Good tip on the level of detail to provide in these materials. The bubble chart was easily one of the favorite visuals in the room. Working with large Post-It Notes® is a skillset I am sure will become more second nature with time and practice.”
Workshop Success: Follow the MGRUSH Introductory Sequence
Nothing gives participants greater confidence in their facilitator than a sharp introduction. Follow the seven-step sequence we recommend, even for a fifty-minute meeting.
“I also wrote up the agenda and had a large arrow I moved down the sheet as we progressed. I explained during administrivia that if we needed to dig in on a topic we could, but we’d have to sacrifice time elsewhere. That was valuable during a couple steps.”
Workshop Success: Know Your Deliverable
Always keep the end in mind. Know what DONE looks like. Keep moving the group toward decisions, next steps, and a clear understanding of progress made during your meeting.
“Lastly, our agenda ended the day with a very difficult topic for the leadership team. We planned to assign ownership for discrete country activities. We did not actually get to a place of assigning roles/responsibilities but instead had a much-needed, healthy, and contentious discussion. I did have a RASI breakout session planned, however could not get to that level of assignment. Will be following up with leadership this week to get some movement on those assignments, using that format.
In the end, the CEO, my VP, and I enabled the group to reach high level decisions and it felt great! I’ve really benefitted from your input to date and hope to continue growing. Thank you so very much for helping me improve this talent.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
by Facilitation Expert | Jun 1, 2017 | Meeting Tools, Scrum Events
There are good meetings and there are long meetings but there aren’t many good, long meetings. Therefore, Agile’s Daily Scrum event encourages self-evolving teams to meet daily, yet briefly. Strictly time-boxed to fifteen minutes duration, the Daily Scrum may also be called a morning roll-call, daily huddle, or a daily stand-up. Above all, you can use questions from a Daily Scrum to dramatically improve the quality of your regularly conducted staff meetings.
The Three Questions of a Daily Scrum
Daily Scrum meetings provide team members insight into where each other focuses their activities. For instance, you may use the trivium format of yesterday, today, and tomorrow to modify questions that meet your needs, as illustrated below.
Classic Three Questions of a Daily Scrum (simple variants)
Daily Scrum
- What did you do yesterday? (or, What did I accomplish yesterday?)
- What will you do today? (or, What will I do today?)
- Are there any impediments in your way? (or, What obstacles are impeding my progress?)
Motivational Version of the Three Questions of a Daily Scrum (implication)
- What did you do to change the world yesterday? (or, What did you accomplish since the last meeting?)
- How you are going to crush it today? (or, What are you working on until the next meeting?)
- How you are going to blast through any obstacles unfortunate enough to be standing in your way? (or, What is getting in your way or keeping you from doing your job?)
Comments About a Daily Scrum
Therefore, use the same approach for your weekly or monthly staff meetings. Although not exhaustive, the approach of reporting on Yesterday > Today > Obstacles prevents scope creep. Additionally, standing, rather than sitting, ensures that meetings remain brief and discourages wasted time.
The daily Scrum does not provide the time and place to solve problems. Rather, the daily Scrum approach makes the team aware of its current status. If discussion is needed, a longer meeting with appropriate parties can be arranged. Topics that require additional attention should be deferred until every team member has reported.
Agile’s Daily Scrum strives to disrupt old habits of working separately. Self-organizing teams radically outperform larger, traditionally managed teams. Groups optimally sized from five to nine members who . . .
- Commit to clear, short-term goals
- Gauge overall progress
- Observe each other’s contribution
- Provide each other with unvarnished feedback
Heterogeneous teams outperform homogeneous teams at complex work because they experience more conflict. An engaged team will disagree more frequently, indicating they are normal and healthy. Team performance will be determined by how well the team handles these conflicts.
Remember to have members focus on WHAT they are doing. Discussions about WHY they are doing it should be deferred to a planning meeting. Discussions about HOW they are doing it should be deferred to a design meeting or technical discussion.
For us, WHAT someone does remains abstract while HOW they do it becomes concrete. What we do in our daily lives is to ‘pay bills’. HOW we do that varies, such as writing cheques, submitting cash, etc.
The Nexus Daily Scrum Questions[1]
Using the Nexus framework, multiple development teams focus on the potentially shippable product increment and discuss:
- Was the previous day’s work successfully integrated? If not, why not?
- What new dependencies or impacts have been identified?
