Archive for the ‘PairCoaching’ Category

What is a coach retreat?

4 comments | Posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 | Read more articles about 'Checkin, Click, coach-retreat, FLS, mindset, PairCoaching'

Yesterday Oana Juncu and me organized a Coach Retreat in Paris. Lots of people asked me about the format. This is version 2 of the Coach Retreat format. I expect it to change a lot the coming years, only step by step. We have already lost of idea’s and the trick will be to be patient and only change in small steps.

In agile we use a lot of double loop learning. While writing this up I realize that CoachRetreat is quadrupple loop learning. Not because I want mine to be bigger/better etc, it’s because I stand on the shoulders of giants.

Rachel Davies invented Coaching Dojo.

Coray Haines co-creator of Code Retreat.

Coach Retreat = Coaching Dojo + Code Retreat
(Oana invented this tag line, did I mention already I love working with people smarter then me?)

Very nice yves, could you know become a little more practical?

Yes: 1 hard rule, at coach retreat we speak the local language. (In this case French)

We started with a group Check-in

We had 6 situation agile coaches encounter at clients. These 6 situation we put on the walls of our retreat center. We asked our coaches to DotVote on the situations. The winning situation we worked on the whole day.
Really? Work the whole day on one situation?
yes, one situation. That works fine for code retreat, so we do the same.
Well you don’t have to copy everything from Corey do you?
True, but we should not reject anything without trying too. Actually the coaches in Paris initially had the same reaction you had. Yet we stuck to our plan.
That does not sounds really agile…
I actually think it was, read on and then judge.
Just like CodeRetreat we work on the same story but with different techniques.

 

We experiment with one technique during 65 Minutes.

5 minutes explaining the problem
10 minutes of working
5 minutes local debrief
10 min replay with the same actors
5 min local debrief
10 min replay with the same actors
5 min local debrief

15 min of group debrief (retrospective)

>> this is the first learning loop (actually the second but that will become clear later)

Then we redo the story with another coaching technique.
In total we do 4 to 5 different coaching techniques==> this is the second/Third learning loop.

His were the coaching techniques we used this CoachRetreat

 

We ended the day with a Circle of Questions

The click rewind is where the first learning loop comes into play. Because anyone can stop what is gong on, while it is going on and people replay what they did, you have a learning loop right in the action.

The fourth learning loop is when we will have more CoachRetreats. Then we loop at CoachRetreat level.

Already after the second sessions, people that said that they did not wanted to replay the same story the whole day had changed their mind. Participants found lots of value in the replaying of the story and experimenting with coaching styles.

One of the places were people did coach, we asked everyone (even observers) to paint.

I have also created a google group for CoachRetreat:
https://groups.google.com/group/coachretreat

something I forgot:

  • use #MyDailyThankYou
  • mention I give FLS (Free Lifetime Support) on everything I do.
  • mention that I’m writing the Who Are agilist book with answers from Oana, Rachel & me (together with already 27 others..)

I already received a request for a CoachRetreat in Bordeaux & Lille, Montpellier. Where do you want to organize one?

Who do you trust?

6 comments | Posted on Friday, September 23rd, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Agile, PairCoaching'

Catia and Marcin started an interesting experiment, they called pair-writing.

Catia blamed me for starting that. I like being blame of things. Seriously. When it is my fault, it means I am in control and  I can do something about the mess people are in. (After all it was my fault.) Next to that, I have been blamed of much worse things then making people pair up.

I told Catia & Marcin I loved the idea, but I did not think it was pair writing. And then things became really interesting. One of them (the names are left out to protect the innocents ) said that before they could be pair-writing they needed first to increase the trust between them. Interesting because brought us back to the end of their discussion.

I have been reading and talking a lot about trust the last years.
My favorite one liner about trust is:

 

Trust is given, not earned.

Everyone with kids knows how hard this is.
As a parent I give a lot of freedom to my kids. Joppe loves climbing in trees. We let him, even if he climbs beyond the point we still see him. Does it scare me? Yes. Why do I let him do it? Because I trust he can do it. And because I give him trust, his confidence grows and he dares to do it.

Of course I did not trust him to do this, when he was 3. But it did not start when he was six either (when he started climbing trees.)

Now I know I trust people very quickly.  And yes I have already been bitten by that in my life (both personal as business life.) So what , I’m sure that even the biggest paranoids are not bitten less then I am.

