[English summary: Armin Schubert suggested a super nice “Set the stage” activity for Retromat that doesn’t translate well, so I present it in the original German.] Immer wieder bekomme ich tolle Vorschläge für Retromat, die ich schweren Herzens ablehnen muss, meistens weil es bereits eine sehr ähnliche Aktivität im Retromaten gibt. Bei der folgenden Idee… Continue reading Mein rechter, rechter Platz

This little exchange happened on Twitter: I thought the topic might be worth elaborating on, as “no overtime” seems to be a rare thing. It’s time to confess my undying love for our time clock: Obviously, it’s not its looks that secured the clock my affection. In fact, whenever I take visitors on a tour… Continue reading My friend, the time clock

Here’s another tiny facilitation coconut for something I’ve handled wrong suboptimal in the past: When it’s clustering time, related stickies often ended up on top of each other. Veronika Kotrba and Ralph Miarka remarked that this is not very appreciative of the bottom sticky and its author. It’s just a tiny detail but it makes… Continue reading Cluster stickies next to each other

When building self-organizing teams, one of the hardest things for their (former?) managers is to pass power on to the team. Power as in “the possibility, ability and duty to take decisions”. If you pass a decision on, you have to let go of your “solution”. There are infinite solutions out there. Don’t expect the… Continue reading Letting go of decisions

As a facilitator, I think it is my job create opportunities for others to speak. I try to keep in the background as much as possible, which isn’t always easy. Participants focus on me more often than I’d like. That is to say, not only when I talk about meta information like instructions, but also… Continue reading All eyes not on you – Chain Question

Last week I attended a very enlightening workshop hosted by solution-focused coaches  Veronika Kotrba and Ralph Miarka. Early in the workshop Veronika introduced a superb metaphor for giving advice that nobody asked for. I’ve written about unsolicited advice before, but the coconut-model does a much better and funnier job. Let’s start with one of the… Continue reading Would you like a coconut?

This post is written by Petra Wille and only translated by Yours Truly. When I read her original German post, I felt vaguely guilty. I loooove methods! Read about them, try them, create summaries and books about them… I want people to know about a lot of possible solutions so that they can pick one… Continue reading Too much of a good thing? Why you don’t have to take part in every method craze.

Oh wow, where do I even start? “Badass – Making Users Awesome” by Kathy Sierra is a truly enlightening read. It contains ideas I’ve never heard before in the very accessible style of the “Head First” books. Sierra makes the case that in order to build a great product and a loyal customer base you… Continue reading Badass – Making Users Awesome – Book Tip

The title is not doublespeak, but something I’ve observed a lot lately. Starting this year, everybody at my work gets feedback every 6 months by 3-5 peers. In the conversations I’ve witnessed so far, there’s a recurring theme: Our biggest strengths from “What you do great” reappear in the “What you could try” column with… Continue reading Strengths are Weaknesses. Weaknesses are Strengths.

Recently I got to see a talk by Uwe Lübbermann. He is the “central coordinator” of Premium Cola. He founded and runs Premium Cola with a so-called “operating system”, which he has already exported to other companies. Well, companies is not really the right term, because they all work very differently from what is considered… Continue reading Inspiring Organisation: Premium Cola