Video BarCampGhent 2008

Also check out the BarCamGhent linkedin Group

This is the video from IBBT, I still did not finish mine.

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: BarCamp,BarcampGent,Linkedin

XP Days France 2008 - Paris, je t’aime…

On Monday 05 may & Tuesday 06 may my father and I were in Paris. Instead of visiting this beautifully city we enjoyed the people from the French Agile community.

Although the organization before was rather chaotic, XPDay.FR 2008 itself was splendid.

The first thing I noticed when we arrived was the Job Board. Hey that’s new. I haven’t seen that at another unconference.

We should do that at all Barcamps etc….

Or maybe the fact that I am available as project coach makes me more sensible for things like this.

As announced, we did two sessions.
I also followed Pascal, Bernard and Portia’s excellent 9 boxes session. I have never been to a bad session with Pascal. And looking at the number of participants I think nobody ever has. I won’t describe the session as Dave has already done a perfect job with his post.

They did it in a fully packed room. And it worked. Not only is this a great session,  it is also designed to scale. Thanks Pascal, it made us think about scaling our sessions. If we ever redo the leadership game, we now know how to scale it.

Just before that session we did our Communication Game in the same room. We designed the game for 22 people max. As Laurent told me the day before we had 43 people interested in the session, we looked for a solution. Which we found in Bernard Notarianni. So we could scale to 33 people. (11 per trainer.) That was a bad decision. 1 evening  preparation by skype for a new trainer is a very bad idea.

Our workshops are always written out completely. So for someone familiar with the way we are working picking up is pretty easy, at least that is what we though. We still have to do our retrospective but while I was delivering my part, I realized, we set up Bernard with an almost impossible task. Both my father and my students were happy. I did not have feedback from Bernard’s students but I know he was not happy himself. Sorry Bernard; we have learned from it.

We still had more people interested in the session. I promised that we would redo the session an evening at OCTO: et voila: here is the announcement of our communication game at Paris the 22 may. Before the session we will also talk about how to use The Core Protocols.

We did the The leadership game for the third year in a row. We knew people were still interested. From the participant survey we heard 16 people would join the game; So we wanted to close the room at 20. So from nr 21 we told the next people coming in they would only be able to observer as 20 is the maximum to have a good feedback round (the most important part of the game).

Some people left the room when I told them. We ended up with 26 people. After the 2nd second game, my father and I decide we would still let everyone participate, and would have 9 observers instead of 4. (We had done it before with 24, 26 would be almost the same.)

When we held the general feedback round we saw to our surprise that we had 32 people in the room. So another 6 people sneaked in. (Probably after/during the break)  So we kept the feedback round much tighter as usual. It felt a little bit awkward, but the applause at the end made us realized we delivered another great session.

This brings the total number of people that followed this workshop in Paris to 76. Bernard has asked me to redo this session also once at OCTO. (As preparation for Agile 2008 in Toronto.) In the next weeks I will make the leadership game available as download. (Just like the XP Game)

On top of that Els & me are going to deliver another version for Essap in Varesse (Italy), so it is really spreading.

After this session I had the feeling that Paris loves us to.

Unfortunately we had to run as I had to pick up my kids from school and I had a psychology exam the next day.

Next to our session both my father and I had again great conversations. A big kudos to the organization team. We understand your pain with our sessions. We will design our new sessions to scale. (And have already realized how we can do that with the leadership game.)

Update: we already have another session in mind for next year, and it will scale too.

I have uploaded my pictures of XPDAY.FR 2008 to Flickr

If you are a linkedin member feel free to join The XPDay group http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/36977/648E9F253AC7

If you were in my session feel free to connect with me on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yveshanoulle

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: xpday.fr,paris,xpday,Pascal Van cauwenberghe,Bernard van derbeeken,Portia Tung,Bernard Notarianni,Octo,Laurent Bossavit,the leadership Game,The communication game,the core protocols,Agile 2008,Toronto,flickr

Linkedin group BarCamp Gent

I created a linkedin group for people that where available @BarCamp in Gent

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/102516/6A0E7F5279BF

 

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: BarCamp,BarcampGent,Linkedin

