Category: Resources

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Trust your nose

If the building you were in was on fire, you would get out, right?

Picture of a white and green sign of a person running out an open door, labeled “emergency exit” in Japanese and English

Isn’t that what any reasonable person would do? Screw being rational—instinct should kick in, right?

Or, maybe another reasonable thing would be to see if you could put out the fire, if it were small. Or to call the fire department.

Sure, it depends on the size of the fire, and the risk to you or others, and the availability of a fire extinguisher, or whether or not there’s some sort of emergency sprinkler or fire suppression system.*

But first things first.

How do you know that there is a fire?

Once upon a time, I was in the office on a day where, for whatever reason, there were only 4 of us in the office (at full capacity there were maybe 25-30 people).

I smelled burning. Specifically, I smelled the chemical-y smell of plastic burning.

Now, I do not have the greatest sense of smell. (My husband often pokes fun at me for this.)

So I asked someone sitting hear me whether she smelled anything burning.

She said something like, “Oh. Yeah, it smells like something burned. But I don’t know what it is.”

I asked someone who sat further away from me, and he told me he couldn’t smell anything.

I went to the kitchen to check out the microwave (looking at you, Coworker-Who-Put-Foil-in-the-Microwave!): Nothing. I looked in the toaster oven: Not coming from there either.

I followed my nose.

I followed my nose to the on-site server room.

Did I see flames? No.

But it was DEFINITELY the origin of the burning plastic smell. And it was swelteringly hot in the room.

I went to go get the person who seemed most likely to know what to do in this situation—and who happened to not smell it because she had her office door closed, but noticed as soon as she came out into the hallway.

Turns out that the air conditioning broke down in the server room and that the server had overheated and was beginning to melt. So, it smelled like burning plastic because it was in fact plastic that 99.95% of the way to burning. But my hero was able to turn everything off before it actually caught on fire. Disaster averted!

In this not at all scientific but extremely real anecdote:

  • 25% of the people couldn’t smell anything
  • 25% of the people couldn’t smell anything because something was obstructing the odor
  • 25% of the people smelled something that indicated fire but did not think it was worth investigating
  • 25% of the people noticed the smell and did bother to investigate—that 25% was me!

What if I hadn’t thought it was worth investigating? Then, it would have meant:

  • 25% of the people couldn’t smell anything
  • 25% of the people couldn’t smell anything because something was obstructing the odor
  • 50% of the people smelled something that indicated fire but did not think it was worth investigating
  • The server would have caught on actual fire, which then would have triggered the sprinklers, and then would have damaged much more than the server

I realize this was an n of 4 situation, but I’m willing to bet you have been in similar situations where you’ve smelled what might be a fire (hopefully not the literal kind) and other people did too, but they didn’t think that they should do anything about it. Or even verify whether or not it was a fire or simply someone ruining their lunch. That difference can be one person. That difference can be you.

Trust your nose.

Don’t assume others have noticed the same things you have. Don’t assume that they are able to. Don’t assume that people will necessarily take action after having noticed the same things – or that anyone else recognizes this as a situation that requires action. Or at least an assessment of whether or not action is needed.

  • How do you know that there is a fire?
  • How do you know that there isn’t?

When’s a time you trusted your nose? I’d love to hear your stories. Of course, most situations do not have such a clear distinction between fire vs. not (a real) fire. If you’d like a thought partner for sorting through the smoke and haze, then let’s have a chat to assess if coaching could help you.

*Another true story: At another job, I once got a message from my manager not to come to the office because there had been an early morning fire in the on-site server room and the fire department had to be called to deal with the fire suppression chemicals and they weren’t sure when they could get into the building. I suppose there are multiple takeaways from this, but my main takeaway is that I do not want my organization’s servers to be on-site. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

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The spoons we carry

Stainless steel teaspoon with a slightly bent handle on a brown fabric placemat

“Who doesn’t bring a spoonful of fear to the first day of a new job?” – Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry

Years ago, I participated in a teambuilding event where one of the things we had to do was to fill a cup with water from a bucket—which was about 10 feet away—using a teaspoon.

I recall that there was no explanation for why we did this activity exactly (to infuriate us?!?) and that it was a competition to see which team finished filling their cup first. Trying to carry a teaspoon of water anywhere without spilling it is an exercise in frustration unto itself. I’m not sure how turning it into an internal competition was supposed to help our team cohesion either. It felt a bit counterproductive. (Unless the point was to unite everyone by our extreme irritation with all of the activity facilitators by the end of the day? I also recall some shaming by the facilitators about how we were supposed to collaborate and be creative.)