Let’s take the example of our “The Core Protocols an experience report”, that article was written by 15 people. Some of them I never met. Yet I gave them all editing rights to a google doc. Some edited a lot, others send me some text and I added it myself to the article.

At some moments I was surprised about some changes. Yes at the end I asked people to be carefull about large refactorings. Yet I never have taken editing rights away. I will say more, I have no idea who wrote what.
Is it what I had in mind when M&T ask me to write the article? No. It is in no way what I had in mind.  It is 3008 % better.

Why? I trusted the people they would come up with good idea’s. Read article yourself and decide for yourself if it was a good decision.

Does this mean I still trust everyone? No. Some people in my life have proven that they can’t be trusted. They are removed from my list of people I trust. Can they get back up?

Yes they can, but depending on how hard they have been untrustworthy it might take a little longer.

Now keeping someone’s trust is hard. This year I have been together with my partner for 15 year. And yes, in these 15 years our relations has not always been as strong as today.

My question to C & M is: when you need more trust to write, why did it work to organize ALE2011?

y

Update: This WE I re-read SLACK from Tom DeMarco and on page 152 there is the lovey parents rule:

Always give trust slightly in advance of demonstated strustworthiness.

What is PairCoaching?

6 comments | Posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Agile, ALE, Children, Games, PairCoaching, Scrum, Self-organizing teams, Video, WorkLifeBalance'

 

Rini Van Solingen has interviewed me for his Groeten Uit Delft vlog.

Who is Ralph Miarka?

5 comments | Posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'BookList, Friends, PairCoaching, Who is ?'
The next person in my series of Who is, is Ralph Miarka. Last year I worked with Ralph for an international contract.
In contrast with my other coaches collegues, I  never met Ralph before we worked together. That was kind of scary. Will it work? Will I like him? Will he like me? Will our styles match ? Will our styles be different enough?
After the bumpy ride this (every?) coaching assignment was, I can clearly say yes to all of these.(Ok the wil he like me, I’m doing a calculated guess.)

What is something people usually don’t know about you but has influenced you in who you are?
My dad, certainly, has influenced my in who I am with two things he kept saying and asking:
  • Write it down to be clear what you want
  • How do you know this is the right solution?

On the one hand I did a PhD in formal specification based on that and on the other hand, I kept asking the second question also to all my students and I keep asking it today as a coach.

If you would not have been in IT, what would have become of you?
Difficult – I wanted to be in IT since I was twelve, when I joined the local computer club. Thinking about it, I did consider becoming a lawyer or a teacher, too :)

What is your biggest challenge and why is it a good thing for you?
There are many big challenges in my life. One is, for example, to unlearn so many things that served me well before. For example, at school I was rewarded for giving very quickly the correct answer. Now I want to listen to people and support them in finding their most suitable approach towards a solution. I learn to be more patient and also to reflect on my own behavior more often.

What drives you ?

I’m passionate about development. That’s personal development as well as development in IT. I like to develop and I like to support others to develop. I thought I’m a teacher but then I realized that I’m an enabler for learners. And I like to see results. Finally, I’m happy when I hear appreciation for what I did. Because I like that I try to incorporate giving as much appreciation as possible in my life, too.

What is your biggest achievement?
Gosh – this question is too big for me. I achieved so much and I still want to do so much…
Getting the PhD was great though having a student coming up to me on his graduation, telling me that my seminars in the first year course defined how he continued to study was even more valuable and emotional. Taking over a project as project manager (not feeling prepared for it) and then being part of a team that excels and contributing to it, that was also great. Most of those team members are still good colleagues and friends.

What is the last book you have read?
“Kostenfaktor Angst” (“Cost factor Fear”) by Winfried Panse and Wolfgang Stegmann – about the costs (and benefits) of fear in the workplace

What question do you think I should also ask and what is the answer?

Why do you find it difficult to answer the question: “What question do you think I should also ask and what is the answer?”

Good question. There is something about the meta-question… and now I realized what it is. It’s the word “Should”. I don’t think you ”should” ask me anything.

You “could” ask me a myriad of things though.

