enrolling in toastmasters pathways

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Toastmasters is modernizing their program and starting a new one called Pathways. I’m already a DTM (distinguished toastmaster) using the previous program. Kind of like “graduation.” Except you can keep learning and mentoring. I’m looking forward to exploring Pathways on a more rapid pace to put myself in a position to coach others. I’m going to be blogging about the experience. I’m assuming readers are in Toastmasters for many parts of it.

To being, I submitted my last two “old program” awards today. Which were a CL (Competent Leader) and ACB (Advanced Communicator Bronze.) This gives my NY club points toward the DCP (Distinguished Club Programmer.) These are going to be my last awards in the “old way.” Pathways is using a phased start where different regions are eligible to start at different times. If you are in multiple clubs, you can enroll in Pathways anytime after the first club is in an eligible region. I’m also a member of a club in California making me eligible.

Pre-reqs to start Pathways

  1. You do not want to file any more awards “the old way”.
  2. You are a member of a club in a region that has passed the launch date in the rollout schedule.

To convert your Toastmasters account to the Pathways program

  1. Go to the Start Pathways page
  2. Login to the Toastmasters site
  3. If you are eligible, you will get prompted with an agreement. Aka the fine print. It is only two paragraphs long. The first is where you agree that Toastmasters and volunteers in your area can call/email you. (I’d rather people not call, but this hasn’t been a problem to date. I don’t expect it to start being one.) The second paragraph is that you won’t bully/harass/etc others. No problem there.
  4. When you click accept on that agreement, you are taken to the Pathways welcome page with three choices:
    1. The navigator
    2. Choose your path
    3. Pathways Base Camp

I. The Navigator

The navigator is an interactive training that introduces you to Toastmasters and Pathways. It reminds me of CBT (computer based training at work). Remember not to go to fast. Some extra info like profiles of members show up after a few seconds of reading. I read really fast; especially when familiar with content; so I have to remember to pause.

There doesn’t appear to be a way to skip content quickly. You can use the “next arrow” to go somewhat faster at least. Much of this info is old hat to current members who are switching over to Pathways. There is interesting content mixed in though; like how to deal with nervousness. It also gives an overview of Pathways. I learned that you can both give and receive badges.

After you finish the training, you get a link to The Navigator in PDF form which is a good reference. Toastmasters has good access control and you can’t see this file if you aren’t logged in. However, Toastmasters makes The Navigator PDF available publicly as well.

I clicked on the upper left logo to go to the home page. There, the website walked me through the major components of the page. This is the Base Camp home page.

It has a link to the Pathways home page.

II.Choose your path

I took the base camp assessment to help pick a path. A lot of the questions are whether you agree/disagree or are unsure about a statement. It’s an odd scale. You could be sure that you are neutral and still have to select unsure. The first couple questions were about interests. The rest read like those personality tests you have to take at work.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter what you enter because the point of the assessment is to recommend 3 paths to choose from. But you can click “additional paths” and choose any of the ten paths.

I got Presentation Mastery, Innovative Planning and Leadership Development. The system picked Presentation Mastery as the best match. That’s the one I wanted to do. My primary goal at the beginning of Pathways is to learn about Pathways. And I figure that will be the most common path for our members.

When selecting the path, you get a message “our journey has officially begun! You will receive a confirmation email shortly and be able to start your path in approximately 30 minutes.”. Really? 30 minutes? In case, it was more like 5 minutes. I got an email receipt for $0.00. (The first path is free)

Base Camp

The third option on the Start Pathways page is to “login as a member” to base camp. You are already logged in though so it just takes you there. And yes, I tried going to that page without being logged in; you just get a log in screen. Shrug. Anyway, in Base Camp you now see “Open Curriculum” in the education transcript section when you scroll down. That’s where you learn what is in the learning path.

What wasn’t clear

  • I couldn’t find the link to Pathways from the toastmasters.org login page right away. It is there as follows, but the direct link is easier.
    • Click Education pull down
    • Click Pathways learning experience
    • Click start your journey
  • I couldn’t figure how to indicate that I completed “The Navigator” and just click the logo in the upper left to go back to the home page.

