The Clearing

Eli Lopian    Management for Geeks    

Clearing is a great way to finish our meeting. It includes retrospect and success celebration and is a very powerful process

Here is how the clearing works in Typemock:

There are two rounds.

Round 1:
Each member talks about something that’s broken and doesn’t work. He then has to give a solution. The solution must be a controllable action that the employee can do alone. In any case, the solution cannot be asking others to do something unless someone offered to help.

It is possible that there is nothing broken and that everything works

Round 2:
Each member talks about what is working, here you must tell about a specific thing that is working.
You have to give a specific example (everything works is not valid) And you have to find at least one thing that works. (Remember that lots of things are working even if the person doesn’t see it, and it is your job as a manager to show that. eg. they did come to work, they did read e-mails, the computer is working, they have a place to sit).

At the end of both rounds the Manager should talk about what is broken with a solution and talk about what is working.
Tip: This is a good time to thank team members of specific things they did and show them how they are empowered and manage to get things done! This is talking about how the team is working

Clearing Example:

Manager: What is not working?
Employee: Our unit tests are broken
Manager: What are you going to do to solve it?
Employee: Hmm, I need Roy to solve the test
Manager: (You cannot ask others to solve your broken stuff) What can YOU do to solve it?
Employee: Well I can learn about it and solve it myself
Manager: Great! Do you have all you need to do it?
Employee: Well, actually I do.
Manager: Excellent, so are you going to do it? (Integrity)
Employee: Yes! I will do it until next week, (and writes it on the board as his task)

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