How User Interview technique helped me to develop my books?

Both the book, “The Agilist Guidebook”, and my forthcoming book “The Scrum Master Guidebook”, heavily influenced by design thinking technique.

Conducting an effective focused interview is a fantastic tool for this type of information gathering, and is an extremely valuable component of the design thinking process.

Interviews provide a mechanisms to thoroughly understand an issue, problem, or indeed a proposed solution. Gaining insights, or understanding anything valuable from an interview for that matter, requires great skill and a plan.

I carefully use SPICE framework 

• Social: What do individuals require from their relationships with others?
• Physical: What do individuals need on a personal or practical level?
• Identity: What do individuals require to strengthen their sense of self-worth or build up their personal existence? 
• Communication: What kinds of information do individuals require and when and where do they desire it?
• Emotional: What do individuals need psychologically and emotionally?

The Various guideline I have employed to take the user interview efficiently to gather the expected information are

• Proper homework: I have extensively covered the homework before the interview. Whom I am interacting with, what he/she is presently working, what is his/her position, domain, business, nationality, etc information.
• User mapping and develop a list: I have gathered and detailed all the individuals whom I am going to take the interview. Their all the detail information I have gathered. 
• Establish rapport: Apply the technique to establish rapport during the interview. Give the warm to seamlessly connect with the individual.
• Listen intently and thoughtfully: Apply listening techniques, note down all that you hear and continue the conversation. Perhaps record the conversation for future reference.
• Formulate thoughtful, penetrating questions: Be genuinely curious, and remember the goal is to keep learning even if you consider the responses to a given query may not at all clarify what you’re researching. Dig deeply after a response.
• Observe sensitively and with focus: Be vigilant in your dialogue.
• Maintain a sense of humor: In all my discuss this is one of my favorite motives, The individual will feel good, I will find some way to set up environment light.
• Make yourself impartial: I do not comment or share my solution. I simply note down my observation. I am indifferent to all the conversations. 
• Use the power of silence: I give it an appropriate thought that an individual can think during our conversation, there is no hurry to respond to all the queries. I stimulate the conversation and wait for the answer.
• Active deep listening: I apply my big ears to find out what is not yet said! or all will be going to be answered. It encourages me to bring about my next questions. 
• Asking Why? I ask 5 why very graciously with an abundance of curiosity by sharing some of my life stories so that discussion proceeds and the individual shares more details. Which helped me to understand the situation better.
• Context and illustrations: Every context is unique, it is fundamental to understand the discover the context better. It is during the interview we discover the context better. 
• Avoid leading, closed question: Leading questions are usually undesirable as they emerge in inaccurate information. I ensure no questions ask which will answer into yes/no.
• Ask for real-life experience: I ask to record some real examples the individual has experience. That helped me a lot later to figure out the situation. 

All these good practices helped me to build many stories and insights into the other's life.

Many roles of Mother in Law

How my mother-in-law wears many hats when she is here with us?

She is an extremely talented cook, Passionate cook, chooses to cook with many experiments. She is 75 now and stayed far away from where we are living now. 

I am not a good eater, so she is annoyed most of the time but my kids like eating delicious foods.

Every time she visits, she will do something different with the new recipes.

I have noticed she has applied many hats to explaining the cooking. Which is her favorite subject, BTW she was a school teacher. Now retired.

Some time is she is a coach, sometime mentor, sometime counselor , sometime consultant, and sometime trainer!!!

How? I am sharing this same description in my training to explain these points distinctly.

• Sometimes she would ask you questions about what end result you choose and check if you had everything you required, what other material/ ingredients you might require and check with you that it matched your preferences. She is coaching for cooking. 
• Sometimes she would share his or her recipe with you and his or her experience of how he or she does it. She is mentoring for cooking. As mentors, she brings their range of expertise, knowledge, and experience.
• When we have to cook for many guests, she would examine any anxieties we had about cooking the foods, she is counseling. Counseling supports individuals in working through emotional distress or anxieties that prohibit them from functioning as well as they’d like to.
• Sometimes she would check out the situation, provide three or four recipe options and examine which was appropriate for you. She was a consultant. Consultants bring knowledge and expertise in their areas of work and pass advice on to their clients.
• Sometimes she would demonstrate how it was done, give you the equipment and ingredients you need, and observe while you were cooking it, giving feedback when required. She has become a Trainer. Great training is about preparing individuals with new skills and knowledge to help their personal and/or professional development.

We learn maximum when we perform it ourselves.90% of learning comes when we teach others. At the end of the day my mother in laws wants us to learn fast.

According to the coaching ladder, leaders will assure we reach to self-sustaining state, in our situation, my wife is equipped enough to run the cooking for several guests at any point of time, of course, we all have passed through these phases.

I am sure you have also observed similar type of scenarios and helped your team by explaining when to coach , when to mentor and when to delegate.