SIT Success and I Shouldn't Be Surprised

I will admit - in fact, I did admit, I was nervous about our half-day SIT workshop with our client this week. Of course, I had plenty of faith in Professor Hardin to lead the group and present the techniques... so why was I worried? Well, mostly because after taking the course last summer and reading the book again last month, my strongest examples and understanding of the SIT techniques were surrounding products. Not only does our client not sell products, but they are a very niche, very B2B service organization. Additionally, we learned early in the week that almost 100% of the staff (around 14 people) would attend the session. The pressure was on!  I mentioned in my previous post that our preparation meeting with Drew was incredibly useful last week - but I had no idea just how spot-on all of his predictions would be about how everything would go...how does he do that? 

For example, Drew warned us that at one point in the session, someone would probably say "We're done here! Let's stop this workshop and focus on this idea!"  At the time I thought, "gee, I HOPE they'll be that excited during the session about any one idea." Well, my mouth almost hit the floor when those EXACT words came out of a recruiter's mouth during our session (of course, we didn't stop the session, but you get the idea). Not only were the team members engaged for the full session, but they generated some great new ideas that they actually seemed excited about. I was not only relieved but also amazed at how well the technique(s) we used were applied to our client's service offerings and how far the techniques went toward challenging everyone's assumptions about their business processes. So I'll conclude by saying, I'm definitely a believer. 

One other major development for Tyra and I this week involved taking some ownership of the research phase (more on this later) and making some headway in that area has gone a long way toward calming our nerves about our final deliverables. The lesson here? Don't take for granted your own ability to get what you need - and never assume it will be done for you. Until next week!