PairCoaching: Coaching

Intrinsic Motivation: What motivates you in your project?

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:31:12 GMT

This article has moved to my new blog

http://paircoaching.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/intrinsic-motivation-what-motivates-you-in-your-project/

XPDay.fr & Agile 2008

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:31:25 GMT

It's this time of the year again to propose session to different Agile conferences.

After proposing some networking game I also proposed to Peter for the last BarCamp, I now proposed the same game for XPday.fr. Only in Paris there will like +100 people. ( I think even 150) A lot more then even on BarCamp3

Next to that my father and I have proposed the same two games we proposed to XpDay.be

The Conflict Game

The Communication game

Then I have been proposing sessions to agile 2008

This time I have proposed also the leadership game. It still considered our best game by a lot of people.

And it is always fun to do it.

Only transport the props to Toronto will be expensive.

Still writing a few more proposals. At least one for Agile 2008. Helping Pascal for a customer proposal. & Then writing one for paircoaching.net

Don't forget to write your own proposal for Agile2008. One free submission to Agile 2008 for each accepted session.

(You know I advise to do presentations with two people)

(I still haven't found my pair'sfor my sessions...)

Oh and if you are already proposing sessions of yours, please review my sessions. Especially if you have followed them somewhere else.

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company .net

Technorati Tags: Agile 2008,xpday.fr,Xpday.be,conflict game,leadership game,barcamp,peter forret,pascal VC

The Road Less Travelled

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:21:45 GMT

On my way to the SPA2007 conference, I read The Road Less Travelled.I put it on my reading list, after listening to one of the Podcasts of Jim & Michele. (I find it funny to read a book with the title "the road less travelled", while I am on my way to Cambridge, a city I only visited once in my life..)
It is an amazing book, I agree with a lot of stuff, the author makes links between things I did not think of before.
His first sentence is: "Life is difficult".

If I look at my current project, like any other project, it is not easy. We face a lot of problems. But like Mr Scott writes, that is ok. I see the opportunities in it.

I did not really think to much about this. I never toughed the project was easy. I don't think I even said that, but I might have been perceived to find it easy.

Before I start something, I do see a lot of possible problems, I do know where the road can get "bumpy". I sometimes even do the journey in my head.

To me all of this, is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist.

They both see the same obstacles, for an optimist, it are opportunities (thing under his/her control), for the pessimist it are problems (things outside his/her control).

I will post some more about this wonderful book, if only to have the possibility to quickly find back all these wonderful idea's.

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my last name.be

Technorati tags: PodCasts, Jim McCarthy, Michele McCarthy, SPA2007, The Road Less Travelled, Scott Peck, Life Is Difficult, Optimism, Pessimism, Oportunities, Problems, books, Book Review, Cambridge

Modeling for life.

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:19:08 GMT

I have strange people reading this blog. It does not prevent me from posting. Will I censor myself?
As a person, I do not want to speak badly about people.
When I want to criticize a person, I will talk with him private. When I want to praise him or her, I do it in public.
As all humans, I have seen myself gossiping. The worse thing in my mind is about a boss who was treating his employees like little children. I should have stepped up to that person and gave him feedback about his behavior and what it did to my fellow ex-colleagues and me.
Although I do talk a lot about this boss, I never use his name. Therefore, I will never post a detailed story online.
Is this censorship? Yes. Am I limited in what I can post online? No.

I can tell the story about this boss, and the results he got. Oh you are curious about the results he got. His employees started to behave like little children.
It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
==>So was he right after all? Yes, that was/is his point of view.

I have another story that could prove he was wrong.
This time I am the leader.
I have a four year old. As all parents of 4 year old or bigger children know, getting dressed in the morning can become -how should I put it- stressy.
The quickest way is to dress him ourselves; he is only 4 years old after all. We do have another 2 year old. We planned another baby. With 3 kids, dressing the oldest is not the best solution in long run. Technically, he can dress himself.

