5 Whys

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What are you going to do about it?

A couple of Days ago I finished the first “Lead Better” course for software team leaders in Oslo. It was the first time I had done this course out of Israel.

It was a great feeling to get the following email today from Michal, one of the participants of that course. In the email he also refers to an Integrity and commitment based technique I wrote about before, and that we covered deeply during the course.

 

Hi Roy,
 
I participated in the course “Lead better” 2 days ago in Oslo.
 
I committed to you that I would ask at least one time the magical phrase “What are you gonna do about it” to my teammates and let you know about results.
It happened sooner than I would expect. More, the problem was solved very quickly.
 
On a standup meeting one of my teammates said:
-          “we need to test the new configuration somehow”.

-          So I immediately asked “What are you gonna do about it?”

-          ... seconds of consternation... “eeehhhmmmm, I will figure out something”

-          “By When?”

-          “Today, an hour after scrum meeting, I will reconfigure the platform and let you know about the results.”

-          “Great” :)

 
And it worked! In an hour I got him with a rest of a team discussing details and in another hour, the platform was reconfigured and fully tested! It would never happen so fast if he had not commited to do so :)
Thanks.
 
Michał Wikliński