- What information needs to be shared across teams in the Nexus?
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[1] 2018 Scrum.org. Offered for license under the Offered for license under the Attribution Share Alike license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. By utilizing this Nexus Guide, you acknowledge and agree that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
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by Facilitation Expert | May 25, 2017 | Analysis Methods, Meeting Structure
Experienced facilitators understand both the challenge and value of getting a group to focus on the same thing at the same time. For most project-related meetings, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) provides a simple method to increase focus. According to Goldblatt’s Triple Constraint Theory, mitigate risk through focused discussion on the cost, schedule, and scope of discrete portions of the project rather than the entire project at once.
Work Breakdown Structure represents a method that groups the project’s distinct work elements to help organize and define the total work scope of the project. While many experts suggest that a WBS element may be a product, data, a service, or any combination; at a detailed level strive to use verbs, and terms that represent the work and activity that needs to be completed. Work Breakdown Structure also provides framework for detailed cost estimating and control along with providing guidance for schedule development and control. Additionally WBS enables the project manager or product owner to dynamically revise and update as needed.
Each descending level of the Work Breakdown Structure represents an increasingly detailed definition of the project work. Note this illustrative WBS for building a house. Break work down into separate elements, the total sum of which represents all the work necessary to build the house.
Work Breakdown Structure – House Construction
In summary, the Work Breakdown Structure:
- Ensures you have defined the significant aspects that make up the project
- Provides a framework for organizing and managing project scope
- Provides feedback for planning and controlling costs and scheduling
When you have numerous projects being performed simultaneously, each project competes for the limited resources available. WBS enables you to review project details and distinguish one project’s needs from others within your organization. Therefore, you are better enabled to identify resource requirements and allocate resources more effectively.
Preparing a Work Breakdown Structure
Here are some suggested steps for preparing a Work Breakdown Structure:
- Always start with the end in mind, the project deliverable. Identify final project products necessary for achieving project success.
- Identify the major aspects necessary for project completion and success.
- These are items that by themselves do not complete the project need but, when combined, make up a successful project
- Examples shown previously include structural, electrical, and plumbing
- Build out additional levels of detail for managing and controlling the project requirements.
- Remember that each project is different, thus each WBS will be different
- WBSs from previous projects can be used as templates, but remember that the management philosophy and the level of detail may be different from project to project
- Understand your controlling and reporting requirements
- Review and refine the Work Breakdown Structure until the stakeholders agree with the level of project planning and reporting.
- Remember that no matter how detailed your WBS is, there are planning and reporting restrictions created by a WBS.
- See below for an example of the detail you need contrasted with what management may need for reviews.
Work Breakdown Structure – Management Needs
In developing a Work Breakdown Structure, realize that there are multiple ways to develop a WBS for any given project. Some ways might be better than others, but the two most important items apply to both:
- The Work Breakdown Structure must contain all approved scope and
- The Project Manager must develop the Work Breakdown Structure to reflect the way you intend to manage the project.
Helpful WBS templates HERE:
Chief Collaboration Officers
Granted, much of the suggested material above is the responsibility of the session leader. But if they won’t do it, you better. Remember, it’s worth thousands and thousands of dollars to promote more collaborative work. Harvard Business Review states further that collaboration may answer many of your biggest business challenges. They encourage leaders to promote collaborative work and teamwork, and suggest . . .
“. . . we believe that the time may have come for organizations to hire chief collaboration officers.”
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
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by Facilitation Expert | May 18, 2017 | Meeting Agendas, Scrum Events
The Economist reports that “Some apartment building owners now require tenants to provide a DNA sample of their dog so that unscooped poop can be penalized.” Alex Pentland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented a “sociometric” badge that measures tone of voice and propensity to talk or listen.
The current trend towards evidence-based decision-making devalues opinions alone. In fact, an evidence-based meeting design becomes optimal.
What is an Evidence-Based Management?
Evidence-Based Management and Meeting Design
Evidence-based is a term taken from the field of medicine in the 1990s. Its principles extend across education, public policy, social work, and most recently, management. Because an evidence-based practice supports making decisions through the explicit use of the best available facts, it demands:
- Asking: turning an issue or problem into an answerable question
- Acquiring: looking for and getting the evidence
- Appraising: judging the trustworthiness of the evidence
- Aggregating: assembling the evidence
- Applying: building the evidence into the decision-making process
- Assessing: evaluating the outcome of the decision taken
According to the Center for Evidence-Based Management (CEBMa):
Our mission is to promote, develop and teach evidence-based practice to enhance the profession of management. We provide support and resources to managers, teachers, and others interested in evidence-based management.