As an employee, I know it is frustrating if my boss does things for me, that I am perfectly capable myself. (Although he might not know or believe I can do this.)
Even if he does it better, it still frustrates me, because his rescuing prevents my growing. In this way, it is preventing him from doing other stuff. That is twice a way that he blocks the company from growing.
As a regular reader, you know I am using the things I learn from my children at work and vice versa.
So instead of gossiping in group or criticizing a boss in person, I realized that I should be a model.
Yes, it is a four year old. Yes, he is actually a kid. Let’s try to treat him like an adult.
(Ever told a four year old with a 2-year-old brother, that he is actually little?)

He got an alarm clock from “Sinterklaas”. When he got it, we explained that the clock would ring at 7 o’clock. We would expect him to be dressed at 7: 20. Then he could go downstairs and play until 7:30. We started to eat at 7:30, and we expect him to be finished at 8 o’clock.
It worked. From the very first day we tried it. I admit, not every day with the same smooth result. When something goes wrong, we the parents did a bad preparation.
Like today, we forgot to put his trousers where he expected them.
As a person dressing myself for the last X years, that would not be a problem. I would just get up and take another one or go looking for the other one. For my son that is enough distraction to loose his concentration and do something else.

Now let us look at this with the colored glasses of my old boss:

Joppe got distracted for no reason. When I do this, I do not get distracted.
So he is behaving like a child. Conclusion: he is not ready for dressing himself.
I am better of dressing him myself. It is quicker.
If only he would listen to me and stand still when I dress him. Everything would be so much nicer.

Is he still right? He sure thinks he is.

Let’s put on some glasses with another color :
He got distracted because I made a bad preparation. I know what to do to prevent this, what I can do to solve this right now?
What would I do when I get dressed? Get new trousers (my solution), find yesterdays trousers (my wife her solution.)

Joppe started to get dressed a few minutes late and he did not do it with his usual dynamics, but he still got dressed himself.
We showed him what we did (be a model) and let him concentrate on his original task.
When he would have been doing this for a few more months, I would have told him to look for the trousers (actually that was my first response. Els made me realize that was one-step too far.)

Two sides of the truth.

I think we are both right. The second way of looking at this situation, is not less frustrating. It is actually more frustrating to trust someone, especially when I feel it is not going to work.

Getting dressed also takes more time for Joppe. During this time I can spend time with Bent and dress him. I keep giving attention to Joppe, it is already frustrating enough for him to do the job. He will try to get my attention in all possible ways.

At that moment, it is very tempting to help him. He is actually asking for help. Still it is not helping him nor me in the long run.
When he does it alone, we sheer about that, I can assure you that smile that is worth all the frustration.

If my 4 year old can behave like an adult with so little trust, why should adults be any different?

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my last name.be

Technorati tags: Coaching Leadership Children ProjectCoaching Modeling for Life

Programming God's

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:07:31 GMT

On the CoreProtocols mailing list Alex talked about programming Gods in the team. These people that do not want to change their behavior, because they are so good..

I want smart people on my team. I want the smartest people on my team. Because great programmers out perform the bad one 10.000 time. Being god is not equal to being smart.

If they really do not want to learn and be good in a team, I prefer they leave my team.
A small company cannot afford einselgangers.
In a big company other people would want to have these gods, so no problem there.

I always use the example of the football team that won the last Olympics. I know nothing about football, but the friends I have that love (European) football, all agreed that a certain team should not have been part of this competition.
It was a shame that they were there, because they did not have one god on their team. That team actually won the Olympics.

Team spirit is more important in team sports as individual capacities.

All professional football teams have a full time coach.
All companies have managers. Most football teams today have managers.

How many companies have coaches for their teams?

A football team has 11 people on the field. Big teams have maybe 30 to 40 players.

Football teams make much more money then most companies I know.
It is very essential the team concentrate on their goal. Winning the game.
Iteration after iteration. Winning the next game. Week after week.

The goal is not scoring as many goals as possible. The goals is not having as little goals against them.
The goal is winning the game.

I start to understand why some great football players are not on the field.
Football is a team sport. The best team has to be on the field.

That is also why the bonuses are giving on team level. No bonus if your team has lost, no matter how many goals you made/or stopped.
But that is a topic for another blog item..

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my last name.be

Technorati tags: Coaching Leadership FootBall ProjectCoaching Programming God's