However, the quote above from The Light We Carry reminds me of this activity. Of how difficult it was to get from point A to point B while carrying this spoon of water and desperately trying—and failing—not to spill it. Don’t let them see you sweat! That’s advice I remember hearing, particularly as a woman and nearly always from other women. Even if you’re scared, you’re not supposed to let anyone see that. This is a message I’m sure many of us have heard (or at least it’s a common one in the US).

But we are sweating! And we’re carrying around it in a damn teaspoon, trying not to spill it while moving towards a destination. And we’re supposed to look good while doing it, too?

There are many metaphors for fear, and there is much advice about it. (Some advice seems much healthier than holding it all in. For example, using fear as a form of fuel, as the former First Lady suggests, or recognizing that fear can be an indicator that something or someone is important to us.)

Why not spill it?

The first time I went to a networking event in Tokyo, in 2022, I was super nervous. I hadn’t really gone to any such events since 2019, I’m always nervous around new people, and here I was trying to do it in a new country and in a place where I didn’t know anyone. After the host asked me a fairly innocuous question (probably what I do) and giving a rambling, probably nonsensical answer, I was sweating through my shirt.

Then I heard the person in front of me wonder out loud about what we were supposed to do, whether to get in line for the drinks, or how does one even introduce themselves to strangers anymore. It was as if I just heard all the thoughts in my head spoken out loud! Because I had. She turned to me and introduced herself, and that’s how I made my first friend (who wasn’t introduced to me by someone I already knew) in Tokyo.

Instead of trying to figure out ways to transfer the water if you can’t move the bucket or the cup, we ought to be questioning whose cup we are filling by carrying this water across this distance in these tiny spoons.

Are there still spaces in which letting them see you sweat is going to be something that others will use to undermine you? Unfortunately, yes. It’s their form of sweating in public – undermining others based on something that’s irrelevant because of how insecure those people are. But admittedly, it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes those people still have more power within certain spaces.

Still, I’m finding that there are more and more places where it’s better (and more rewarding) to spill it. Rather than trying to fill the cup that society tells us to fill, it’s better to water the ground around us. The point is not to carry the spoons, to carry the water, or to fill some arbitrary container. To continue to carry our true feelings and our humanness and our uniqueness in a tiny little spoon across the playing field is to continue to play by rules that were never meant for us, because the people who set the rules always intended for us to remain on the sidelines. And that’s the point of carrying the spoonful of water (or fear, or whatever) and trying not to spill it.

When we focus on not letting them see us sweat, we collude in their false narrative that vulnerability is weakness.

Screw the game. We’re each of us more powerful than we realize, sometimes even in those spaces that run on insecurity. When we focus on not letting them see us sweat, we collude in their false narrative that vulnerability is weakness. But if you think about the strongest people you know in life, I’m willing to bet that they’re actually the people who are secure enough to admit when they made a mistake, to choose courage in spite of how scared they are, and to be a whole human in a world that would find it easier if we could be tiny little machines that just stayed in our lanes.

But it’s not about what I think either. What do you think? What do you know to be true?

  • Are you here to play a game? Or to grow and create something?
  • What spoons are you carrying? What’s in them? Whose cup are you filling with them? And who benefits from that?

If you’re interested in a thought partner to help you unpack these questions, please reach out and we can find a time to talk.

Note: While I did not directly reference Spoon Theory in this post, it’s worth noting that, while the metaphor may also work for people without disabilities, that the concept of spoons and how many spoons you have available to get through your day comes from and is primarily used by the disability community. If you’re unfamiliar with Spoon Theory, I encourage you to give the linked article a read!

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Letting go to move forward

Okay, I know it’s almost summer in the northern hemisphere, but bear with me as I try to recall the chill of an ice rink as the weather in Tokyo gets warm and humid. | Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

Have you ever watched someone try to ice skate for the first time?

Often when people are ice skating for the first time, they want to hold on to something, like to the wall around the ice rink, or to someone’s hand. This makes sense. They don’t want to fall! 

But here’s the thing: When you hold onto something that’s not in the direction you’re trying to go in, you will keep veering towards whatever (or whomever) you’re holding onto. Even if it’s a person who is skating alongside you.

In order to skate forward (fully forward), you have to let go.

Holding on doesn’t mean you won’t fall. (I say as someone who has gone down multiple times when the person holding onto me has fallen.)

It’s not actually necessarily safer. (You can definitely tweak a muscle during your attempts to hold on while falling!)

Of course, it’s instinctual to want to hold onto something or someone that represents safety when we feel insecure, when we’re worried about falling. Just think of a new manager who is still stuck in execution mode, the bilingual partner who is the constant interpreter without even being asked, or that friend or family member who remains in a place (or a social circle) they’ve long outgrown.