Research published by the Harvard Business Review discovered that:
Evidence-based management is conducted best not by know-it-alls but by managers who profoundly value how much they do not know.
What better role to lead with the support of an evidence-based meeting design than a facilitator?
The Harvard writers conclude:
If taken seriously, evidence-based management can change how every manager thinks and acts. It represents a way of seeing the world and thinking about the craft of management. It proceeds from the premise that using better, deeper logic and employing facts, to the extent possible, permits leaders to do their jobs better. Facing the hard facts and truth about what works and what doesn’t, understanding the scary half-truths that constitute so much conventional wisdom about management, and denying the total nonsense that too often passes for sound advice will help groups perform better.
From an Agile perspective . . .
. . . while Scrum builds itself around an empirical practice, Michael Bodé suggests the following:
“EBP (Evidence Based Practice) gives a framework for the higher level decision making process than is implied with Scrum. Though there is certainly a stress on using empirical data, Scrum fails to clearly guide the practitioners in the decision making process. If we translate an evidence-based practice into project management, we create the following:
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- Asking: What will the minimum viable product (MVP) look like such that it produces value?
- Acquiring: What are the PBIs that will reach the goal of the MVP and produce value?
- Appraising: What is the level of complexity of PBIs and their applicability to accomplishing the business value (acceptance criteria)?
- Aggregating: What different categorizations and business values do individual and aggregate PBIs produce?
- Applying: What PBIs should we plan for sprints and releases based on the priority and business value?
- Assessing: What shift in PBIs do we need to execute based on current progress and other factors?”
While opinions and feelings always slip into discussions, without much challenge, best-of-breed facilitators become aware of the challenge of facts and evidence while discounting vague assertions. We remain convinced that the intuitional mind appeals to a higher sense of reason than the purely rational.
Want to increase the quality of your deliverables? Increase the amount of challenge and demand for more evidence-based proof, as the most complex decision-makers do. In God We Trust, but everyone else brings evidence.
Our alumni understand that leading and facilitating is simpler and easier than coming up with an optimal meeting design. Therefore, consider Scrum’s Evidence-Based Management for Software Organizations (EBMgt™)[1] which measures value to help improve your organizational agility.
The EBMgt or Scrum’s Evidence-based approach enables service groups to make rational, fact-based decisions, taking conversations from preferences and opinions to logic and insight. Above all, details and a modified meeting design have been based on the “Evidence-based Management Guide: Empirical Management for Software Organizations” written by Ken Schwaber, Patricia Kong, and David Starr.
Because Service Groups Struggle to Prove their Value
Within service groups, so much effort is focused on features and functions that benefits get overlooked. For example, monitoring the efficacy of the software does NOT provide evidence of a group value-add, rather . . .
Outcomes Provide Evidence of Value and Ways to Improve
The Current Value of any organization must be supported by evidence of its ability to meet market demand with timely delivery (Time-to-Market) while being able to sustain delivery over time (Ability to Innovate.) Therefore, Scrum’s evidence-based approach encourages groups to focus on the following Key Value Areas (KVA) categories:
- Current Value
- Time-to-Market
- Ability to Innovate
Current Value reveals the organization’s actual value in the marketplace but has no relevance to an organization’s ability to sustain value in the future.
Time-to-market evaluates the organization’s efficacy at delivering new features, functions, services, and products. Hence, without actively managing Time-to-Market, the ability to sustain delivering value in the future remains uncertain.
The Ability to Innovate helps avoid software that is overloaded by low-value features. Consequently, as low-value features accumulate, more of the budget and time is consumed maintaining the product, not increasing the capacity to innovate.
What to Measure
Within the KVAs, EBMgt recommends eleven Key Value Measures (KVMs). Additionally, each should stand on its own and remain clear and transparent.
