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This is another learning tool intended to promote continuity as Amber, a long term manager, leaves her position. In this case, we gathered monthly events into a calendar, with call-outs that provided greater detail. The calendar is an easily understood reference point for keeping track of an array of essential tasks.

As is often the case, the actual gathering of information is the real learning tool. I sat with Amber, her boss and her assistant and we went through the month minder together. The page filled quickly. They are easy questions to answer, “What’s due on the last day of the month?” Every manager has something due at the end of the month. Every manager has recurring meetings. Oddly enough, most managers have something important to do on the second Tuesday of the month. Not a lot of Tuesday holidays, I suppose. People took notes, sketched arrows and other ideas and pointed out things on the calendar. I consider an information graphic worthy if people use it physically. If someone is tracing the path with their finger or banging their hands angrily on the exact location of something, the visual has engaged them fully. That’s the gig, full engagement.

We had a rich and very productive meeting. And when we looked up after an hour of brainstorming and clarifying details, we were comfortably done and felt like we had collected useful and thorough information. We were fully engaged.

I see great utility for this tool.

• Collecting info for customized manager training
• Drilling down collaboratively on organizational or time management issues
• Creating a space for departing and incoming managers to share information
• Help create meaningful, accurate job descriptions

Graphic below links to a larger, readable version.

As part of OTAC’s involvement with the Good to Great Project, I have been helping an organization create management training tools. One of their star managers, Amber, is leaving later this month. This day planner graphic represents one way of summarizing the main functions of Amber’s work, running the Specialized Foster Care program. This is not a literal schedule, but a representation of her major functions, including some of the stuff that just pops up.
The graphic is intended as an interactive tool. The tasks of the day should spark conversations. Ideally, Amber will be able to talk through it with her replacement. If that doesn’t happen, the graphic will become an important link in the information chain, providing a tool for much-needed continuity. Amber can explain it through with her manager, who can use it as a training tool. There’s tons of space around the margins for adding notes and there’s also a blank planner page, for all the stuff that didn’t make it onto this busy day.
Next step: a month planner that captures some of ther recurring functions and reporting duties the program coordintor is responsible for.

Click the graphic below to see an expanded, legible version.

Here’s a smattering of other graphics left over from the ELP Gathering.
Helen and Amanda frequently use ‘trailers’ to spark conversation and gather information. A trailer is a long line on the wall that uses icons to represent a continuum between positive and negative. People score their opinions of the topic at hand by posting sticky dots along the line. We used a trailer to discover how people perceived their meetings as an introduction to the Positive and Productive Meetings portion of the presentation. Here’s what a good meeting might look like.

The bad meeting is considerably more violent. Notice that some meetings were bad enough to be scored off the line and on the poor guy getting throttled. I like the enthusiasm of the fellow doing karaoke in the meeting.

After the whole groups rated their meetings along the line (more bad than good, sorry to say) I recorded the group’s ideas about what made some meetings good and some so terrible. Amanda facilitated as I recorded.

This illustration was used at the end of the Gathering to see how we did as a group at minding the ground rules established on the first day. The ground rules were recorded to the Gathering poster and visible throughout the sessions. The ‘failed ground rules’ icon had the moon rising to indicate the sessions lasting too long.

On the last day Ruth Gorman and Amanda George led a session on person centered teams. One of the exercises invloved designing a poster or logo for a an enterprise that represented the work groups’ values. My group made up a logo for a fictious company that supported people with disabilities to live in their family homes.