MI techniques: Agenda Mapping

This article is the fifth in a series for The Coaching Psychologist which is drawn from the Motivational Interviewing (MI) approach. In the previous papers I have summarised briefly the principles of Motivational Interviewing (Passmore, 2011a). In four further papers for the techniques section I have offered a perspective on the application of ‘reflective listening’ (Passmore 2011b), ‘the balance sheet technique (Passmore, 2011c), a ‘Typical day’ (Passmore, 2012a)and ‘Recognising change talk’ (Passmore 2012b). In this paper I will briefly review a ‘technique’ which is at the start of the MI process and while not formalised in much of the coaching literature is a common practice among coaching psychologists when using Cognitive Behavioural Coaching (CBC) and behavioural based approaches such as GROW. This technique, Agenda Mapping, aims to help the coach and coachee to agree on the focus for the coaching conversation.

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