KVA: Current Value
| KVM: |
Measuring: |
| Budget or revenue per Employee |
Approved budget or gross revenue / #employees |
| Product Cost Ratio |
All expenses that develop, sustain, provide services, and administer the product or system. |
| Employee Satisfaction |
Because engaged employees are a major asset of any software group or organization. |
| Customer Satisfaction |
Sound management, solid software, and fulfilled stakeholders. |
KVA: Time to Market
| KVM: |
Measuring: |
| Release Frequency |
The time needed to satisfy the customer with effective products and services. |
| Release Stabilization |
Impact of poor development practices and underlying design and code base. |
| Cycle Time |
The time (including stabilization) to satisfy a key set of customers or to respond to a significant organizational request. |
KVA: Ability to Innovate
| KVM: |
Measuring: |
| Installed Version Index |
Because of the difficulty customers face adapting or changing to a new release. |
| Usage Index |
Determines a product that is burdensome and difficult to use and excess software that must be maintained even if rarely used. |
| Innovation Rate |
Growth of technical debt caused by poorly designed and developed software. Consequently, the trend of the budget percentage being consumed keeps old software alive. |
| Defects |
Additionally, measures increasingly poor-quality software that leads to greater resources. |
How to Improve Empirically through EBMgt
Scrum’s Evidence-based Methodology
Monitoring KVAs provides a great start toward managing with evidence, but not enough to change the way agility is managed. The EBMgt approach recommends four phases that enable organizations to constantly learn and improve the value derived from software investments.
-
Measure KVMs
First, build actual values for the KVMs. Now you have an initial view of organizational value. In the figure below, KVMs are displayed in a radar graph that helps visualize relative strengths and weaknesses. In the example, the group’s ability to bring new features, functions, and products to its customers is strong, but its costs and defects are high.
Baseline: Eleven Key Value Measures (KVMs)
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Select KVAs to Improve
Thus, with a clear view of current organizational value and an understanding of the measures that reveal it, leaders can now make informed decisions about which KVAs to change. Incremental changes performed in small learning loops are the most effective method for increasing an organization’s overall agility.
-
Conduct Practice Experiments to Improve Value
Next in sequence, practitioners select a single or small set of practices to use in an experiment. For example, a software group may want to increase quality to reduce the Defects of KVM. Therefore, an experiment might implement test-first practices in development teams. Making this change in a time-boxed experiment allows observation of the impact of these practices on overall organizational value.
-
Consequently, Evaluate Results
Finally, assess the results and impact of an experiment to monitor the trend of value over time. Because understanding the changes of the KVMs prepares the organization for its next learning loop. Consequently, organizations that track changes periodically across time learn from patterns that emerge. Therefore, you can interpret the final chart below:
Trends: Eleven Key Value Measures (KVMs)
[1] ©2014 Scrum.Org. Offered for license under the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
Citations
Evidence-Based Management: The Basic Principles, Barends, Rousseau & Briner, Center for Evidence-Based Management, 2014.
Evidence-Based Management, Pfeffer and Sutton, Harvard Business Review, January 2006.
Evidence-Based Process as Applied to Scrum and Facilitation, Michael Bodé, MS 2015
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. We call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly blog HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite meeting tools.
______
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by Facilitation Expert | Apr 27, 2017 | Communication Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Support
The most important action you take every day is to make choices–to decide.
Your productivity amplifies when your decisions are optimal. Therefore, choose wisely when to work alone, speak with another person, or call for a meeting. Here are five compelling reasons for when to use structured facilitation sessions:
Advantages of Structured Facilitation Sessions
Structured Facilitation Sessions
- Higher quality results: Groups of people generally make higher quality decisions than the smartest person in the group. Structured facilitation sessions encourage the exchange of different points of view. Structure enables the group to articulate the purpose of its decision, identify new options, and prioritize decision criteria.
- Faster results: Structured facilitation accelerates the capture of evidence-based information, improving the objectivity of your decision. The structure also expedites results by getting the meeting participants (aka subject matter experts) to arrive prepared. The meeting provides time to share and justify answers to questions already provided in advance. Without structure, the questions may be heard for the first time, leaving participants ill-prepared to respond. With a prior understanding of your questions and issues that need to be discussed, participants respond faster.
- Richer results: By pooling skills and resources, diverse and heterogeneous groups generate higher degrees of innovation. Diverse groups are capable of developing a wider understanding and even anticipating future demands, subsequently saving time and money across the life cycle of your project or program. If you want the same answer you always get, clone yourself. If you are seeking breakthroughs or innovation, stir things up.
- People stimulate people: Structured facilitation provides the catalyst for innovative opportunities. Multiple and sometimes competing perspectives generate a richer (360-degree) understanding of problems and challenges, rather than a narrow, myopic view. Groups stimulate and empower one another to create valuable contributions that did not walk into the room.
