Business Consulting and Management

• Repertory Grid Interviewing for Marketing and Consultancy Professionals - a brief overview;
• design management competences - develop management competency models sensitive to the future needs of the business as an aid to managing change and identifying the gap between the competencies which used to be valued in the past and those which will be required by the demands of the future;
• support management decision-making;
• Used as Part of a Change Management Programme - directing and measuring organisational change and development enabling the change manager to measure the organisation’s culture on its own terms, without imposing external models or frameworks, and involve managers in deciding the priority issues for change;
• determine organizational culture;
• help design person-specifications;
• act as a selection interview - measure the applicant's knowledge, attitudes, skills and motivations. Measure the applicant's depth and range of understanding more thoroughly than any other interview process by assessing knowledge or as a highly advanced behaviour-based interview;
• differentiating between good managers and poor managers;
• resolve conflict;
• understand the perceptions of an expert - interact with an expert as a knowledge acquisition system in order to produce a complete representation of how they understand their area of expertise;
• Issues in the Early Stages of Construction projects - good example of derivation of concrete information from research of a soft issue.

Marketing

• Repertory Grid Interviewing for Marketing and Consultancy Professionals - a brief overview;
• support market research - reveal how consumers perceive a product, using the concepts which are natural to them, explore brand awareness, how a product is perceived and compares with its rivals, and to help design new products;
• See how a simple market research example might be started with Enquire Within;
• An example of a simple market research interview - eavesdropping on a simple market research interview to obtain specifications for an ideal conference venue;
• Developing the profile of an ideal digital camera - a very simple marketing or personal application of grid - defining desired product characteristics, an approach that can be adapted to almost any product.

Human Resources

• Human Resources and Repertory Grid - an overview;
• design management competences - develop management competency models sensitive to the future needs of the business as an aid to managing change and identifying the gap between the competencies which used to be valued in the past and those which will be required by the demands of the future;
• An Outline of a Repertory Grid Session Using Enquire Within - How a typical Enquire Within Repertory Grid interview would proceed by using, as an example, Enquire Within as human resources software to assess a salesperson's skills for training needs analysis or as part of a selection interview;
• act as a selection interview - measure the applicant's knowledge, attitudes, skills and motivations. Measure the applicant's depth and range of understanding more thoroughly than any other interview process by assessing knowledge or as a highly advanced behaviour-based interview;
• overview of developing realistic, detailed person-specifications for an existing job or for concentrating attention on the demands a new job will make on the job holder's skills;
  • develop person specifications by analysing the characteristics of existing jobholders;
  • develop person specifications for a new team member by analysing the team dynamics;
  • develop person specifications for re-organization by analysing the characteristics of critical incidents that will be encountered by a new appointment;
• evaluate the effectiveness of training: knowledge-based training, skills training, and major developmental interventions;
• measure organisation culture;
• facilitating change;
• developing management competences;
• Analyse Training Needs and Performance Counselling;
• Career Choice and Career Counselling - a simple but very effective use to help people choose a career and/or identify the characteristics of their ideal careers or to identify the reasons why people choose their particular career or speciality. Also helping people develop and use a framework for choosing careers;
• reflect on personal experience, for example examining individual learning styles, self-analysis of skills and abilities, and examining people’s experience with systems such as performance appraisal;
• resolve conflict and negotiate shared meanings about key concepts;
• Counselling and personal development;
• Repertory Grid in Recruitment and Selection Interviewing - Nobody can fake a Grid, and so if they feel uncomfortable they retreat into silence or giving you propositional constructs - there’s no place to hide, and you’re into rather speedy self-revelation.