  • Starting from “What’s the current weather in Vienna?” to which I’d say “Sunny”
  • or you ”could” ask me “Why do you find it valuable to do a Master’s degree in Systemic Coaching?” to which I could answer: “To answer this in depth would require a bit of time. I developed an interest in this topicwhen I was at University where I took a minor in Psychology. I’m curious about learning why we humans behave and interact as we do. I’m interested supporting people to uncover their own potential. This education also helps me to unlock more of my own potential. I find this program to be fun and very engaging too. Sure, I also hope to increase my market value through an increased set of skills.”
  • or “I heard you broke your rip recently. How did you do that?” and I’d answer with a big smile: “I tried to learn to fly and I didn’t succeed.”, hoping that would leave you puzzled for a moment :)

So, as I said, I “could” think of many questions you “could” ask me but I don’t think you “should” ask me anything :)

Who do you think I should ask next?

David Harvey and Joseph Pelrine – both acted and act as great mentors for me

Life as it is : Bordeaux 2010

no comments | Posted on Saturday, June 25th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Children, PairCoaching, WorkLifeBalance'
Het leven zoals het is, Bordeaux
View more presentations from Yves Hanoulle

This morning our family has presented how we live in Bordeaux for 6 months At BarCampGent 4. Here a (older) 3 minute version with French music.

Agile Retrospectives presentation

one comment | Posted on Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 | Read more articles about 'PairCoaching, Retrospective, Scrum'
Agile Retrospectives

This week I gave an inhouse Advanced Agile training for 40 people from 4 different countries. Together with Deborah Preuss, Ralph Miarka & Olaf Lewitz. This was one of the few presentations we gave (most of the time we played games or did exercises.)

The leadership game @ ESSAP 2008

no comments | Posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 | Read more articles about 'Conferences, Games, LeadershipGame, PairCoaching, Self-organizing teams, WorkLifeBalance'

 

At XP2010 after I played the 4.01 version of the leadership game, I told someone (sorry I forgot your name, shame on me), I would put a link to the ESSAP video’s.

 

This one with a part of the explanaition looks like the most interesting (based on the number of hits.). Personally I’m not sure it’s interesting without knowing what happened in this particular game. (You could watch all the other videos to try to understand that,…)

Feel free to tell me if it is of any interest to you…

My burned shirt at XP2010 and my hair at Agile 2010

one comment | Posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010 | Read more articles about 'Agile2010, PairCoaching, XP2010'

For the last 5 years, I was wearing my PairCoaching.net t-shirt at all the conferences I ‘m  going (as a speaker or participant). At every conference there are at least a few people asking me what PairCoaching means.

Some think the logo is about me coaching pair’s (which is logic as I do a lot of things with my father, who does that kind of work. Others think it is about me and my partner coaching people together, which is logic as we have presented together.)

It always ends in a talk about paircoaching and sometimes a few more people willing to try out to do more pairwork. Mission accomplished…

At XP2010, I wore a shirt with burned wholes in it. I received a lot of questions about that.

The shirt is publicity about the talk I’m doing at Agile2010:

What I learned from burning down my house.

When people hear about the talk, they think it is a fake story. I wear the shirt to make people aware it is a real story. 1st August 1991, I (accidently) burned down the house I was living in.
I learned a lot in the next year about myself, my parents, saw the difference between so called friend and real friends etc…

Our talk at the conference is about the book “The sense of urgency”, the story about burning down my house is our way to tell it.

If you compare a picture of me wearing the real fire shirt I wore it at xpDay Benelux last November and the way I looked in 1991, you see another difference.

I had long hair in 1991. Sometimes dedicated actors become really fat or thin or grow long hair for a movie.  I decided to do the same and let my hair grow for my talk at the conference in Orlando. It won’t be that long as in 1991, but should give you an idea.

(Please hope with me, it won’t hurt me at my current client.)

Every year there is some kind of good cause at the conference and the agile alliance hopes people will give some of their money to.

I decided I will have my hair cut at the conference (sometime after my talk).
People can cut a part of my hair if they donating money. (Something like 5 dollars for each time you cut a piece of hair and  10 if you want to take it with you;-) …)
Update: I have contacted the Agile 2010 organizers,  not only have they acceped my proposition; Bob Payne invented a cool name for it: “Locks of Love”

Leadership Game V 4.02

9 comments | Posted on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 | Read more articles about 'Games, Leadership, PairCoaching, XP2010'

Today at XP2010, I will be playing our leadership Game.
Special for this conference, I created a new version of the game.

