Signal to Noise Ratio / Bottom Lining

 

A Few weeks ago while attending a Coaching Agile Teams class I heard one of the instructors (Lyssa Adkins) make a reference in passing to “signal to noise” ratio in reference to our ability to communicate with others.  Her comment intrigued me because I’d never heard that phrase before, so I started to do some investigation.

Signal-to-noise ratio (abbreviated SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise.

Signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes used informally to refer to the ratio of useful  information to false or irrelevant information in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online communities, off-topic posts and spam are regarded as “noise” that interferes with the “signal” of appropriate discussion.
Signal-to-noise ratio is defined as the ratio of the power of a signal (meaningful information) and the power of background noise (unwanted signal):

SNR =  Power of the Signal / Power of the Noise

The higher the SNR the less noise is in the conversation.   For example, a conversation that had 15 sentences on topic (signal) and 3 sentences off topic (noise) would have a SNR score of 5.  But, a conversation that had 15 sentences on topic (signal) and 23 sentences off topic (noise) would have an SNR score of .65 and would more than likely be a less clear and effective conversation.

Signal-to-noise ratios in conversations often go down when people feel the need to qualify their comments with explanations.  These explanations, while intended to convey clarity around the message, often lead to confusion because they make conversations harder to follow.

Another signal-to-noise ratio killer happens when people attempt to clarify questions by stacking other explanatory questions on top rather than just letting the question stand on its own merit.  Questions become less powerful when the listener has to sort through multiple questions and determine which one to answer.  The reason people stack questions is driven by a fear that their original question was not clear or that it needed to be justified.  It is better to just ask one question and trust that if the listener needs the question clarified, they will ask for clarification.

One skill that coaches use to combat the signal-to-noise ratio is bottom-lining.  Bottom lining is when you strip all the extra words out of conversations, sentences, and questions and speak to the essence of the message you want to convey.  Bottom lining uses fewer words and creates a higher signal to (lower) noise ratio.  Because there is less noise in the conversation it is easier to follow and remain engaged.  It is proven that the most effective questions generally contain 3-7 words; so,  asking questions in this bottom line manner the questions actually become clearer and easier to answer and thus, more powerful.

One exercise you might try while learning this skill is to tell a story in 1 minute.  This exercise helps you learn to sort through all of the details you could tell and forces you to speak to the essence of the story with only the most important information.

Another way you can practice this skill is to review emails and other written correspondence before sending them and determine how many words you can pull out by rephrasing.  What information is not really important to the main point of the message you are trying to send?  Can you bottom line the information into 3-4 bullet points?

I encourage you to practice this skill and pay attention to the difference it makes in your conversations.  Notice if some of your monologues start shifting to dialogues.  Keep in touch and let me know what you learned through the experience.

Change Your Questions Change Your World

 

Allison Pollard and I will be presenting Change Your Questions, Change Your World at the Agile 2015 in Washington DC in August.  If you haven’t already registered, check it out at:

http://agile2015.agilealliance.org

Performance Coaching – Helping People GROW

As an agile coach I get the opportunity to have mentoring and coaching sessions with scrum masters who are in a rut.  They usually have tons of potential but don’t know how to take the next step forward.

In order to facilitate these conversations, I use the popular coaching model GROW.

G – Gather Data

R – Reality Check

O – Obstacles and Opportunities

W – Way Forward

Throughout the conversation I shift from a position of mentor to a position of coach in order to help the scrum master gain perspectives, come to conclusions, and create a plan to move forward.

During the Gather Data portion of the session I step into my role as a coach. I ask them questions that will help us both understand how they see the role of scrum master and where they believe they are presently.  We talk about where they think they are strong and where they think they are weak.  We also talk about where they would like to see themselves in a few months and in a year.

This time is important because it causes the scrum master to think about things that they often have not considered prior to the conversation.  In my experience, I find that when people are in a rut it is because they have no vision for the future and no plan to get there.  They simply don’t know what to do next so they just keep doing what they’ve always done.

When we shift to the Reality Check segment I step into my role as mentor for a while and I give them my perspectives of their current performance.  I point out areas of where they are doing amazing things that they don’t even realize are amazing.  I tell them about the potential I see in them that they can’t see.  I also point out areas where I see opportunity to move to the next level.  I fill gaps in their understanding of the role and help them to believe in themselves so they will be ready to move to the next level.  Then, I get their feedback on the things I shared and help them get clarity around where they believe they are and where they want to be.