How too Write good: 22 writing tips

1. Avoid Alliteration.
2. Prepositions dangle awkwardly if you use them to end sentences with.
3. Avoid clichés and colloquialism like the plaque, or you will seem old hat.
4. Employ the vernacular, while eschewing arcane and obfuscate verbiage.
5. Avoid ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Take it easy with parenthetical remarks (however relevant) to avoid chopping up sentences (unnecessarily (we might add)).
7. To ever, however artfully, split an infinitive, marks you as grammatically challenged.
8. Skip the foreign words and phrases you know, n’est-ce pas?
9. Never generalize.
10. ‘I hate quotations. Tell me what you know’ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
11. Comparisons can clog up writing as badly as alliterations and cliches.
12. Avoid redundancy and verbosity, or readers will think you are repeating yourself and using too many words as well besides.
13. We really get @*&%$**)!! when you use vulgarities.
14. Clear, specific writings beats vagueness, we suppose, Whatever.
15. Overstatement totally destroys any credibility you ever had before.
16. Understatements can, at times, perhaps shade a point to the point of it’s fading a way.
17. One word sentences? Eliminate.
18. Analogies work about as well as fur on a flounder.
19. “Is” just sits there. Pick verbs that mean something.
20. Even if a mixed  metaphor sings, you should derail it.
21. Who needs rhetorical questions?
22. Its dstrakting too punctuat, an spel rong?

 

This list was on my desk for a few years, I have no idea who send it to me.

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: How To write good,22 Writing Tips,Analogies,methaphor,abbreviations,ampersands,obfuscate verbiage,alliterations,prepositions,clichés,colloquialisms,parenthical remarks,generalisations,redunancy,verbosity,quotations,rehtorical questions

Who Trusts You

Who do you trust? And who trusts you?

Team work is about building trust inside a team. To promote the FranklinCovey course and book they have build a website: WhoTrustsYou.

I took the survey and now I am asked to send it to a lot of people.

It feels like the Facebook app Circle of Trusts.

Anyway I trust FranklinCovey more than any other company I know. And the same with my readers. So I decided to put the request online, here it is:

Hi,

I’m taking a survey from CoveyLink and am hoping you will help me with it. Would you please click on the following link and fill out this brief nine-question survey? (Or copy past this link: http://www.whotrustsyou.com/email_survey/rudcqjtzrvnkxct-11615-2-1210254997 )

Your responses will remain absolutely anonymous and will be averaged with several others to protect your privacy. This survey will take you less than 7 minutes to complete.

Thanks for your help!

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: FranklinCovey,Trust,WhoTrustsYou

I passed my Psychology Exam

As part of my Gestalt therapy training I had to do an exam Psychology last Wednesday.

I passed the exam. Now I can have a decent talk about psychology with you at a local bar (Or a virtual Bar)

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: GTO,Gestalt therpay training,Psychology,Exam

Moederdag 2008

Liefste Mama

Ieder jaar in mei

is ons hartje weer in feest

want in mei vieren wij

wnze mama om ter meest

En dan hoor je lieve mama

ik hou toch zoveel van jou

Lieve mama, lieve mama

Ik hou altijd meer van jou !!!

 

Liefste mama

Als je dit ‘varkentje’ kan vullen

dan kunnen we samen gaan smullen.

Naar de MC Donalds of de Quick

of misschien eens heel erg sjiek.

Dus om te sparen

heel veel centjes te vergaren

krijg je een spaarpot met één cent

zo is iedereen content.

‘t is het begin van een miljoenje

dus krijg je van mij alleen nog een zoentje,

je kapoentje

 

Lieve mama, blijf maar liggen,

in het grote warme bed.

Blijf maar lekker nog wat dromen,

tot de koffie is gezet!

Straks maak ik een ontbijtje,

met koekjes klaar voor jou.

Maar nu eerst een cadeautje,

omdat ik zoveel van je hou!!!

Van je kapoen,

Ask for help…

Last week I rescued Christophe Thibaut in a mail. He was actually glad about the result. ( I proposed to use the 5 Why’s and the 9 boxes in an answer on a checkin of him.)

He replied with this general ask for help:

Ask for help : If you have some piece of advice in mind, and you think, “nah, surely he already knows about this”, will you please still send it to me nonetheless ?

In Bootcamp it would be illegal, but in real life I really love this. So I will repeat it.

Dear Reader, if if you have some piece of advice in mind, and you think, nah, surely Yves knows about this, will you please send it to me?

