How I Discovered Card Sort
The Card Sort came into my life through a coaching client Kayla Viitamaki who is a UX (User Experience) Designer. For over two years we had been trying (and failing) to complete a
Wheel of Life Exercise, and we would always find some more useful (if tangential) way of engaging with her needs and the life she was creating for herself. It got to the point where if she couldn’t come up with a Coaching Request by the start of session, I’d teasingly threaten her with
The Wheel of Life, and she would become inspired and motivated to explore something more relevant, important, and higher in priority. One day, in polite exasperation, she asked me “Could we do a
Card Sort?” And so I traveled to her home for the in person experience of the wonders of Card Sort.
The Card Sort is a simple exercise to solve complex problems between competing interests by making them visual, tangible, and present. This effectively front loads the question of “What are making?” Creating agreement about what we are endeavoring to accomplish up front, prevents all kinds of problems down the road!
At the beginning of a new creative project, a UX team will gather in, say, a board room to better understand what the project is and who it is for, before setting out to bring it into existence. Anyone there can write down what they feel is important to the project, or to an end user. Even just the idea of seeing what, say, Marketing thinks will matter, gives an excellent overview of the build, allowing each team to better understand how their part makes up a whole. The cards are then sorted into clusters around ideas, and there are often dynamic discussions between interest groups about how various components interrelate. It is much more effective to have these discussions on day one, than it is to find out on shipping date that your various teams in silos weren’t even building the same thing!
If you are doing the card sort as a team coach, all you have to do is ask questions and guide the discussion in a collaborative direction.
It can be harder to see within an individual, but we are all a collection of roles with competing interests. Another one of my individual clients, is a daughter, a model, a lesbian lover, an artist, a mother… even with this very simplistic view of a person, it’s easy to see how each of these roles brings its own complexity, demand for resources, and a different set of priorities than the other roles have.
How much of our time as coaches is spent supporting the client to explore their conflicting priorities? The Card Sort is an excellent way to explore faster AND deeper!
How does it work? and How to?
You will need markers, up to 75 cards, and a space where you can gather your whole team to work uninterrupted. I like to use coloured sharpies, and coloured sticky notes, but use what works for you.
Step 1) Which question are we here to answer? When I have been the Card Sort client, my coaching focus was “What is my life?” from the lens of what are the important components of my life, and how can I better understand their interrelationality to create new goals and better alignments? Another example of a great card sort question could be “Which city should I/we move to?” A great question for a Team Could be “What is the future of our Brand?”
Step 2) Everyone writes down the ideas which they feel are important and or relevant and places them on the table.
Step 3) Once the ideation is complete (or has at least slowed) you start moving the ideas into clusters, and discuss what to name these clusters. As a coach, this is your time to start asking questions which will draw attention and meaning to the way the components connect. If there isn’t an engaging dialog at this point, perhaps the representatives are assuming “It will all work out..” Be the non-expert in the room. Ask them to explain it to you like you don’t understand how these pieces fit together. Draw them into a deeper and more realistic view of what will be required of them.
Step 4) Revisit the card sort as often as necessary throughout the build phase.
Conclusion
I am very much enjoying using this tool on my clients. I have even introduced it to coaches, so they can use it on me when I am the client. My hope is that you will get as much value from this simple and brilliant exercise as I have!
Terry Barkman PCC
Is the founder and lead team builder at Sailboat Coaching International, and the pioneer of Sailboat Coaching. When he isn’t dancing or adventuring, he is also the thought leader behind the FreerangeCoach Movement, a collective of Post Industrial coaches committed to coaching that is experiential. When Teams and Individuals need to unleash their full potential, and act courageously on their own absolute worthiness, they seek out coaching from Terry.
Email Terry - terrythesailboatcoach@gmail.com