Next check out an overview of this learning path.

remote agile game – beautiful meadow variant

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We had 15 minutes extra at the end of our retrospective today. I suggested we use it to play an agile game. My team has people in three locations on a video conference so it was time to look at my thoughts on virtual agile games. One of our newer team members had learned about online/shared virtual whiteboards this sprint so I picked Beautiful Meadow. I figured drawing on a virtual whiteboard would get us all more comfortable using one.

Not counting myself, there were six people attending today’s retro. I asked them to split into two teams of three with the only caveat being that the three NY people couldn’t be on the same team. (In other words to ensure there was remoteness involved on both teams.) After a bit of silence, one of the quieter team members stepped up and picked two teammates. I designated him along with a quieter team member on the other team to be “captains.” The captains were responsible for opening a Skype session with their teammates and myself.

Both captains were from cities other than New York. (What’s special about New York is that we have the most people on the team from NY and many of them have been on the team the longest. Also, I’m from New York and I was moderating the exercise.)

I then set the stage for the game:

  • Each team is going to draw a picture on the virtual whiteboard
  • You can only draw in the color I’ve designated for you. (I picked a person on each team to draw in red and another in blue. The third person was allowed to use any other colors.)
  • You can communicate over the Skype chat but not verbally. [with the in person version, you can communicate non verbally. That doesn’t scale to remoteness so I added chat. It’s hard to draw and chat at the same time so we still had minimal communication.]
  • I am going to paste a description of the task into each chat session. We will draw for 5-7 minutes. There will not be enough time to complete the task, so don’t worry.

Both teams produced nice diagrams. There was some laughter during the drawing which made it run. Then I showed the two problem statements. Everyone understood quickly why the team without the detailed spec produced a picture of a meadow.

What we learned

  • More about the virtual whiteboard
  • Practice self organizing (two of the people who often set up to suggest direction were out today)
  • The value of proper acceptance criteria.
  • How easy it is to miss the goal in a list of details.
  • We have a team member who is good at drawing electronic cows!

the “empty chair test”

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I’ve been using the term “empty chair test” for many years. I recently learned that it’s not a commonly used term. In fact, I googled it and this blog post is the only reference I can find. Oh well. I’m going to continue using the term. It’s clear to me and mostly self describing.

The idea is that when you hire an employee, consultant or contractor, he/she needs to quickly be providing more value to you than an empty chair.

Day 1

It’s rare for someone new to pass the empty chair test on day one. That’s because day one is centered around getting the new person a computer, setup, teaching him/her what you do, etc. It has happened though. We had a contractor search Google on his phone and find out how to do something that needed research. (while waiting for his computer to be setup.) While I was particularly impressed by this, I don’t have any expectations of someone passing the empty chair test on day one.

In fact, I’m surprised if I get 50% of my work done on day one because my focus is training. I do try tao pair as much as possible on day one. For example, I showed last summer’s intern how to write a Groovy script and then he did some. I could have gotten it done way faster myself. But he learned something. And then later in the summer when I needed that done, I didn’t need to be involved at all. So a good investment.

This is the key. You want to invest heavily in training new people. It pays off later! And if subtract that time from what the new person is accomplishing, it is unlikely you break even right away. No worries there!

A month in

By a month in, the new person should be getting things done. Either independently or pairing depending on your culture.  The new person probably isn’t as fast as people who have been there longer as it takes time to learn everything about a new system. That’s normal and ok. However, it is a red flag if you are still spending more time training the person than he/she is accomplishing. It’s also a red flag if there is lots of re-work required. Or the new person is still arguing with you about team practices. Bringing up a practice in a retrospective for improvement is fine. Refusing to do something is not.

By a month in, if your team (including the new person) would be accomplishing more with one less person, it’s time to revisit what to do. Aka if your team would literally be better off with an empty chair, if is time for a conversion with the person, a new strategy for acclimated them or to think about saying goodbye.

Notice how I didn’t account for the fact that you are paying the person yet. Whether so and so is worth X dollars a year is a test that is higher than the empty chair test. However, if the person can’t pass the empty chair test on a timely basis, there is n’t much hope of them passing the “earning their salary” test.

Longer

At this point, it is time to get rid of someone who isn’t passing the empty chair test. It’s time to start earning the money he/she gets paid rather than be compared to an empty chair!