I shift to coach again as we transition into the Obstacles and Opportunities part of the session.  This is the part where the scrum master does some heavy lifting.  One technique I use is to give them some sticky notes and a marker which are some of my favorite tools of the trade.  I give them a time box and ask them to write down what they see happening with their teams that they, as scrum master, have the power to impact and help change.  I also ask them to write down the things about themselves they want to change.

They hang these items on a wall where we can look at them together and I ask them questions to help them clearly define what things they have the power to impact and what the obstacles are that are standing in the way of change.  We talk about ideas they have for helping the team grow and what success looks like in each of the areas.

When I see that the scrum master has created ideas about what they can do over the next couple of months to improve themselves and help the team become higher performing we shift to the Way Forward portion of the session.  During this time, I remain in my coach role and ask more direct questions that will move them to action like:

• “Which options will have the greatest impact on the team?”
• “Which options appeal to you the most?”
• “What will you commit to in order to move forward?”
• “What will you do first?”
• “When will you start?”
• “How will you hold yourself accountable?”
• “Who do you need to help you implement this plan?”
• “Will this plan bring you closer to the place you define as success?”

At the end of a successful session the scrum master has a plan to work with over the next few months.  They are invested in the plan because they develop a clear vision of where they are headed and how they will get there.

As a coach, I can have a vision for what success looks like but my vision isn’t what’s important.  What’s important is helping those I coach understand how they define success.  What is critical is that I support them and help them figure out how they can take practical steps towards their goal.

I can’t force people to see what I see or to desire what I desire.  I can’t tell them what success looks like.  I can’t make them do what I believe will bring them to what I think is success.

I have to help them discover what they really, really want and how they will get there.  My role is to inspire them to imagine a different tomorrow.  My job is to help them find the courage to change.  My desire is my mission:  To leave them better than I found them with each encounter.

Failure Must be an Option

I have heard people say all my life, “Failure is not an option,” and today, I would like to challenge this belief and say that in order to succeed, failure must be an option.

One of the things you learn when training to be a coach is the art of deep listening.  When practicing this art with a team, the coach is listening to people and hearing what they are saying.  You also listen to things like tone of voice because much information can be heard in what is not said.  Changes in tone, pace and volume when they speak and the inflection in their voice can give clues to what the speaker is thinking and feeling.

The coach is listening for things like passion and energy when people speak, they are listening for things that reveal the teams core values, strengths and areas of weakness or greatness where probing questions can begin to push them to new levels or wider areas of thinking.

Another thing that the coach is listening for is false assumptions and any limiting beliefs that the team or individuals on the team may have that are holding them back from success or from breakthrough.  The belief that failure is not an option is an example of a false assumption or limiting belief that can hold a team back.  This belief undermines the scrum value of courage and needs to be broken in order for a team to become higher performing.

If a person or a team believes that failure is not an option, they may be unwilling to take risks that will enable them to succeed in big ways.  They may be unwilling to be innovative or try new ways of solving problems and will instead remain stuck in old thought patterns and safe ways of doing things even if those ways limit success or are not the best thing to do for the company, the team, or the customer.  Safe is better than failure because failure is not an option.

When the coach, or scrum master acting in the capacity of team coach, identifies that their team is stuck with a limiting belief and can’t seem to move forward, one technique to help them can be to ask powerful questions.

Powerful questions cause people to think outside of their normal thought patterns and step outside of their limiting beliefs.  They cause people to start to form their own solutions to problems which empowers them to take ownership of actions and moves them forward towards actually solving problems faster.

Powerful questions are curious, open ended questions that don’t try to push the listener (coachee) to a specific answer.  The job of the coach is not to trick the listener to the solution they have in their mind, but to just be curious and ask questions.  The answers of the listener set the pace – the listener is in the driver’s seat – the coach is just being so curious that the listener discovers new information through the questions being asked.

A few examples of powerful questions to break the limiting belief of failure not being an option might be:

What could you try?

What would an experiment look like?

What’s the worst that could happen?

What’s already working that you could build on?

How could you deliver success incrementally?

If it was safe to fail, what would you try?

Whose support would you need to try an experiment?

How do you know that failure is not an option?

Who do you need to ask for permission?

Who can help you succeed?

Who can clear the obstacles?

What do you need in order to feel safe to try something different?

What could you learn if you tried and failed?