- Transfer of ownership: Structured facilitation orients toward further action by creating deliverables that support follow-up efforts. Professional facilitators use a method that builds commitment and support from the participants, rather than directing responsibility at the participants.
To Host Structured Facilitation Sessions
Conducting structured facilitation sessions requires preparatory time, ample session time, and follow-up as well. Therefore, successful sessions depend upon clearly defined roles, especially distinguishing between the role of facilitator and the role of methodologist (that are also discrete from the role of scribe or documenter, coordinator, etc.). Carefully managed sessions should embrace ground rules to ensure getting more done, faster.
Your preparation efforts help ensure higher productivity during meetings, including:
- Researching both meeting design options and content to be explored
- Review and documentation of minutes, records, findings, and group decisions that affect the project being supported by your meeting or workshop
- Completion of individual and small group assignments prior to sessions
When conducted properly, meetings with groups of people are strenuous for everyone involved. Therefore, call them workshops or workouts. Strive to avoid an overly ambitious agenda and plan for at least two, ten-minute breaks every four hours. Use our MGRUSH ten-minute timers to ensure that breaks do not extend to eleven or twelve minutes. Always provide dedicated resources, such as a facilitator professionally trained in structured methods.
Structured Facilitation Considerations
Discourage unplanned interruptions, especially through electronic leashes. “Topless” meetings are increasingly popular, meaning no laptops or desktop devices (e.g., smartphones). Allow exceptions for accessing content needed to support the session. “No praying underneath the table” is another expression used to discourage people from using their gadgets on their laps, presumably beyond the line of sight of others, when in fact, everyone can see what they are doing anyway. For serious consensual challenges or multiple-day sessions, conduct sessions away from the participants’ everyday work site to minimize interruptions and everyday job distractions. Using structured facilitation sessions will increase your productivity and others’ if you properly plan your work and work your plan.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
by Facilitation Expert | Apr 20, 2017 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Support
A problem person causes a meeting distraction. Their message is ineffective because some characteristic gets in the way of communicating clearly. Always empower your participants, but learn to control challenging personality types to avoid problems in meetings.
First of all, the deliverable or decision is theirs, not yours. Therefore, manage politics by removing ideas from the individual participant and turning them over to the entire group. Because it’s not WHO is right, but rather WHAT is right that we seek. All ideas belong to all participants—never to an individual. While ‘Ground Rules’ help mitigate some behavior, firmer action is required for select individuals. As a result, difficult participants known to cause problem meetings are discussed below.
“Politikos” — Nature of the Problem Person
The term ‘Politikos’ means ‘the science of people. You deal more ably with participants as you gain more experience. However, there is a certain degree of comfort in recognizing that there are some common patterns of behavior that are likely to occur. Keep one thing in mind, however; participants cause problems only for a certain time. Often a participant causing a problem becomes productive in a different situation. Never label a person permanently as a problem person.
Firm But Flexible, How to Manage Personality Types in Problem Meetings
You identify participants displaying problems because they generally disrupt the session. Sometimes, however, they don’t participate. When you have a problem person in a meeting, their contribution remains unclear because some characteristic gets in the way of communication. To deal with the people on the ends of the curve (i.e., the outliers), assume that people have good intentions and focus your energy on discovering what is causing the difficulty. In other words, identify the problem—do not highlight the problem person (or, person with the problem).
Problems in Meetings and Difficult Participants
People Principles to Remember
Following are guiding principles for dealing with people (all based on “Treat others as you wish to be treated”):
- Never embarrass people, especially in public. People . . .
- are creative if asked.
- are intrinsically reasonable.
- do not like to be blamed.
- have different goals in life.
- prefer the positive to the negative.
- share similar fears.
Motivation of People
People are motivated by:
- Need to control (power motivation)
- They rebel against a loss of control.
- Turf issues arise.
- Need to excel (achievement motivation)
- People don’t want to look bad in a group.
- All participants are speaking publicly—public speaking scares many people.
- Need to bond (affiliation motivation)
- Attacks and win-lose situations affect participants’ ability or willingness to bond.
Managing the Problem Person
Determine what is motivating a participant you are dealing with. Once you understand their motivation, use the following sequence of guidelines to deal with them.
