Agile and the DISC Model Combined

 The DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance) behaviour model has been around for a long time but I am thinking of combining it with creating teams in Agile to get a better mix of people at the start of a project. Often they are thrown together and there can be clashes and dysfunctional behaviour but this might help us to avoid some obvious mistakes e.g. too many leaders or no leaders and over time to develop a feel for what the best mixture of personality styles for a particular team is.

There are limitations to this approach but if it improves new teams by a slight amount I think it is worth it.

I would provide my own DISC report to the team so they had an idea of strengths, weaknesses etc and they could do the same thing. Otherwise we spend months working it out. It might be an additional expense at the start of a project but the benefit might outweigh the cost by a magnitude. 

My other idea is to have people do this as part of the appraisal process, if they want to, to support any career changes or ideas they want to present to their boss.

Book Review: The Myth of Experence and 'Range'

 I've put a review on Goodreads but in short, this is well written and not like a lot of the MBA Casebook approaches we see in the Business section today. There is another book called 'Range' that is a good companion piece to this.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3632747716

Language Coaching for French

 I got my B1 exam in German so that is really good and my two teachers did a good job in getting me ready for the exam and improving from beginner to Intermediate. I'm going to take it slower getting to B2 because the Covid restrictions mean travelling to and from Germany is likely to be quarantine at both ends and also that companies aren't hiring.

I'm targeting smaller companies as they are less bureaucratic and stand a better chance of wanting to grow and improve. Larger companies, like large animals, need a lot of food each day to remain the same size and they are not good at evading predators.

I'm going to refresh my French and see if I can get it to A2 level by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. As I worked in Paris for a while I have a hazy knowledge of it but I don't know where the gaps are. A2 will make me refresh the vocab and the grammar so I am a well functioning French speaker.

I learned a lot while studying for B1 so I am helping a friend by doing the A2 at the same as he is doing it so I can coach him and have a language buddy to talk about progress. I've outlined a process that we think makes sense and I'll catch up with him once a week.

I believe that the massive input of Comprehensible Input is the key to language acquisition. There is still a need for speaking but it means that the bulk of the learning time should be spent on listening and reading and building up vocabulary. I've got a DELF A2 book I am working through, the See it and Say It book for French and also the online Keep Talking French and using them to prod me along for the next 4 weeks. Let's see how that goes.

I'm studying Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to get a diploma from the Institue of Counselling so I need to make sure I schedule and focus on the right work at the right time. No pressure!