 

 

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

 

Tags van Technorati: The 5 Why’s,The 9 boxes,Check In,CHristophe Thibaut,Ask for help

Artikel over Bootcamp gepubliceerd in Bizz magazine

Vorige week verscheen een artikel in Bizz Magazine over BootCamp. Gino Marckx zegt daarin dat BootCamp: “Het is de beste opleiding die ik ooit heb gevolgd”

Als je geintereseerd bent in coaching-seminaries moet je zeker Bizz van Mei 2008 kopen. I quote “Bizz testte een aantal originele of populaire coaching technieken die afwijken van het traditionele seminarie.”

1. Een doek schilderen in team.  Doel: interne communicatie vebeteren link
2. Rollenspellen met een paard. Doel: beter leiding geven, conflicten overwinnen link
3. Confrontatie met de natuur. Doel: Leren omgaan met feedback Link
4. Trainingskamp met gedragsregels Doel: Beter communicatie en teamwerk PairCoaching.net
5. Mindfulness Doel: Stress tegengaan Link
6. Rollenspel in toeelstuk Doel: Conflicten oplossen Link
7. Aikido Doel: Beter telefoneren en communiceren. Link
8. MBTI in de keuken Doel: TeamBuilding Link 
9. Bio Feedback Doel: Emotionele obstakels opruimen Link
10. Straatcultuur Doel: Innovatie en creativiteit stimuleren Link

Ik vind het een leuke samenvatting van wat er op de markt aanwezig is. Ik vind het leuk om te zien dat er heel wat overeenkomsten zijn tussen de verschillende cursussen en Bootcamp. Wat voor mij een bevestiging is van het feit dat BootCamp organisch gegroeid is door 13 jaar lang week in week uit een team building cursus te geven.

1) Zo worden de deelnemers tijdens een BootCamp gestimuleert om te schilderen, en telkens weer onstaan er groeps schilderijen. (In tegenstelling tot de 1 ste cursus is het in BootCamp nooit een copie. Waardoor je heel leuke en soms ook vreemde schilderijen krijgt.)

2) Jim en Michele de bedenkers van BootCamp geven in Amerika ook The Boss Whisperer, en dat is met paarden net als cursus 2.

3) In de handleiding van BootCamp worden mensen aangeraden om op adventure te gaan. Als mensen geblokeerd zitten, en dan hun omgeving verlaten, dan komen de beste ideeen. Andere overeenkomsten met de Nature Linked Management seminaries is dat tijdens bootcamp de deelnemers in een echte simulatie zitten en er momenten voorzien zijn voor feedback. (In bootcamp moeten de teamleden ook elkaar wijzen op het feit dat ze de regels overtreden.)

5) Mindfullness: de grote hit van dit moment; (al bestaat het al eeuwen) Mindfullness doet me heel hard denken aan de Gestalt therapie opleiding die ik nu volg . No het is niet het zelfde. Beiden hebben aandacht aan wat er gebeurd in ons lichaam.  Er bestaat zelfs een therapie genaamd Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy

6) Roleplaying: In Bootcamp spelen de trainers een dubbele rol: ze treden op als consultants (als je hen vraagt je te helpen) en als “baas”: deze baas is de rol van een ideale baas. Deze vraagt enkel naar resultaten en geeft geen emotioneel chanterende bootschappen. Verschil met training 3 is dat de mensen zelf in interactie gaan met deze bazen. Leuk aspect is dat de deelnemers op elk moment de bazen kunnen bevriezen. Zo hebben ze tijd om onderling te overleggen en zelfs terug te spoelen in tijd. (Zo kunnen ze experimenteren met antwoorden/gedrag en het “life” verbeteren.)
Pascal heeft ook al geblogged over een creatiteits sessie gebaseerd op een improvisatie theater. Ik ga in de komende jaren zeker een deel van mijn 20% van mijn inkomen uitgeven aan iets zoals dit.

7) Een van de redenen waarom ik mijn kinderen later een oosterse gevechtsport wil laten leren is de filosofie er achter.

in het schooljaar 2005-2006 heb ik samen met Els een cursus koken gevolgd omdat we terug samen iets wouden doen. Het is een leuke manier van samenwerken. Zoals ik al eerder schreef geloof ik niet echt in de wetenschappelijk waarde van MBTI, wat niet wil zeggen dat ik niet geloof in deze cursus. Ik denk dat het voor de trainers een hele hulp is om de mensen die komen meewerken beter in te schatten. Het feit dat een team dan ook nog eens een maaltijd maakt met ingredienten die ze zelf verkopen vind ik geniaal.