- First, determine and correct the cause of the problem person
- Mitigate the symptom if the cause cannot be corrected by:
- Ground rules
- Body position
- Eye contact
- Talking with the participant during a break
- Enlist help from the business partner or executive sponsor.
- Last resort—have the problem person removed.
When erratic or distracting behavior occurs, prepare to control it. While ‘Ground Rules’ may help contain much of the non-malicious behavior, additional interventions are required for select personality types. The following table lists the characteristics of difficult participants that could cause problem meetings. Each comes with thoughtful and proven suggestions on how to deal with them.
| NAME |
CHARACTERISTICS |
WHAT TO DO |
Attacker
|
Launches verbal, personal attacks on other group members and/ or facilitator; constantly ridicules a specific point of view. |
Stand between two people fighting; stop attacks; maybe use additional ground rules
to control. |
Backseat Driver
|
Keeps telling the session leader or facilitator what to do—or not do; attempts to control the meeting by changing the methodology. |
Listen to some comments—because they may be good; never turn over control; talk to them during breaks; enforce scope. |
Broken Record
|
Bringing up the same point repeatedly; and constantly trying to focus discussion of this issue; can prevent the group from moving ahead to new items even if ready. |
The broken record needs to be heard. Document their input but do not make it an open item until later in the workshop. |
Busybody
|
Ducking in and out of meetings does not ask subordinates to hold calls, and gives the impression of being too busy (and therefore important) to devote full attention to the meeting and the group. |
Deal with similar to the latecomer or early leaver; try to establish rules to control during preparation. Allow frequent bio-breaks for people to react to their electronic leashes. |
Dropout
|
Constantly engaged with their smartphones or laptop; expresses disapproval or dislike by ignoring the proceedings; may read, or do unrelated paperwork to avoid getting engaged in the session. Caution, a doodler is not dropping out—they may be a horizontal thinker. |
Use laser focus so that they know that you see them. During a break, talk to them. Do NOT publicly call out their name and ask for participation.
Encourage your culture to embrace “topless meetings” that prohibit laptops and smart devices. |
Early Leaver
|
Drains the group’s energy and morale by leaving the meeting before its end. |
Handle similar to a latecomer; do not stop the meeting for one person. |
Head Shaker
|
Actively expresses disapproval through body language and nonverbal cues such as rolling eyes, shaking head, crossing and uncrossing arms, sighing, etc. Covertly may influence a group to reject an idea. |
Approach the head shaker. Use open hands to ask them to explain a viable, counter position. Do not allow these nonverbal cues to continue unnoticed. |
Interpreter
|
Always speaks for someone else, usually without an invitation to do so; restates ideas or meanings and frequently distorts it in the process. |
First, get the original speaker to confirm without embarrassing or putting them on the spot. Then pass the “talking stick” to the interpreter for their own point of view. |
Interrupter
|
Jumps into the discussion and cuts off someone else’s comments; acts impatient, too excited, or concerned that own ideas will not be acknowledged. |
Stop them immediately to protect the source; always get back to them but do not allow them to interrupt; they will learn. |
Know-it-all
|
Uses credentials, age, seniority, etc., to argue a point; focuses group attention on opinion and status as opposed to the real issue. |
Often a supervisor or manager; writes it down to satisfy and challenge them about relevancy to the holarchy and for evidence. |
Latecomer
|
Arrives late to meetings, makes a show of arrival, and insists on catching up and stopping the group midstream. |
Use 50-minute meeting intervals. Enforce the “Be Here Now” ground rule. Do not interrupt the meeting. Review during a break, not during the meeting. |
Loudmouth
(Monopolizers)
|
Talks too often and too loudly; dominates the discussion; seemingly impossible to shut up; maybe someone who has a higher rank than other group members. |
Record input if on topic. If not, a direct conversation away; stand in front of a person for a short time; talk to them during the break. |
Negative Nancy
|
Voiced skepticism, shrouded with genuine concern. |
Use the “What—So What—Now What” tool. They may know something significant. Meet them privately before the meeting. |
|
|
While it is true that we are not going to convert quiet people into aggressive extroverts who dominate a meeting, there are steps that facilitators can take to transform the velocity of contributions from quieter participants. |
1. Interview your participants
2. Breakout sessions
3. Non-verbal solicitation
4. Reinforce during break
5. Round-robins & Post-it note approaches |
Sleeper
|
Challenged to stay awake, especially during late afternoon sessions. |
Ideally, open a window. Practically, walk around them if possible or lead a quick ergonomic break. |
Uninvited
|
Show up without an invitation |
Explain and enforce the role of Observer, noting they may speak during breaks. |
Whisperer
|
Constantly whispering during meetings, holding offside conversations; upstaging the facilitator or session leader, as well as other group members. |
Hence, standing close to the whisperer(s) will stop their conversation. Enforce one conversation at a time with the entire group. |
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
by Mark Morgan | Mar 30, 2017 | Analysis Methods, Leadership Skills, Prioritizing
By Mark Morgan, CEO and Founder of StratEx Advisors, Inc.