But as anyone who knows how to ice skate will tell you: Falling down is part of the process.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’ve been holding onto that seems safer, but isn’t necessarily, or that perhaps was safer once upon a time but that I now need to let go of in order to move fully forward.

This feels especially salient as a new parent and as one who is coming back to work. I feel like I’ve been slow to relaunch as I’ve been trying to figure out how to integrate things in this new configuration–and as someone who is not entirely the same person I once was.

In past transitions, I’ve had to let go of things like being the expert, of how I needed to act in certain ways while in certain jobs, of needing to fully understand things in order to make a decision (definitely can’t hold onto that and do anything in a foreign country!), and many more things. Some of these (okay, many), I am still working on letting go of.

I don’t have an answer yet this time (my kid is not even 6 months old yet at the time of this writing and I only took off my out-of-office on my work email a few weeks ago) but here’s the question I’ll be pondering:

What is it I need to let go of in order to move fully forward?

If you’re open to sharing, I’d love to hear what you’ve previously let go of in order to get to where you are now. If you’re also in a transitional space at the moment and curious about partnering with a coach to think through this question, please reach out and we can find a time to talk.


Author’s Note

I’ve been struggling to write my first blog post after quietly coming back from parental leave. (Although perhaps coming back is not quite the right phrase either as I get ready to take some time off again for family time?)

There it is again. That belief that there is a right phrase. That there’s a perfect sequence. That there’s a right order of doing this–integrating life and work and reintroducing myself and communicating that externally. As if I should process map my whole life.

But life isn’t linear. Most things are not dichotomies, not A vs. B but points on a continuum that has more than two dimensions.

Sure, there are things that can be sequenced for a smoother process. But even if you’re designing a service that is largely automated, and you have created a workflow that works for most people most of the time, you’ll still need to consider various conditions. There will likely be branch off points. What about the person using assistive technology? What about the person who has to pause and restart later because it is during the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. window and the washing machine repair person has finally come? What about the person who is trying to pay the bills for their parent who has dementia?

I digress. Few things have been as loud reminders that there is no one right way of doing things as much as having a baby. There’s what works for this kid, for our family. There’s what’s works best for right now. There’s lots of discovering that what worked last week or worked in before times no longer works. And there’s a lot of…well, that’s really not all that important in the grand scheme of things. 

Is it still a struggle to keep that in perspective? Daily. Sometimes hourly. Is working to let go of things a lifelong practice? Yes. But it helps to know what is important to me, what it is I’m moving towards, and it helps to have a good team. (I am so grateful to be navigating this together with my amazing partner!) 

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Name the unknowns

Wide eyed gray kitten attempts to climb up the side of a sleep pod but is sliding down and appears to be licking her way down
One of countless situations I’m sure this kitten has wondered how they got themselves into…

When you feel lost and overwhelmed, name the unknowns. Don’t leave them to be shapeless creatures lurking in the dark. Describe them. State what exactly you do not know about them, and they will slowly begin to take shape.

Will that give you certainty?

No. (Alas. I, too, am a creature who craves certainty and knowing.)

But naming the unknowns will help illuminate which specific things are actually unknown, and of these, which are actionable or answerable, vs. which things are beyond your control (so you can stop worrying about them).

I’ve been reminded recently of how useful it can be to name the unknowns. Of how useful it can be to inventory what you know (e.g., I know I like writing) and what you don’t (e.g., I don’t know whether I would like writing if it was my job). While I often like to use the Known-Unknowns exercise, it can be as simple as writing a list of the things—and then moving things from one column to the other.

  1. For example, when you think about this thing that feels unknown and uncertain, what are the things you wish you knew?
  2. Okay, now that you know what questions you have or what information you like, which of these can be addressed with some research, by talking to people, by looking at the data, or by making a decision?
  3. Next to each of those, list how you’ll work towards an answer.
  4. Of the items that are left on your list, which of these are simply unknowable or cannot be answered with any useful degree of certainty (or cannot be answered now)? Cross those out. (Or move them into some bucket for when you’re feeling philosophical.)
  5. If there are any unknowns still left on your list, which of these are outside of your control? Cross those out. (Or, if helpful, you can keep them as a reminder of things not worth worrying about.)
  6. If there are items that are partly within your control, then separate them out by creating a question you can answer and noting how you’ll answer it, and leaving behind the question that is unknowable or beyond your control (and do what you did for the rest of those).

When something feels too big, too much, or too overwhelming, it’s easy to lose sight of the things we do know already, and of what we can do. Naming your unknowns won’t tell you what to do next or give you certainty, but it will help you sort out which things are actually unknown, which things to let go of, and help you see what’s actionable enough to figure out where to start.