9) Het doet me heel wat denken aan de cursus Bio-energetica die mijn moeder geeft. Met dit verschil dat bij bio energetic alles wordt uitvergroot waardoor je het als persoon zelf veel beter voelt. Ook tijdens Bio energetia oefeningen komt er regelmatig dingen naar boven die al jaren vast zitten. Dat de trainer ook NLP technieken gebruikt verwonderd me helemaal niet. Het was me niet helemaal duidelijk uit het artikel, maar volgens mijn vader gebruikt men bij Bio-feedback ook apparaatjes waardoor men zelf kan zien wat er gebeurd in het lichaam, nog voor je iets voelt. Door dit te bekijken, leert men zijn lichaam beter in te schatten en beter te luisteren naar zijn lichaam. Ja dat kan ik ook gebruiken. Nog een boek op mijn wishlist.

10) Tijdens bootcamp worden de cursisten gestimuleerd om hun eigen omgeving creatief aan te passen. Dit heeft enorm effect op de creativiteit van de groep. Ook tijdens agile consultancy hecht ik veel belang aan de ruimte waarin de mensen werken. Het feit dat streetwize een belangrijk deel van de inkomsten gebruikt om mobiele schooltjes te sponseren vind ik super. Vorige week ging er een bootcamp door in India voor Deep Griha, Het vliegtuig tickets van de trainers werd gesponserd door booted people. “ALL LIFE IN GREATNESS” is niet voor niets het Shared Vision Statement van de McCarthys

Alvast nen dikke merci aan Bizz zowel om Bootcamp op te nemen als om zo een mooi overzicht te geven.

Ook dank aan Gino Marckx voor de mooie woorden. Ik weet wat een impact het op Gino gehad heeft, doch het is ook leuk om te zien dat hij er zo mooi over kan praten. Op mijn linkedin Profiel kan je lezen welke lieve woorden andere mensen over de europese BootCamps hebben gezegd.

Ik ben Yves Hanoulle, uw virtuele Project Coach en je kan me bereiken op Yves @  mijn agile training bedrijf.net

Tags van Technorati: McCarthy BootCamp,Gestalt therapie,Bio-energetic,All life in greatness,Shared Vision Statement,Bizz magazine,10 Coaching seminaries,nlp,bio-feedbck,MBTI,mindfullness,boss wispering

Weg met twee?

Tijdens mijn tijdperk als Lodejo DJ (en veel meer) heb ik Karel Lootens leren kennen, en heb later samen met hem (en een pak anderen) Jeugdwerknet opgericht. Spijtig genoeg hebben we beiden een te druk leven met een kroost en een eigen bedrijf om elkaar IRL veel tegen te komen.

Ik ben zijn projecten wel blijven volgen en de mailing van de webfabriek verrast me telkens weer.

Zo ook weer   met hun “Weg met twee” actie.

Ik ben Yves Hanoulle, uw virtuele Project Coach en je kan me bereiken op Yves @  mijn agile training bedrijf.net

 

Tags van Technorati: Webfabriek,Karel Lootens,Jeugdwerknet,JWN,weg met twee,interessante jobs,job hopping,exchange hosting

De top 10 van redenen om nee te zeggen tegen “Reboot to Team 2.0”

1) Mijn projecten eindigen op tijd en binnen budget zonder probleem.

2) Elk team waar ik mee gewerkt heb had een gedeelde visie

3) In vergadering doen we alleen wat resultaat opleverd

4) Niemand steekt de schuld op management of iemand anders, als ze niet krijgen wat ze willen.

5) Iedereen deelt zijn beste ideeen onmiddellijk

6) Ideeen worden onmiddellijk unaniem aanvaard, verbeterd of geweigerd door het team

7) Actie op afgesproken ideeen begint onmiddellijk

8 ) Als we conflict vermijden verdwijnt het

9) Ik doe alles zelf. Ik hoef niet te werken voor anderen en heb geen klanten

10) Ik heb voorkeur aan crisis, inefficient werken, sluimerende conflicten, zo hebben we iets om over te praten tijdens het middageten.