Oh, the mistakes organizations make. Business plans or strategies usually sound fantastic at the outset. But far too often what sounded good at the beginning somehow just did not work out.
In 35 years of business, I have my share of things that seemed like a slam dunk turn. However, they became the slam without the points. Maybe it was a new branch of business or a new product line. Maybe it was the creation of new business processes or the installation of a new system. But somewhere along the way, it just did not happen. Here are six crushing mistakes organizations make and what you can do about them.
Sound familiar?
Don’t feel alone. About 90% of business strategies never make it to prime time. When it comes down to making things happen in organizations, it follows the old saying…
“When all is said and done, there is a lot more said than done!”
This is very frustrating and expensive. Consider that it might cost a business 10-20% of annual revenue to significantly grow the business. For every million dollars of revenue, it could cost up to $200K of investments. They need to invest in the products, promotion, channel development, and customer service to really make it take off. If the strategy does not work or doesn’t get implemented, that is a lot of cash down the drain!
Question: So what is it that organizations tend to miss here? There are six big mistakes that businesses make that crush their chances of success. Here they are:
Mistakes Organizations Make
-
Forgetting to leverage the motivational part of the business.
People will do for a cause what they will never do for money. That has always been true, but in the industrial age, we could get away with treating the organization like a machine. Not now. We have entered the age of a purpose-driven organization. People lack a clear line of sight between what they do and what is important about what they do. Every organization serves a purpose or it goes out of business. Businesses that are founded to accomplish great things are far more likely to execute their strategies because their people know how important it is that they do what they do. Strategies die of apathy and a lack of emotional commitment.
-
Being unclear on the direction.
A Harris poll once asked people in multiple organizations whether they understood the direction of the organizations they work in. 90% said No! This would be somewhat like a soccer team where only one person understands where the net is. What’s worse is that because of reason number 1 above, not only do they not know which goal is theirs, they don’t even care! Not knowing what the direction and goals are is a strategy killer because there is not enough time to allow people to find their way to the goal line in the dark.
-
Being fuzzy about identity.
No business is all things to all people. Herb Kelleher once remarked that he hoped all the customers who did not like what Southwest Airlines offered would simply go use another airline instead of complaining about his. It was a way of saying that casting too big of a net is one of the fastest ways to fail. In the time that Southwest Airlines has been in business (and been profitable the whole time), over 100 airlines have failed. Knowing who the business is and who the business is not is critical to execution because it keeps the organization from pouring effort into too many things and succeeding at none of them. A diluted resource pool is a sure way to crush strategy because all the time the teams spend contending for resources lets the strategy slip into darkness.
-
Meaningless measurement.
Many organizations have dashboards full of metrics that measure seemingly everything that can be measured. One organization had over 100 metrics on the dashboard with no connection to what could be done about any of them. Some organizations measure things because they CAN, not that they SHOULD. Most of the measurements are about things that have happened in the past and have no predictive value. For instance, income and expenses from last year are not predictive of the same things this year or next year. The big mistake here is measuring things that do not matter to a client or customer and focusing on things in the rearview mirror. There is a great reason that airplanes don’t have rearview mirrors: an airplane has no use for information about the air behind them.
-
Faulty translation.
One big gap in this area is that the strategic planning process does not link up with the operating plan process. What happens is that the strategic plan “offsite” does not generate action “on-site”. Every strategy has to be broken down into component parts. The problem tends to be that when the strategy gets broken down into pieces, it is hard to tell what piece went with what strategy. The second big “swing and miss” comes from a lack of resource application in priority order of value. There are always more ideas about what we could do than resources to accomplish them. The translation process often does not finish the task of putting our commitment (money) where our strategy (mouth) is.
-
Poor follow-through.
