Services
Training · Coaching · Speaking
My name is J. B. Rainsberger and I provide a variety of services in four main areas: improving individual habits, improving teamwork and improving the flow of value, teaching others to coach.
I work with programmers, testers, business analysts, and product owners to improve their day-to-day work habits. I help programmers sharpen their design skills. I show them a model of simple design that includes rules they can follow to develop a deep understanding of modular design. Armed with this model, programmers build more flexible, easier-to-maintain systems. I help testers find their most effective role in the organization. Rather than simply executing someone else’s test plan, I show testers key techniques and heuristics that help them become better agents of the business. I help business analysts and product owners satisfy their customers more. I teach them how to eliminate unnecessary features from their product plans and how to work effectively with programmers and testers to deliver the most valuable features sooner. I also help individuals in any role improve their overall effectiveness with key personal planning techniques. I help them avoid rework, avoid being stalled and the general feeling of hopelessness that comes with too much work and too little time.
I help teams manage their workload, understand the value of healthy conflict, and take full benefit of their variety of styles, knowledge and perspectives. I use two well-known models of teamwork (Five Dysfunctions and the Wexler-Sibbett model) to help teams develop working agreements, charter projects, understand their role, understand the scope of their responsibility and feel comfortable holding each other to account for fulfilling their responsibilities. The result is a team that works better together and produces better results over time. Sometimes the result includes a re-alignment of people on teams.
I help organizations measure and improve the flow of value at any scale. We can focus on small processes, including promoting features to production, building the software and gathering requirements; or we can look at larger processes, including funding projects, handling support issues and bringing new features to market quickly. I use concepts from the Theory of Constraints to identify the roadblocks to realizing revenue for products and services, then help decide how to measure the problem, what it means to solve the problem, and how much of the problem to solve. I emphasize increasing the flow of value over cutting costs, because there tends to be a much higher ceiling on revenue than the lowest floor on costs.
I help others learn how to teach and coach effectively through role-playing, practice presenting, and discussions about specific situations they encounter. As I learn to act as a more effective instructor and coach, I share what I learn with others. I use techniques described by Edward Tufte and Garr Reynolds to present information effectively. I use ideas from Gerald Weinberg and Virginia Satir to inform my communication style and coaching philosophy. I also find benefit from parts of Appreciative Inquiry, the Dreyfus Model of Skills Acquisition, The Power of Full Engagement, and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, among others.
I provide these services through a combination of consulting, coaching, and training. You should consider consulting or coaching when you know the symptoms, but not the cure. I will help you decide what results matter, decide how to measure progress towards improving those results, and decide on a plan to achieve those results. You should consider training when you’ve chosen the cure, but don’t know how to administer it.
Tim Gallwey, in The Inner Game of Work points out the difference between coaching and training.
The process for reaching your potential is called coaching. The process for increasing your potential is called training.
I can work with you to outline a consulting or coaching engagement that would benefit you. Among the training I can deliver are courses like these:
- Introduction to XP or Agile practices
- XP or Agile project kickoff—iteration 1 of your project
- Mastering Modular Design with Test-Driven Development
- From Concept to Cash: Deliver Software Sooner
- Delivering The Minimum Marketable Feature
These are just a few examples. I prefer to work with you directly to design a course that meets your needs, which could include elements of the services I have outlined above.
I offer my services primarily in English, mais je parle aussi assez de français pour pouvoir entendre et répondre aux questions posées en français, y de vez en cuando, será posible de comunicar en español, especialmente si me hablan lentamente.
I look forward to the opportunity to work with you. Please contact me at the email address at the top of this page to find out more. I provide my services through Diaspar Software Services, a Canadian software consulting company.