 

Als een van deze statements niet op jou van toepassing is, dan ga je voordelen hebben aan Reboot to Team 2.0

 

Ik ben Yves Hanoulle, uw virtuele Project Coach en je kan me bereiken op Yves @  mijn agile training bedrijf.net

Tags van Technorati: Resultaat,Team work,Reboot To team 2.0,McCartht BootCamp,Op tijd en binnen budget

Does your company work with external project managers/project leaders/Project coaches?

As a a freelance project coach, I am sometimes confronted with the fact that a company only wants to work with internal people.
I’m trying to understand what is their motivation. To do that I asked these questions on linked in yesterday.

Does your company work with external project managers/project leaders/Project coaches?
What are the advantages of working with an internal person?
What are the advantages of working with an external person?
Do you have experience with an external project coach?

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: project leaders,project managers,project coaches,What are the advantages of a external person?,What are the advantages of a internal person?,linkedin question

5 things I learned during my studying for my psychology exam

As part of my first year of my GTO training, I have to do an exam Psychology next Wednesday.

Next to the things I learned about ratifications on which I posted in blogs about positive and negative ratifications and 5 conditions for effective punishments 

I also learned a few surprising things while reading / studying the book Psychology from Marc Brysbaert:

1. The main cause of a flatulence ulcer (maagzweer) is a bacterium. (And not stress) [P. 587]
2. Schizophrenia is not the same as multiple personality disorder [P. 600]
3. People with a high IQ at 11 year live longer. [P. 526] And it’s a myth that these children have problems in other parts of their life.
4. Myers-Briggs-Type-Indicator (MBTI) is not reliable. Apparently have different investigations proven that of people that retake the test 5 weeks later, 50% get a different result. [P. 551]
5. Midlife crisis does not exist [P 475]

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: MBTI,Myers-Brigss-Type-Indicator,Marc Brysbaert,GTO,Psychology,Ulcer,Schizofrenie,high IQ,midlife crisis

Leadership game / Jeu de direction accepted in Agile 2008 (Toronto)

I’ll check in.

I’m GLAD our leadership game got accepted for Agile 2008 in Toronto

I’m SAD my father can’t participate with me

I’m GLAD, I found a great replacement with Bernard Notarianni from Octo

I’m MAD, AFRAID as it will be the first session we’ll do together.

I’m AFRAID about shipping a lot of lego’s to Canada.

I’m SAD my family will not join me to Toronto.

I’m In

 

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: Agile 2008,Toronto,Bernard Notarianni,Octo,Leadership game

Mega-Cindy

Na Peter van de Veire zijn stunt als Mega-Cindy zing ik af en toe van MegaCindy als Joppe en Bent aan het dansen zijn op MegaMindy.

Gisteren begon Joppe spontaan te zingen:

Ik ben MegaCindy.

Ze laat alle boeven vrij

met een pak friet met stoverij

Dit is het stukje van Peter VanDeVeire

Zie ik een vliegtuig,

zie ik een vogel

nee dat is het niet

Het is MegaCindy die je in Wuustwezel ziet.

Aangezien de MegaCindy van Peter een frietkot uitbaatte in Wuustwezel lijkt het me heel toevallig dat Joppe net met dat pak friet afkwam.

Ik heb al wat proberen googelen, doch geen tekst van megaCindy versie op het net te vinden? Iemand betere google skills?

Geen kwaad woord trouwens over MegaMindy . All die GirlPower is fantastisch voor het doorbreken van de standaard rollenpatroon.
Zoals jullie al konden zien in onze nieuwjaars video, doen Joppe & Bent niets liever als dansen op K3 en MegaMindy.

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: MegaCindy,MegaMindy,Peter Vandeveire,vliegtuig,Joppe,Bent

Toshiba: M700 perfection game

A few weeks ago I finally bought the M700 I was talking about in my older post.

