When I see a great interview on TV, it seems to flow very naturally. The person being interviewed opens up and tells us some really interesting things while the interviewer laughs, nods, sighs and gasps. But when I see a bad interview, it looks really painful. Sometimes the interviewer seems more interested in talking about themselves, while at other times the interviewer seems to be working really hard but the person being interviewed is as communicative as plank of wood. There are many things that differentiate a good interview from a bad one, but one of the common themes is … Continue reading Permission to coach

I recently went through a coaching assessment to make sure my skills are at the standard required to run an agile coaching course. We do this for anyone running the course since all of us trainers hold ourselves out to be accomplished coaches and when people come to a coaching course they expect a lot more than just learning to do stand-ups and quote manifestos. It wasn’t a long session but I was surprised that on top of it’s designed purpose (validating my skill aligned to learning objectives), it also created some really valuable learning for me. In fact it … Continue reading Reflecting on a recent agile coaching session

I looked at “mistake proofing a process” a few articles ago and I was thinking about how to remove dumb (or dangerous) decisions from a process. This has been an important thing to consider for some of my clients in the past because people using a process could cause themselves and others a lot of harm when they make a mistake. But for most of my clients lately, a mistake would annoying but far from deadly and dumb decisions are easily forgiven and quickly corrected. As a result, some of this article could be over the top. But sometimes when … Continue reading Avoiding bad decisions – a little more work where needed?