The leadership Game V 4.02 can be downloaded here.

This version is now a zip file containing 16 different pdf files.

This makes it a lot easier for trainers that want to print only the documents for the players.

The version also contained a first translation of a PairCoaching text.

Based on different feedback, I have updated the discription of the game, so that it is easier to lead the game for people who have never done this before.

(Although I strongly advise you only play the game if one of the trainers has already played the game.)

The game is available on creative common 3.0 Atribution Share Alike 

If you have played the game, feel free to join the linkedin group

Update:I added the Agile Games google group and the GameStorming Book to the game (and changed the version to 4.02)

Agile Coach Camp Germany 2010

one comment | Posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 | Read more articles about 'Coaching, Conferences, PairCoaching, PerfectionGame'

The last two days I was part of Agile Coach Camp 2010. This post is about my experience at the camp. I will write a different post about each of the session in the next days.

Camps based on Open Space Technology (See Wave Rider) have becoming increasing more popular in the last years.

They received a big boost when O’Reilly organized a “Foo Camp”. In this camp all the participants were invited. Some people (that were not invited) did not like that, and created a BarCamp. That BarCamp was an instant hit and it was replicated around the globe.

I missed the first BarCamp in Brussel, but loved the concept as it fell in sync with a lot what we are doing in the Agile world. The Belgium BarCamps I have been to, left a big impression on me. Last year there was an Agile Coach Camp in he UK, that was unfortunately on the day before a big family activity for my 6 year old son. (I already bailed out of a US one the year before)

When Deborah Preuss told me about the posibility for an Agile Coach Camp in Germany, I put it in my agenda right away.

This little introduction to say that I had high expectations of the camp. Especially as coaching can be a lonely job without much interaction with other coaches.

I was lucky that Pawel wanted to pick me up at the Frankfurth airport. Although we were late and missed he lightning talks, I had a blast talking with him about agile, scrum, lean, Xp, Kanban. Insight I learned from that conversation:

If you look at XP the way it was written by Kent, it’s much closer to kanban than to scrum.

I felt really bad about missing the first part of the conference. As a trainer I learned that for me, the first 5 minutes are the most important moment for me. I need these first 5 minutes to make connection with my students. As the opening round is so important in Open Space conferences I was afraid about not being able to make a connection with the conference.

When I came I was welcomed by Perluigi, Rachel, Joseph, John and a whole bunch of other people that I did not yet knew. I felt right at home.

When I created my position paper I wrote I wanted to listen more then talk. I really wanted to learn from other coaches. As the time came closer, I realized more and more about what I wanted to learn. So when the time was to propose session I selected 3 session from my long list. I felt guilty after that, Rachel made me realize that the fact that there where 99 cell’s and a lot of empty slots created the environment to that encouraged me.

I like the OOMPS about the sessions. I love the small perfection that Ilja did for adding his sessions. Ilja talked about one session, and then I went back to the end of the row, waited again and added another session. It made me think about a technique I like to use in a retrospectives. Thanks Ilja for showing how I could use this also in a different environment.

During lunch I had the pleasure of being at Josephs and Perluigi table. Discussions with Joseph about team dynamics, forces me to think at double speed, making me questioning everything I know about teams. Talking about moving outside my comfort zone.

In the afternoon I started to have a more detailed look at the big poster that Jens put up.

I had seen the pdf, I was happy I could see the document in a printed version.

It made me understand why agile seems so logic to a lot of people (as it has so many great influences) And at the same time, it is incredible to know that only a small portion of the influences are on it the document. It was also great to look at the document with Rachel. It made me realise she is not only THE person to contact to know about the current state of the Agile Alliance, she also is a great source to learn about the past.

In the evening, there was an agile jeopardy in the bar.

I only understood what it was when I saw it.

IT was a quiz, with some similarities to some quiz on television.

Although all the questions were in German and I could not hear most of the answers, it set the tone for a great atmosphere.

I love the format. As I told multiple people I will start using this in my courses.

I’m hoping that the source for the software will be available in Open Source anytime soon.

The next day I was lucky to be a spectator of the video that Deborah took of Rachel for the agile alliance Diversiy in Agile program.

Later I admired a great picture that will be proposed as a universal translation for the Agile Manifesto
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