Let’s perfect it:

I give it a 8 out of ten

What I like about it:

• I like the form factor.
• I like the size
• I like the weight
• I like the fingerprint reader
• I like Vista
• I like the possibility to turn on/off wifi by an physical switch
• I like the possibility to turn of the sound with an physical turning wheel
• I like the fact that turning on wirefull lan and turning of wireless lan does not break the connection of most online app’s.
• I like reading on it
• I like Toshiba Easy Guard
• I like the 4gb memory
• I like taking notes on it
• I like that I can expand the paper when I need more space in between two things I wrote

 

To give it a 10:

• The Fingerprint reader should recognize my fingers more.
• The FingerPrint reader should be positioned at the top of the screen in Laptop mode
• The laptop/vista should have an option to plug in the power and only start using it when at 10%
• It would not have connections to the front of the laptop.
• It would have an intern smartCard Reader next to the PCMCIA reader.
• it should have a one button to turn of music
• I don’t like the fact I have one reason less to work Topless

(Picture thanx to Vincent Vanderjonckheijd)

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: PerfectionGame,Toshiba,M700,Topless,reading,Tablet PC,Fingerprint reader,Vista

Safety @ home: 6 month old Geike fell of the kitchen table

I’m checking in,

I’m MAD, SAD, AFRAID: Geike fell from the kitchen table on the floor yesterday.
I’m MAD,SAD it was my fault
I’m GLAD it was not the boys fault
I’m AFRAID she fell on her head
I’m SAD, AFRAID I don’t know on what she fell.
I’m GLAD she had eaten 3/4 of her meal and did not throw up

I’m GLAD I think she fell in three steps
I’m GLAD I went to the emergency
I’m GLAD they found nothing
I’m GLAD they let us stay 24 hours

I’m MAD, SAD I missed a play of my two sons.
I’m GLAD Els video taped the play
I’m GLAD Geike slept well
I’m GLAD I slept well
I’m GLAD they released us earlier.

I’m GLAD we had a relaxing day afterwards
I’m SAD this event had a big impact on our whole family
I’m MAD, Sad, AFRAID my two sons were uncontrollable this evening
I’m SAD a checkin with them had no effect
I’m SAD a bath had no effect on them
I’m GLAD I realize the long day yesterday is part of the reason of their troubles

I’m GLAD this makes me realize how fragile life is
I’m GLAD it makes me realize how much I love my family

I’m GLAD we are all healthy

I’m in

 

Tags van Technorati: Children,Accidents,Safety,Check In,Geike Hanoulle,fragile,emergency

Why I follow Gestalt Therapy Training (GTO)

I like to improve myself. It’s not that I am unhappy with myself, but I feel that doing nothing to improve myself is like going backwards.

On the projects I worked on, I tried to learn something everyday. I quickly discovered I learned faster by reading non-fiction books. Then I realized that I could learn even faster while following courses, or better practical workshops. I became independent because I wanted to follow more courses. I now spend 20% of my income (not my profit) to books and courses.

Although I was working in IT, I was always interested in the customer, in the relations between the developers etc. 7 years ago, I realized I wanted to learn more about people and their interactions. My father had followed a training for leadership when I was 15-16, so I asked him what he felt about that course. We talked a long time, the one sentence I still remember from that talk was: “I only regret one thing for this course: I regret I did not follow this earlier”.
That was the encouragement I needed to know.  So I followed the VTLG (Advanced Training for leading groups).

That one year course blew me away. It changed my life both professional and privately.

Fast Forward a few years: I realized that the lack of communication skills in a lot of IT people when I was working as an MCT

In the last issue of Microsoft The Architecture Journal Joe Shirey said it very nice in his The Softer Side of the Architect:

Many problems stem from the inability to communicate with people in the terminology they use on a day-to-day basis.

I agree when I hear from projects that go wrong, in 80% of the cases it is because of communication and not because of bad (use of) technology.
That is also why I switched from a .NET trainer to become an agile project coach.

After doing a few years of coaching, it felt like I wanted to do this the rest of my life. So if it is really my thing, why not follow another training on coaching. I looked at a lot of training’s, workshops etc about coaching. I did not really see any of these training that jumped out of it.

So I started to think, ok what are the skills I want to learn in this training.

I wanted to improve my communication even more.
Communication is 4 things. Reading, writing, Speaking and listening.

1. I read 20 to 30 pages a day . I am a great reader
2. One of the reasons for this blog is writing more and improving my writing skills by doing that.
3. Speaking is ok. 

• I have been giving technical training for 5 years. I can talk to IT people.
• I started my career as a Telephonic software support engineer. I can talk to customers. Both end-users and business people.

