New versions (plural) of our Clean Language-inspired coaching game, 15-minute FOTO

Posted on by Mike Burrows

You may remember that a a couple of years ago (give or take), our Clean-language inspired coaching game – a fixture of nearly all of Agendashift Academy’s training and workshop products – gained a hidden “cheat mode”. Now, and thanks to input from Judy Rees, to whom I am very grateful, we have made it official, kinda.

Here’s the updated cue card, not exactly adding the cheat question “Why is that important?”, but sacrificing a lesser-used question, “What is happening when X”, in favour of “What is important to you about X?”. Instead of a Why question, which would have stood out like a sore thumb, a What question. Remember, we’re aiming for curious, not inquisitorial!

Still, even this new question is not so much Clean – i.e. cleaned of any tendency to introduce unwarranted assumptions – but Cleanish. With this one in particular, it would be careless to use it when nothing is of any special importance, so make sure that the context justifies it. With something that has just been prioritised (an input to the game, for example), it’s fair game; thereafter, use with care.

A fork in the road

For reasons of practical necessity, there are now two versions of the game. First, there’s the standard, open source version. Second, and for a while now, there has also been a premium, Academy version. Until now, the latter’s only real difference has been that its facilitation deck is formatted with a proprietary template. This looks great (no regrets there), but I must be careful about how I share it, hence its restriction to Academy subscribers. What’s new is that the Academy version has also been redesigned to better integrate with other Academy resources content-wise. Able to introduce or assume things that the public version really shouldn’t, it benefits from a shorter/slicker introduction.

Anyway, I remain happy to maintain the two versions in parallel. You can grab the latest here:

Other news

While we’re here, if you’re based in or near the East Midlands, I’m one of several speakers at a special 11th birthday event for Agile Nottingham on February 12th:

In case you missed them, videos of my talks at Øredev:

More: Media

And just before Christmas (the offer still stands):