What do you find helpful when you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start? Or, did you try out the process above? Let me know how it went!

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Strategic Meetings for Teams of One

Earlier this year, I traveled to Portland, Oregon, for the 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference and, while the conference is still hybrid, this time I delivered my session in-person! As an in-person session, it wasn’t recorded, but I did also get to talk all about it with Tony Martignetti on his podcast, Nonprofit Radio, so even if you weren’t there, you can still hear about it!

Listen to my interview about “Strategic Team Meetings for Teams of One” on Nonprofit Radio.

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Highlights and takeaways from #24NTC

Notebook with colorful stickers (doughnut, rose, logo, 24NTC powered by NTEN) and a bookmark about "Planning welcoming and inclusive projects" with 10 strategies: 1. Determine your inclusivity metrics, set goals, and track success to start. 2. Made for you 3. Create safer spaces 4. Virtual accessibility is the new normal 5. Access, access, access. 6. Plan for multiple ways for people to process and participate. 7. People are more than data. 8. Name the power dynamics and account for impact. 9. Stay flexible and pivot. 10. Name the labor and celebrate successes.
While I don’t pick up much swag when flying internationally, I do always love stickers, and small things like this bookmark courtesy of Big Duck from their great presentation about inclusive project management.

There are still many things I am processing from NTEN’s 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference (and all the wonderful, expansive conversations I had before, during, and after). However, writing is a good way to process learning and reflect on things so, here we go…

As I walked into the Oregon Convention Center to pick up my badge, there were signs of the ways in which NTEN is intentional about supporting the community (e.g., local vendors from the craft market) and making sure the conference is inclusive and supports us humans attending as our full selves (e.g., designated spaces for lactation and prayer and racial affinity, a table at lunchtime for those fasting for Ramadan).

Hallway that shows 3 rooms with signs outside of them: prayer and meditation room, lactation room, racial affinity lounge

While I unfortunately missed Sabrina Hersi Issa’s keynote (and am hoping I can watch a recording later), the other two keynotes really shifted the lens for me, even in topics that I thought I knew a little something about.

Though I’ve been mulling for a while on the dominance of English online, in academia, and generally in traveling the world (even though I benefit from it daily), Anasuya Gupta (Whose Knowledge?) somehow managed to elucidate the depth and vastness of this – tracing its roots back to colonization and somehow, lest we feel overwhelmed, also sharing very tactical ways we might go about decolonizing the internet. I am still mulling over her questions:

  • Whose internet?
  • Whose knowledge?
  • Who owns and controls the infrastructure?
  • Whose structures and classifications? (e.g., in structured data)
  • Who and what is invisible?
  • Whom do we learn from, listen to, cite, and speak of?

(See my sketchnotes of Anasuya Gupta’s talk on “The Internets of Liberation”)

Actually, invisibility tied into Amber Case’s keynote as well, which made the case for calm technology – and for invisible technology, which allows you to focus on the task rather than the tool. For example, a window is invisible technology. Mind already blown. How did I not see that before?! (Pun not originally intended but now I feel compelled to leave it in there.) And bananas – their peels change color to indicate when they’re become ripe and when they’re going bad. It made me feel hopeful that we’re not doomed to drown in the proliferation of noxious features and products clamoring for our attention—that feels like the water we are currently swimming in. While I am uncertain if a seal of approval is a strong enough incentive, it was a good reminder that all design is governance, and I will be thinking about how to apply the clear, compelling, and practical principles of calm technology that Case has laid out.

(See my sketchnotes of Amber Case’s talk on “An Introduction to Calm Technology”)

On the theme of what’s visible/invisible and who controls what, The Glass Room had an exhibit about the journeys of the personal data that countless companies extract from us each day. The one about “The Real Life of Your Selfie” particularly stuck out as throughout my trip, I’d been through (at that point) 4 different airports 5 times within 6 days and I’d had my face scanned multiple times by both airlines and government agencies. Do I have the knowledge and privilege to say no? Yes. Did I have the energy resources to refuse after many hours of travel through multiple time zones and after having been jostled repeatedly by passengers who had shown they were capable of navigating around trashcans but not me, an actual human? Not really.

Poster of The Real Life of the Selfie showing and listing examples of the data that can be extracted from the picture of face and the ways in which it can be used

This year, I gave a talk on “Strategic Team Meetings for Teams of One.” True to the laws of technology, I ran into some technology issues at the start of my presentation. However, NTEN being the community that it is, I had three people jump out to help me trouble shoot (in front of a room full of people, no less). People even got up to help close door to the noisy hallway. And that’s not even including the friends and acquaintances who picked me up beforehand, when I expressed my nervousness, and during, when I was trying not to panic that I couldn’t actually show my slides to the audience. (Thank you, Brian, Adrienne, and Alexa for your help to fix that!)