On top of that Dr Covey says that 40% of all communication is listening. Ok I think you can never learn enough how to listen. At least learn how to listen empathically.
Where can I learn how to listen?

And then I stroke me: GTT Gestalt Therapy Training (GTO Gestalt Therapy Opleiding). If there is one profession where people need to listen, it would be a therapist. And of all the therapist probably the gestalt therapy is where I will learn most (As they look at the complete picture.)

When I told my father that (He and my mother are now both Gestalt therapists), he agreed with me it was the best out of all the courses I mentioned.

On top of that I don’t know any other training where people learn how to listen. No other.

This training is 4 years. During these 4 years I have

• a weekend once every month.
• we have to read a few books,
• I have an exam about psychology.
• We have a homework group once every month.
• We have several practical exercise days on top of the weekends.
• We have to write a report about every weekend (I should be writing that instead of this blogpost.)
• Update: it’s considered best to do some learning therapy sessions with a real gestalt therapist. Both to grow and to see how it works in a one-to-one session

The first two years are personal years. The trainers do a lot of personal stuff with us. So we see them working with real people, while still working on ourselves.

The last two years we have to do work as a real therapist. In the beginning I tough I will only do the first two years. Before I started I realized I wanted to do the whole four years. So yes I will be working as a therapist for 2 years.

At this moment I still think I do this to improve myself as a coach. And I will not leave IT. (I might change my mind after I have finished the 4 years.)
One of the reasons is I see people doing dangerous stuff in groups. Someone reads a book and gives a training about that, and does not realize that he /she might go very deep for a participant. That is dangerous. I prefer to create a safe environment.
It is a fine line between coaching and therapy. I have already been accused that I was doing therapy in a company. I knew enough from therapy and from bringing greater results to teams to know I was not doing that. I did not knew enough about therapy to explain the difference to that CEO.

So if you came on this page because the fact that I am doing a Gestalt therapy training and you wonder why would a project coach, leadership coach do this; I hope I convinced you that I don’t want to do therapy in your company.

Oh I am sure I will run into people that could benefit from a therapist. If that happens I will focus on getting the best results with these people and at max I will propose them to go to a personal therapist. (And I do know 15 future therapist close enough to recommend one that could fit.)

If you like acronyms like GTT & GTO, check out my post on acronyms
I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: communication skills,learning how to listen,psychology,gto,gestalt Therapy training,project coaching,leadership coaching,Joe Shirey,microsoft architect journal

TMN: An unknown three letter word, to check if people know what they are talking about.

Michel and Els brought it up. So many people in IT use words they hardly understand and when they do they don’t take the time to explain the basics.

TMN: stands for This Means Nothing. I use it in meetings where people use 3 letter words all the time and I have the feeling not everyone understands them.
When I get that feeling I say something like.

“I agree with you, but did you think about TMN? “

A lot of people just continue without loosing a beat, yes, that is not a problem because ….

After a little discussion I ask them what TMN means. When I explain it, they get my point.

In other meetings I will just bluntly say I don’t understand this or that acronym, even if I know it but suspect others don’t. In a lot of meetings I get different answers from different persons. Usually when they agree what the 3 letter word means, the other discussions are over.
I don’t mind making a fool of myself if that means I save the face from someone else. In my experience, TMN works better because people realize more there is a problem with using acronyms without explaining them.

That is why on the projects I coach, I ask to make a list of all the abbreviations. It gives a lot of discussions at the beginning of the project, but it saves a lot of anger afterwards.

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

 

Tags van Technorati: 3 letter words,Acronyms,TMN,do you know what you are talking about?,acronym list,this means nothing

GTD & Priorities

Wednesday I gave a Topless GTD course. Getting things done looks at time management Bottom up. First starts with everything you have to do and when you have this all covered you can start with the long term. As I had some questions about long term I talked also about the 4 quadrants of FranklinCovey. I have a nice DVD from FC that I unfortunately can not use in courses. Luckily today I found the video I wanted to show on YouTube.

Ever feel bogged down by everything you need to do? To much stuff to do and to little time for important things in life and work?

Have a look at these video’s.

 

Organize your whole life around relationships (The roles you have) instead of schedules.

 

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project Coach and you can reach me @ Yves at my agile training company .net

Tags van Technorati: FranklinCovey,Priorities,In Balans,Big Rocks first, Topless GTD course