Asking Questions - An Experience

I was just reading Tom Haskin's post that's a response to February's Big Question. He asks:

What if we have been asking useful questions all along when our client tell us we should be more valuable?

I feel compelled to share a story that relates to this. My style in most engagements is to ask a series of questions that helps to really get at the heart of what is needed, what should be done, etc. Often, a client, peer, employee, etc. will start with a vague notion and by asking good questions you can bring them towards clarity. Often along the way, you ask them things that cause them to go in a very different direction.

However, using that style one time really hurt. I was in a meeting with a major Type A manager. We had spent about an hour together with me helping the conversation through lots of questions to take a vague concept to something quite different and much more concrete than the vague concept expressed at the beginning of the meeting. I was feeling great. What I got was:

Okay, Tony, you've been asking me questions for an hour and I've been giving you answers. What value am I getting?

I was stunned and I could hardly formulate a response. Tom's point brought that situation back.

And, I think Tom's point about what questions to ask at what point is on the money. In fact, this month's Big Question made me realize that I was meaning to ask pragmatic questions, which was not clear in the original question.

Understanding and Project Constraints

Found via a post by Jack Vinson. In Understanding Project Constraints the author discusses another possible dimension of project constraints:

Project teams are limited by what they understand about the project, the concerns of the clients, the interests of others on the team, and the interests of the firm.

I've previously talked about What Clients Really Want. This is really making sure you understand the true project constraints along other dimensions. But, this post reminded me that we always ask in a kick-off about the goals of all stakeholders which include the team, 3rd parties, etc. We are trying to elicit understanding. I think they are onto something.

I'd also suggest looking at: Customers, Promises, and TOC.

Vision of Google's Future

Absolutely great post that shows where a search engine like Google will be going in the future:

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-02-02-n25.html

K-12 Blogging, Wiki and Social Bookmarking Resources

Someone who attended my session asked about free resources to use in K-12 settings. I'm really not familiar with this space. Can anyone point her in the right direction?

Clive Sheppard - What Questions

This month's LCB Big Question is What Questions Should We be Asking?

Clive Sheppard posted his response. Clive first questioned if we've run out of questions. The answer is "no" we haven't, but my personal belief is that part of our issue in learning and eLearning is the lack of focus on what our real problems are - what the real questions are. So, I truly think this is a worthy question. Clive also included some questions ...

• If I retired tomorrow would anyone notice?
• If e-learning had never been invented/conceived, would our clients/employers be better or worse off?
• Is my agenda (innovation, expression, technology, creativity, engagement, sharing or whatever it is) in tune with the objectives of my clients/employer or am I just fighting a rather dysfunctional crusade?
• Are most organisations so chaotic, disorganised, short-sighted, cynical, inefficient, incompetent and basically mad that trying to impose any order on this is just pointless?

While some of these big picture questions are important to think about, I guess I was hoping to see more questions along the lines of his third bullet. In other words, what I would hope to get are more practical questions - more along the lines of the question I heard at Jay's session at ASTD TK2007: "What and how can I use the concepts of informal learning to help new managers?" This raises a whole host of suggestions. And looking at those suggestions raises new questions.

I would love to see other "practical questions" - and Clive's third question is along those lines. In fact, somewhat our discussion of Quality vs. Speed and my post on What Client Wants goes along those lines. However, both of those discussions would have been better with the right question being asked up-front to help set context.

More on this soon...

Beer Tasting at ASTD TechKnowledge - Look Out eLearningGuild Annual Gathering in Boston

Are you going to the eLearningGuild Annual Gathering in Boston? If so, I've got a suggestion...


At ASTD TK07, I was invited by Jim Javenkoski (who created his blog during one of my hands on sessions) to a beer tasting event that he was doing on behalf of Unibroue. Jay Cross, Harold Jarche, Clark Quinn all were able to join me. The beer and conversation were fantastic.


I'm hoping that there will be a chance to have a similar kind of fun thing happen in Boston. The speakers in Boston look to be fantastic. On my panel session around eLearning Technologies, I have Stephen Downes, Tony O'Driscoll and Brent Schenkler - that's a wow alone. I know Jay Cross, Lance Dublin, Margaret Driscoll, Michael Allen, Bob Mosher, Mark Oehlert, Will Thalheimer and many other big thinkers are going to be there. My guess is that all of us like good beer (or wine).


Maybe we'll get lucky and have a vendor pull together an evening event. But, I'm just thinking that Boston and Beer would seem to go together.


Jay was kind enough to take some pictures ... I've put them below ...


Jim showing us a beer.

Michael (manager of the restaurant) - yep it was that good.
Me enjoying.
Jay Cross
Clark Quinn

Thoughts on my ASTD TK07 Sessions - Social Bookmarking and Blogging

First - want to thank Jay Cross for taking pictures at various ASTD events. He took a picture of me while I was presenting one of my sessions without me knowing (on the left). What you probably didn't know is that I'm a giant and that the room was too short.

At ASTD TechKnowledge, I did three sessions around Blogging and Social Bookmarking. One was an overview session and the other two were hands-on sessions to learn to use the tools.

If you attended one of these sessions, please keep reading all the way to the bottom…

I wasn’t as smart as Jay (write-up) to take pictures and look at my evaluations right after the sessions.

You can find the handouts at:
http://tk07.astd.org/speakerhandouts.htm

For the hands-on session, it’s best to go to:
http://elearningtech.pbwiki.com/HandoutTK2007

A few random observations -

1. The discussion in the sessions around potential uses and where to start was fantastic each time. I think people really saw the potential.
   



2. Unlike past conference sessions on eLearning 2.0, many of the attendees already knew about blogs.
   



3. Many people were very concerned about issues of regulating the quality of content and security. I’ll try to get to some of this over the next few weeks.
   



4. By in large, getting up and going on Blogger, Bloglines and del.icio.us was accomplished in 60 minutes time. That’s quite remarkable.
   



5. Software as a Service makes doing hands-on sessions quite challenging. First – between the time I had made up the handouts and the presentation there were changes in all three applications that made the notes incorrect (about two months time). Second, when your Internet connection goes down – well …
   



6. I want to commend the first hands-on group. The connection went down and the indication was it was going to take a while to get back up. So, I told everyone (who were dead in the water) that they could feel free to leave and in the meantime, we’d just sit and discuss any thoughts they had around the topic. No one left and the discussion was good (or at least I thought so). It could have been a disaster and the group really made it into something good.

Part of the reason that I wanted to do these sessions is that I truly think that these tools are immediately applicable for personal and group learning. My hope would be that the following might occur:

• Some attendees will try out reading/writing blogs, using an RSS reader (like bloglines), and/or use social bookmarking tools to support their personal learning.
  



• Some attendees decide to try to introduce using these tools in a few specific cases within their organizations.

I have no idea if any of this will happen. So, let’s get a really crude estimate of any activity.

• If you attended the session and are reading this blog post, please leave a comment (we’ll get a sense of how many people are reading blog posts and actively participating).



• If you attended any of the sessions and you either have a blog or are planning on trying out blogging, please include your blog’s URL in your comment.



• If you are planning on trying our using these tools within your organization, then let me know that. Of course, the best thing would be for you to write about it in your blog. ;)