Janice stands, speaking and gesturing with her hands, while standing next to a large screen with a slide about a Meeting with a partner activity. The first row of tables appears empty.
My dad’s initial comment when I sent him this picture per his request: “It looks like you’re speaking to an empty room, Janice.” I promise there were people! I also promise that my dad is actually very supportive of me even though it is very on brand that this would be the first thing he blurts out. (Thanks for the photo, Mark!)

If you missed my session, I also got the opportunity to talk about the topic on the Nonprofit Radio podcast, so stay tuned for when that episode comes out!

There is never enough time to talk with all of the people you want to nor attend all of the interesting sessions—and it wasn’t made easier by having 3 workshops for my coaching training that were overlapping with the conference. (But, oh, were they three transformative sessions!)

Here are some other highlights and things I’ll be continuing to think about (in no particular order):

  • Getting to meet many people in person whom I’d only ever spoken with online before
  • Catching up with old friends and meeting new ones – including someone else form Queens!
  • Mark Root-Wiley’s workshop on “DIY Accessibility Testing” – Every person who is responsible for a website should go through this, truly. It was very easy to do and very eye opening. If you’re attending the Washington State Nonprofit Conference in May, he’ll be presenting that workshop there!
  • Bettina Sferrino, Dani Faulkner, and Tristan Penn’s thoughtfully put together fireside chat on “Things We Wish Our White Colleagues Knew” (I have since shared these notes with a number of people not at the conference but whom I’ve had similar conversations with)
  • The way in which conference attendees challenged each other and made valid points while upholding community values in several specific conversations that could have easily turned into complaining or pre-decided arguments – windows rather than mirrors
  • A great session on proactive accountability and an intriguing session on sociocratic decision making
  • Brianna Collins’s amazing framing of being each other’s professional wingwomen – may each of you have someone like Brianna in your life! (But also, if you need a visual storyteller to help you communicate the change you’re making at your nonprofit, reach out to Brianna!)
  • A session that reminded me that language justice is not only about thinking about access for non-English speakers, but also for Limited English Proficient communities, access for D/deaf and hard of hearing communities, and access for Blind and visually impaired communities
  • The deliciousness I had while in Portland, OR, at Tusk, Nong’s Khao Man Gai, Portland Cà Phê, GrindWitTryz, and Kachka
  • Stumbling across cherry trees in bloom at a riverside park – and someone I knew, making for a lovely walking catchup amidst the beautiful scenery
As seen from above, a park along the river with a winding path lined with blooming cherry trees, a bright blue sky and a bridge in the distance
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Collaborating effectively on globally distributed teams

As someone who currently has a majority of her meetings between 5 and 10 a.m. due to time zone differences, and whose partner often starts his evening meetings around my (albeit early) bedtime, I am familiar with the challenges of working across time zones and working with people around the globe.

Long, curving suspension bridge across a body of water, as seen from the pedestrian walkway of that bridge

That being said, years before remote work became a familiar concept (though it existed, it was simply called telework), I’ve worked with people with whom I was not collocated (i.e., we were not working in the same place). I’ve completed projects, sometimes over phone and email only, with people I have yet to meet in person. And let’s be real – many people have had this experience as well. In certain jobs, you’re rarely in the office with your colleagues because you’re constantly on the road. In large companies, you may frequently coordinate with colleagues working in different locations—they’re on site and you’re on site, but you’re not at the same site. My best friend from high school once organized a whole party for me while being out of state and not even actually able to attend! (Thanks, Jess! And Jeremy, for coordinating in-state!)

Here are my top strategies for collaborating effectively (distributed or collocated):

  1. Name your assumptions so you can stop making them. Or at least see if they’re true.
  2. Be intentional and transparent in your communication and planning so as to avoid the confusion of incorrect assumptions (your own and other people’s).

There’s a whole other post that I could write about assumptions and how they trip us up when we are trying to work together. However, for now, I’ll focus on working across time zones and across organizations and across countries. (I’ll admit to not having much experience with working across different global cultures, specifically, since some fields, like scientific research, tend to have a strong culture of their own. And be rather…English language dominant.)

Many of the same things that work well for collaborating effectively across organizational boundaries (companies, departments, disciplines) are also helpful for collaborating effectively across time zones and geographic boundaries. (Well, hopefully someone else is paying attention to any differing regulations, tax requirements, and all that fun stuff.)

