Consulting skills for ITPros - Mar 2013

Consulting Skills for IT Pros

Ruven Gotz

Ruven Gotz

Toronto

@ruveng

spinsiders.com/ruveng

[email protected]

Intro - Animated

London, UK Johannesburg, SA Sydney, AU

Canada’s biggest commercial SharePoint conference

Buy the Book (or Kindle):http://amzn.to/JnxlcC

This presentation is excerpted from this book, authored by me, with contributions from Michal Pisarek and Sarah Haase

http://amzn.to/JnxlcC

http://amzn.to/JnxlcC

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

We are often working in dangerous environments

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Someone has ‘sold’ your stakeholders

Reality: The waters can be rougher than expected…

…but the results can make it worthwhile

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

What makes it so difficult?

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Dealing with humans in tough circumstances

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Soft skills

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Listening

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Honesty

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Humour

PowerPoint Presentation Skills

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

They can read the slides, or they can listen to you…

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

• The first things you need to know are:– Keep it simple

• Use simple words to state your concepts• Don’t over-clutter your message• Too many words are hard to comprehend

– The problem with too many words is that, to make them fit, you have to shrink them really small, which can make them hard to read for the attendees

This.is Especially trueFor code

– Make it look great• Find great imagery• Follow well established design principles• Use a combination of fonts that work well together

– Plan appropriately• Give yourself plenty of time to brainstorm• Get all your ideas down• Hone your message• Give yourself plenty of time to practice so you can be

smooth

– Present well• Don’t read your slides• Speak clearly• I hope you haven’t tried to read all this fine print – it’s

meant to be a joke

PRESENTNG RIGHT: This slide contains essentail information

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Crucial that you understand this!!!

TOTAL HOURS % of total hours

TOTAL COST (LCR) % of total cost

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Oops, I went to far, let me back up…

Confused

Engaged

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Help for scribblers

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Avoid: Clipart, low-rez, stealing, crazy animation

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Avoid: Images that confuse rather than support

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

The best books I’ve read on presenting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIABo0d9MVE



How do we get to this happy state?

You have got to get everyone onto the same page

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Yes! A bridge!

Odds of success?

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

The key to shared commitment is Shared Understanding

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Visual tools are a great way to get to shared understanding

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

We will cover visual tools that assist with shared understanding

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Let’s start with Mind Mapping

Dealing with Wicked Problems

© 2012 Ruven Gotz

Dialogue Mapping

Facilitation & Mapping

Shared Display

Notation (IBIS)

Dialogue Mapping

http://cognexus.org/

http://cognexus.org/

Visual tools with shared displays can help

Ruven Gotz@ruveng

spinsiders.com/ruveng

[email protected]

Tools Mentioned:- Mindjet MindManager- Balsamiq Mockups- BizAgi Entry Level- Microsoft Visio

Consulting skills for ITPros - Mar 2013

Technology

Transcript of Consulting skills for ITPros - Mar 2013