Today, as I already announced in “Coaching Session – Real Questions” post, I will continue with few more posts to help you to generate options inside your team/individual as the coach/scrum master. In this post the technique/approach is “Obstacle Approach”.
Obstacle Approach
This approach starts with the barriers the team/individual has come up against.
- “What is stopping you from reaching your objective?”
- “What do you need that you don’t have to reach this goal? What do you need that you don’t have to finish this project?”
- “You’ve mentioned money several times as an obstacle. If you had all the money you needed, then what would you do?”
- “I’ve heard you say twice that you don’t have the time to take this on. Let’s look at that obstacle: give me five options for how you could find the time.” [See the five Options technique post here]
- “How could you change your objectives or timetable to make this goal achievable?”
- “What resources could you tap into to overcome this obstacle?”
- “Who do you know that could help you with this?”
- “How have you overcome obstacles like this in similar situations in the past?”
Remember: Sometimes after all this, the person will go back and choose the very first option they voiced. That is not a failure! The value of going through the whole process is now they really believe it is the best option, and so it is more likely to get done.
Please, feel free to share your feedback and your comments.
Thank you,
Omar