In fact, these practices are beneficial for collaborating effectively no matter whom you’re working with and in what context. If there’s a conflict because you expected someone to reply quickly to an email and they didn’t because it wasn’t within their working hours… Then ultimately it doesn’t matter whether you emailed them when it was after hours in their time zone, a holiday in their country (but not yours), a holiday in their religion (but not yours), their day off, or simply because there was no agreed upon response time and they were in the middle of working on a different priority. You can’t be mad at your colleague when you made assumptions (same working hours, same holiday schedule, that your project is more important than the other projects they were working on). Of course, you could just assume that they are ignoring you or not doing their job – but neither of those choices is particularly constructive.

Teams that I’ve been on where there is effective collaboration have the following:

  • A clear vision for what we are all working towards and a clear definition of success
  • Role clarity for everyone within the team and also for external parties (e.g., clients, other teams within the organization) who will interact with the team
  • Explicit (often written) agreements about how we will work together (governance or how decisions get made and who makes them, communications and response times, working and non-working hours, workflows, etc.)
  • Practices and systems that align with and support those agreements, whether it’s a project management tool, processes for information sharing and knowledge management, or the way you structure team meetings
  • Recognition of power dynamics* and structures or practices to mitigate these (e.g., not always favoring one time zone over another for meetings, acknowledging that the working language may not be everyone’s first language and that this takes a cognitive toll, awareness of the general tendency for the US teams to have more power when partnering with non-US teams or the headquarters over satellite offices, etc.)

*Depending on the context of your work and whom you’re working with, there are of course all sorts of other power dynamics to consider, but these are examples specific to working across time zones and across different countries.

Perhaps in the future I’ll get the chance to have more experience with working cross-culturally, since I’m not sure yet how that compares to living or traveling among other cultures. But in the meantime, if you’d like to share what has worked well for you in these situations, I’d be interested to learn from your experiences!

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Drawing out stakeholder requirements with workflow diagrams

Have you ever been asked to find a technology solution for *flailing-arms-make-it-better*?!? Or attempted requirements gathering only to get a detailed explanation of how to do a task in the current system?

As anyone who has done requirements gathering can tell you, it’s a bit of an art form. (Yes, pun intended in the title!)

You want to meet the needs of the people who will use the solution, but it can be challenging to understand the needs of people who may not know how to articulate them in ways that translate well to technical specifications. While business process mapping is not an uncommon part of requirements analysis, it can be hard to get started if you’re new to it and hard to know how to get the necessary information.

This session I presented at the 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference will break down ways to map workflows and get the information you need to write up effective requirements.

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A few things I’ve learned about creating accessible slides

Apologies if you came here expecting that I was a playground designer, although there are people who make accessible play areas!

View seated for a conference talk in a room set up with tables and chairs and printed materials on the tables. At the front of the room is a glowing projector screen with a blank screen. No one else appears to be in the room.
Are you typically creating slides that you’ll present online? In person? (This photo was taken before someone else’s presentation at a conference several years ago.)

There is no perfect way to make things 100% accessible to everyone because people are different. I state that upfront as a reminder to myself as much as to anyone else that this work is not perfect, that it is messy, and that none of this should stop us from working to make things more accessible to more people right now.* I do not and I am not going to get everything right. I’m sure I’ve failed on a lot of these points in previous slide decks and I will continue to make mistakes. None of these tips are foolproof, and this list is not exhaustive. Perhaps you’ll read it and say you knew all these things already—and that you have some things to teach me! (Which would be great! Please do.) But, hey, maybe some of this will be new to some people. So, I will continue on with my imperfect notes on how I’ve been trying to make my slides more accessible.

Some of these things I learned from the speaker guide for NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, some from a class in graduate school on making information accessible (taught by the awesome Dr. Renee Hill!), some from independent learning about accessibility, and some things by trial and error.

The context of this post is creating slides that I’m preparing to present, such as for a conference talk, as opposed to other purposes. Although I may sometimes mention things related to presenting, the focus will be on the slides themselves. I most often use PowerPoint, so I mention some specific things in the version of the program I have, so if you have a more recent version or use something else for creating slides, those functions might be called something else or work a little differently.

