Appreciative Enquiry

From Agile Coaches Gathering

Reflections

The conversation was set up as a way of exploring people's exposure to and knowledge of AI, to share stories of how we had applied the ideas, and to consider its usefulness as part of a coaching toolkit.

The focus of AI is identifying and amplifying existing positive characteristics, rather than focussing on problems. It's not simply a case of 'accentuate the positive' - its use in large scale organisational development (OD) initiatives shows that there are substantial individual, group and social benefits to be gained from framing questions as inquiry into positive features (cf the Avon Mexico story referred to here and talked about in the session). AI seems opposed to such practices as 6-sigma, where the focus is always on the next inefficiency to be removed.

For coaching: AI is

  • A model - four things that begin with the same letter, so it must be :-)
    • Discover
    • Dream
    • Design
    • Destiny
  • A set of tools/techniques
    • Largely developed through the experience of implementing AI in large OD programmes
  • A coaching 'stance' or 'style'

In agile coaching practice, AI clearly has a place in retrospectives, and could be used explicitly (for example) in a situation where the problems facing a team are masking a more positive goal. Another approach had been taken by one contributor who'd used a force-field analysis in a retrospective, but instead of focussing on (external) pressures in the analysis, the team explicitly looked at ways of amplifying the positive forces.

I have also used it as a way of thinking about agile adoption in organisations - instead of selling the practices and benefits of agile as solutions to some problem, start a discussion on how to amplify the work of the organisation's best teams (assuming that they are working in relatively agile ways...)

I like the notion of AI as a stance or style. I'm pretty sure asking a team of developers to 'Discover-Dream-Design-Destiny' would do little for the standing of a coach in that team.

One way to generate the AI 'positive' is to look at a problem or issue as masking a real value (after all, if it didn't, it wouldn't be a problem), identify that value, and then see where that value is already being expressed.

The group agreed that AI is of interest (hence this write-up) but there was a clear sense of wanting it to be one among many approaches we might take as coaches. As with many of these models, reading the literature can sometimes feel like reading a scientology tract (not that I spend my days reading scientology, of course...) - it's ultimately up to us not to drink the Kool-Aid.

Appreciative enquiry links

Comments

I'm very sorry I missed this session (I was fighting with technique to ensure that we would have a flight home at that time). :(

Here is a short experience report of mine regarding using AI in a retrospective: http://radio.javaranch.com/ilja/2008/03/09/1205088855539.html

--Ipreuss 11:58, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! There's an AI retrospective plan on Rob Bowley's Agile Retrospective wiki, but for my money it doesn't really measure up as an instance of the approach - perhaps you could add yours?

--David Harvey 21:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

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