Like it or not, sexy or not, the ability to manage a project through to completion is how strategy gets delivered. Projects are the often messy and laborious part of pushing the ball across the goal line. And this is where it gets expensive. A strategy can be re-written in a short period of time at a relatively low cost but consider this: In the US, about 25% of the GDP is project related and about 30-40% of the projects will fail. That translates to a wasted effort of about 3-4 Trillion Dollars ($3,000,000,000,000 to $4,000,000,000,000). A $250 Million business might have $25 Million in projects.
That means that between $7.5 Million and $10 Million is being wasted at this very minute. The part of the process where all the dreams and schemes were created was fun and exciting. The part where we take accountability for delivery sometimes is less fun but, according to the financials, this is a critical problem. Project, program, and portfolio management get too little credit for the value they represent. This is where the rubber meets the road. It is also where many organizations run off the road.
There may be a hundred ways to leave your lover, as the old song goes. But there are only three fundamental things needed to get a strategy executed and prevent strategy-crushing results from the mistakes organizations make frequently.
First, consider the business purpose. Is there a reason for the business to exist that is bigger than anyone, will last longer than anyone, and is a legacy worth leaving? Yes? Cool. No? Dig deeper. Because if the business is not up to something important, the team needs to re-think what the business is about. A team can’t be expected to execute at top form if they don’t have a reason that is bigger than their paycheck. Follow up the purpose check with a check on what longer-term goal is served. The question is what ultimate achievement is the business dedicated to that has enduring value?
Gaudi started building the Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona that will take several generations to finish even though he died in 1926. What is the long-range achievement that the business I dedicated to? Next, the clarification of who the business is and who it is not must be razor-sharp clear. What the organization stands for and what it does not must be vivid in the minds of every member of the team. Lastly, what are the goals? Split them into short, medium, and long term. Make them SMART. (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time Bound). If making them SMART fails, count the strategy as a candidate for the dead zone because, without clear goals, strategy is meaningless. Having gotten this far, congratulations, the purpose, long-range intention, identity, and goals are now clear. This is a big step.
-
There is much written and even more said these days about the word “alignment”.
The question is align what? First, align metrics. Start with the three most important measurements of customer or client delight (more than satisfaction). Trace those back into the business to determine what measurements must be optimized internally to get the client-facing measurements to a peak value. Next, align the action plans in priority order based on their contribution to goals and metrics. In other words, lay out the work plans according to the level of contribution to the goals and or the amount they will improve performance to metrics. (Hint: if there is a focus on what matters to clients, the metrics will probably take care of themselves).
Next, align the resources in priority order to determine where additional resources are needed to reach your goals and perform critical metrics. (Hint: if there is a focus on what matters to clients, the metrics will probably take care of themselves). Next, align the resources in priority order to determine where additional resources are needed to reach your goals and perform critical metrics. Last, align the way the team is organized to make it as easy as possible to focus on the right customer-based metrics. Congratulations again. Goals, metrics, strategic initiatives, structure, and strategic portfolio are now in alignment. One more giant leap.
Now the fun begins.
The key to executing strategy is to ensure that traceability is maintained between the work going on in the business to its payoff at the goal level. To do this, think of the collection of projects you have going as an investment portfolio. There will be projects that are doing well and returning value, and there will be some that sounded good at the beginning but are not paying off. On an ongoing basis, re-evaluate the projects on their own merit. Should some move ahead? Delay? Cancel? Replace with new?
Most of the real hard part of execution is gaining clarity and alignment but the diligence of mobilization is where the payoff is generated. Mobilization of a well-clarified and aligned portfolio of projects is far easier than diving into mobilizing a strategy that has been poorly clarified and aligned. The critical aspect of mobilization is keeping the eyes on the prize. Always concentrate on reaching goals and use strategy and execution as the means to the end. Nobody ever made a dime executing a strategy per se. Achieving goals as a result of executing a strategy is where the money is.
Conceptualizing strategy may be fun and exciting but realizing your goals is much more satisfying. By concentrating on the three main areas of executing strategy: Clarify, Align, and Mobilize, organizations can avoid the six strategy-crushing mistakes. You can lead to being part of the ten percent of businesses that execute effectively.
Now the question is…what part of the six strategy-crushing mistakes ring true for you? Are you ready to get going on what it will take to move our organization from where you are to what your potential has in store for you? If so, we should talk about how we can help you.
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