Here are some things I’ve been learning and working at incorporating in my slides:

  • Always check the template (and any other colored elements you are choosing) to ensure you have sufficient color contrast. Unfortunately, those default templates are not necessarily accessible – even when they are labeled as such. You’ll want to check things like the color contrast for people who are colorblind or have low vision. If you like to create your own templates, start with a color palette that has sufficient contrast. Of note, color contrast is not only about the colors, but sometimes about the size and font weight. Black text on a white background will work at any legible size, but certain color combinations that are readable at font size 40 will not be readable by everyone at a font size 20. While it’s not perfect, if your combination doesn’t work if printed in grayscale, you should probably adjust the color palette.
  • Make sure every slide has a title. Occasionally, I will not use the template title area, or because I am not using a template, it is unclear which text is the title of the slide. While it might be obvious to a sighted person, it’s important to make sure someone using a screen reader would be able to use titles to help navigate through the slides. In PowerPoint, if you turn on “Check accessibility,” an Accessibility tab will be added to the ribbon at the top. You use the button for setting the slide title to set a specific text box to be the slide title.
  • Include an agenda and let people know what point in the presentation they’re at. This is more of a presentation tip, but it’s helpful to orient people to what’s going to be covered and to give people a sense of where they are in the agenda. This can be especially helpful for people with cognitive or learning disabilities, but it’s helpful to everyone. I usually include a slide with a numbered list of the topics or sections, and then each section starts with a section header slide that references the section number and where we are in the presentation. (If it’s hard for me to break it out this way, then it probably means the presentation needs some further organization.)
Slide that shows the section header: "1 / 5 What is service design?" followed by some footer information with the name of the presentation and the presenter
In this example of a section header slide, the title of the section, “What is service design?” follows “1 / 5” to indicate that this is the first of five sections in the presentation.
  • Use a font size of at least 18, but preferably larger! Using a larger font size also prevents you from putting too much text per slide, as slide are intended to be presented. If you truly need to write that much, you are writing a report! Or at least an article or blog post. They’re fine formats, but they are formats that meant to be read at your own pace instead of at the speed at which someone is giving a presentation.
  • IF YOU WRITE IN ALL CAPITALIZED LETTERS FOR VERY LONG PORTIONS OF TEXT, THIS IS VERY DIFFICULT FOR EVERYONE TO READ. That took you an extra moment to read and comprehend, didn’t it?
  • Leave the bottom 20% of the slide blank so that captions won’t cover up any content. Occasionally you might be presenting within a platform where the captions are not on top of the slides, but if you’re not sure, the bottom is often where captions are placed on a screen. (Unsure if there will be captions? Ask! It doesn’t matter whether you personally need them. Other speakers and attendees might, and they shouldn’t have to ask.)
  • Include alternative text for images, videos, diagrams, and other visual elements that are relevant. Avoid text in images; simply use the text. (This is inaccessible both to people using screen readers and to people using translation software or other text-based tools.) For videos, you’ll need to consider both captions and video descriptions (a description of what is happening visually) so that the content is accessible to audience members who are blind or D/deaf. You can mark decorative images as decorative and skip the alt text, although it’s worth asking the question of what those images are adding to your presentation.
  • Plan to describe the images verbally if they’re relevant. Okay this isn’t about the slides, but during the presentation, make sure you verbally describe the visual elements that you created alternative text for. Or if you are demonstrating something live, then describe what you’re doing – like if you were on a cooking show.
    • Speaker descriptions: Some people say the speakers should describe themselves, and others say this isn’t really useful information. Within the blind community, there are a lot of differing opinions on speaker descriptions. Unless I’m asked to describe myself visually, I tend to use the guideline of whether it is relevant. If the topic is related to career development, then the fact that I am an Asian American woman in my mid-30s is relevant. If I am talking about working remotely, then it makes sense to reference my surroundings. If I am showing people how to create diagrams, then a description of my visual appearance and what sighted people can see in my background feels performative rather than adding anything to an understanding of the topic.
  • Review the order of object order on your slides. If someone is using a device like a screen reader, you’ll want them to go through everything on your slides in the correct order. An easy way to test this is to use the Tab key to tab through each object (title, text box, image, etc.) on each slide. You can usually right click to move an object forward or backward. (Reading order starts in the back and moves forward to end in the front.)

My process for creating slides

Sometimes it’s difficult to take a collection of tips and figure out how to apply them in practice. My process for creating slides and presentations may be different from yours, but here’s a rough summary of my current process:

  1. Draft learning objectives, usually as a document.
  2. Use the learning objectives to draft an outline, usually in the same document.
  3. Start a new slide file and pick a template.
  4. Check that the template color contrast is sufficient. (Turn on accessibility checker to help me with this if it’s available.)
  5. Edit the template if needed.
  6. Start building out the content in the slides – usually putting the bullet points from the outline as the temporary slide titles.
  7. Work on developing the text and the speaking points in whatever order I can get it to come out in. Usually I put in placeholders for visuals that I need, but also sometimes information that I need to go find. I typically turn off or ignore the accessibility checker during this part.
  8. Lots of iterating, editing, filling in those placeholders, refining speaking points.
  9. Once the visual elements are finalized, I write alternative text. (I usually turn the accessibility back on at this point because it helps me tick off images that need alt text.)
  10. If I forgot to describe something in the speaking points, then I incorporate the description of visuals.
  11. Review and address any other accessibility issues that come up – with the exception of slide order, which I leave until last in case I need to make other changes.
  12. Go through the presentation as a whole, both the slides and practicing the speaking, to make sure everything works together as a whole (and within the allotted time).
  13. Check the slide order by tabbing through each object on each slide and adjusting the object order as needed.
  14. If there’s a method for making the slides available to attendees ahead of the presentation (so they can review as needed, at their own pace, using the appropriate tools, ahead of time), then I do that.

