A simple chart to help you focus

As a Scrum Master and Agile Coach, I help teams in organizations improve their performance to become high-performing. The process involves conducting retrospectives, sessions in which team members openly and honestly evaluate their performance over the past timeframe. That has inspired me to run retrospectives for my personal development, too.

Some time ago, I came up with a new format and applied it several times. I call it “Roles-on-the-Radar,” it can help you choose where to invest your limited time and energy.

Getting started

How it works:

1. List all the roles you currently play. It can be in your personal or professional life, as long as these roles are relevant for you now. Your roles might be parent, spouse, friend, sports coach, musician, support agent, colleague, or neighbor. It all depends on your personal situation.
2. Take a sheet of paper and draw a radar chart. Ensure you have as many axes as the roles listed in the previous step. Write your roles at the end of the axes, one role per axis.
3. Score yourself on each of your roles. This is a relative score. You put a mark on the far end of an axis if everything is going perfectly for you. If you are extremely unhappy about your performance in this role, you put a mark near the center of the chart. If it’s 50/50, you put a mark halfway on the axis. You get the idea, right? Complete the radar chart for all your roles. Be honest to yourself without judgment to get the most out of this exercise.
4. Connect the marks on the axis and fill the inner area of the radar chart. The filled area symbolizes your achievements so far in each of your roles. You’ll notice that you may be doing quite well in some roles. Take a moment to take credit for that. We often forget to acknowledge ourselves for what we have achieved already.
5. Examine the unfilled outer area of the radar chart. This represents your potential. Roles will stand out where you think there is room for improvement. Decide which roles to focus on to make the next step. This will depend very much on your personal situation and the areas you feel the greatest need to invest in next.
6. For each of these roles, come up with a list of concrete actions that could make a positive impact. Make these items actionable and small so you know what to do and feel comfortable that they can be completed within one or two days.
7. Set an upcoming time frame and choose a limited set of actions you will implement in that period.

Personal examples

I have applied this format many times over the past years, and it's pretty interesting to see how my priorities and scores have changed over time.

For your convenience, I've recreated two of those charts so you can actually read my handwriting and easily spot the differences.

For the last two years, I have dedicated most of my free time to DIY projects: creating a new open kitchen on the ground floor and renovating our backyard. That meant there were few new articles on Medium or LinkedIn. That was fine because I made a deliberate choice. Although I love to write, that decision helped me not feel sorry about the consequences.

For improvements, I focused on my role as a family member to get more in touch with my dad by giving him a phone call more often.

By the way, our kitchen is now an awesome place to meet and eat. And we have been enjoying our new refurbished garden all summer, a great place to relax!

This year, I have committed myself to writing and publishing my book. All major DIY jobs are done. I only want to create a cozy fireplace outside, but that has yet to get some priority. And that's fine for the time being.

For improvements, I focused on my health. I improved my morning routine by doing yoga during weekdays and ensuring I drank enough water on weekends.

You can also see that my roles at work changed. Previously, I worked more on my new consultancy skills next to coaching. Now, I'm distinguishing between coach/consultant (external) and Practice Lead (internal). And in both areas, I continue learning and developing.

Next steps

You can try out this exercise yourself if you like. I am confident you will get some interesting insights about where you spend your time and energy and how well you do in each role.

When investigating improvement actions, really dare to choose which roles you want to focus on. If you don’t choose, you spread your attention and energy over too many roles, and you’ll get less done. Be kind to yourself by being realistic.

While you’ll never be able to do everything with the Roles-on-the-Radar exercise, you’ll know you’re focusing on the right things.

Take care and till next time!

Kind regards,

Herman / Scrumpy Dad

PS1 This exercise is one of the many practical tips I cover in my new book, "A Scrum Master's Guide to Happiness." Subscribe to this newsletter to stay tuned...

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