What else? I’m open to learning how to do things better! Email me and let me know if you learned anything new from this post, have suggestions, or what your process looks like for creating slides.

*While there’s no such thing as perfect accessibility, there is indeed possibility to do things that make the situation worse. For example, using an accessibility overlay on your website often makes a website less accessible than say, if you had forgotten to put alt text for images. (Okay, that’s not great, but at least it doesn’t break the other parts of your website.) Better to keep things simple, and to keep working at making your website more accessible.

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Managing change when making big changes

Author’s Note: Is this change something new that you are in the process of planning? You may want to read “How to plan to do something you’ve never done before” before this one if you haven’t already.

Someone holds a phone with a compass app open while standing near a compass embedded in the sidewalk. Per the sidewalk compass, the person should be facing north, but the smartphone compass app says that this direction is 32 degrees north east.
In case you can’t tell from the photo, the compass on the sidewalk says we are facing north, but my friend’s smartphone compass app says that we’re actually pointing towards 32 degrees north east!

If you’ve ever managed a project with a long timeframe or been responsible for implementing a major change, then you know that, well, things change.  Inevitably, you’ll discover something that hadn’t been accounted for or that wasn’t as clear at the beginning, or perhaps, something in your context will have changed.  Maybe there’s a new opportunity you’ll want to be able to seize. 

You may have even identified some potential risks and come up with plans to mitigate them.  It is, however, impossible to know everything that could possibly happen or change or that needs to be accounted for when you’re initially planning a project.  One of the best ways to plan for the unexpected is to plan for change, to build in a margin for it.  That’s why it’s helpful to save for an emergency fund, and why you build extra time and contingency into a project budget.

You can also plan to make changes, even if you don’t know what the changes will be.  Worse comes to worse, your plan works out. 

Many people plan regular times to check in and evaluate progress on a project, especially a change management project, but even better is to regularly ask the question of what changes need to be made and evaluate the plan itself.

Plan to change your plan

Here’s how to prepare for course adjustments before you start really diving in:

  • Schedule check-in meetings and put them on the calendar along with an agenda.  How many and how often depends on the scope of what you’re doing and the timeframe.  Perhaps you might split it into thirds or around key milestones or phases.  If this is more of a continuous thing than a discrete project, then figure out a timeframe when enough will have happened to answer some key questions, but not so much time that it will be hard to change course.
  • Determine how it will be decided whether to adjust course and how.  This could be by consensus, by the project lead having final say, or some type of measure (e.g., as long as our revenue is on track within 5%, we stick to the plan)—or some combination.
  • When planning out the work, plan the first third in the most detail, the second third with some detail, and leave the last third at a high-level.  This will make it easier to make changes since you’ll have left some planning (e.g., who is doing what specific tasks during which week or month) until after the check-in point.

If this is a change management project (e.g., implementing a new system and new processes), having scheduled check-ins to review and adjust the plan can also support your cause.  One thing people worry about during a big change is that it will be terrible, it will make things worse, and they will be stuck with it.  (That can happen, of course!)  However, transparency about how changes will be made and opportunities to provide feedback or request adjustments (e.g., including some time to work out the new time tracking process before the summer staff join) can alleviate some concerns.  You can engage them as beta testers and partners in working out any issues before the full rollout.

Considerations for course adjustments

Here’s are some things you might want to discuss at the start of the project and then during check-ins:

  • What is the desired outcome at the end of this scope of work/part of the project?
  • What assumptions was this planned work based upon?  Have things changed?  You will likely need to change your plan if an assumption no longer holds.  If it was a constraint, then maybe you don’t need to change anything but this opens up other opportunities.  Note:Assuming that the plan will lead towards the desired outcome is an assumption.
  • Does it look like we’re making progress towards the desired outcome?  This is really about whether it is working for the team/organization or not.
  • What changes do we need to make to our plan?  This can be adding things, subtracting things, or modifying how you go about them (e.g., method, strategy, timing, who does what).
  • Do we need to change how we evaluate the need for course adjustments at our next check-in?

When the only constant is change, might as well plan for it!