Education, Training and Personal Development

• Education and the repertory grid interview - a brief overview;
• The factors essential for learning;
• Examples of how repertory grid makes its contribution to the Factors Essential for Effective Learning, which is often unique or difficult to obtain by other means;
• support a study programme - measure the student's knowledge and direct the student to the priority areas for learning;
• An Example When Used to Support a Self Study Program: Sexuality;
• An example of supporting a study program - used as training support software as part of a distance learning program, training course or as home study or self learning to explore knowledge and perceptions using, as an example, testing and extending your knowledge of characters in literature;
• Teaching and Learning Objective Information - used as a self interviewing tool to compare and contrast different countries as an example;
• evaluate the effectiveness of training: knowledge-based training, skills training, and major developmental interventions. The ways it can be used by the providers and purchasers of training and education to measure the change in the users understanding and experience of the subject-matter;
• Getting Value For Money From Your Career Training.
• Reflecting on Past learning - evaluating a management development course which happened some time ago;
• Evaluating training - a report on working with a consultant and a company’s training manager during a simple analysis of a training evaluation session;
• Career Choice and Career Counselling - a simple but very effective use to help people choose a career and/or identify the characteristics of their ideal careers or to identify the reasons why people choose their particular career or speciality. Also helping people develop and use a framework for choosing careers;
• Using Personal Construct Theory in Guidance - Marcus Offer on the use of personal construct theory and the repertory grid interview in career choice and vocational guidance;
• Analyse Training Needs and Performance Counselling;
• Counselling and personal development - Enquire Within helps the user map and understand problems they may have with relationships, situations, and personal feelings allowing clients to explore their own issues in their own terms and in their own time;
• A Teacher Exploring His Perceptions of His Class - an experienced teacher reflects on his perceptions of his class. It shows the ‘story’ of the interview, including the introspections and comments which the teacher made as he explored his competence to control a class.

Personal Construct and Grid Theory

• Repertory Grid Glossary - A glossary of terms related to the repertory grid interview;
• Repertory grid background and theory - an overview of the history and content of Personal Construct Theory and the Repertory Grid interview;
• Kelly's Concerns - George Kelly wanted to develop a theory, and an investigative technique, which would remove the influence of the observer's frame of reference on what was observed and which would enable him to make precise statements - and confident predictions - about the behaviour of individual people. He was also impatient with what he saw as the rather patronising attitude of most practitioners in the field of psychology;
• Theory of personal constructs - a summary of Kelly's Theory Personal Constructs, the basis of the Repertory Grid interview;
• Understanding George Kelly and Personal Construct Theory - an overview of the background to Grid to facilitate planning, understanding, and analysing a Grid interview.

Application Notes

• A Purpose for the Repertory Grid Interview - a clear statement as to purpose will go a long way toward ensuring a successful interview
• Use of Computers in the Grid Interview - using computers and grid software for the application and analysis of grid;
• Some Resources for Understanding Repertory Grid - a number of resources which can be used for study and personal research to gain a good understanding of Personal Construct Psychology and the Repertory Grid interview and their application;
• How People Use Enquire Within - an overview of the most common ways that ENQUIRE WITHIN can be applied;
• Helpful Hints - a summary of grid application hints available from this site:-
  
  

  Hints in Choosing Elements	Choosing elements is an absolutely fundamental skill for repertory grid practitioners: get it wrong, and the rest of the process will never right itself
  Repertory Grid is a Conversation	Grid is a structured conversation between two people in which Grid provides the methodology for constructive listening as they both explore an issue of common concern
  More on Selecting Elements	The three different ways you can derive an element set, with the pros and cons of each approach
  Grid Gives You Lots of Bites at the Cherry	The Grid interview is not linear, it gives you many different opportunities to probe for information or insights; you don’t have to follow a set formula; you can be flexible
  Alternative Strategies for Construct Elicitation	A review of how to define a useful construct, as well as alternatives for achieving a good set of constructs
  On the Range of Convenience of Constructs	Not all elements can be rated on all constructs but for a Grid interview to be useful, all or most of the elements should be able to be rated on all or most of the constructs
  On the Importance of the Contrast Pole	If you don’t elicit the contrast pole from the interviewee, you are left to infer it - and it could be dead wrong
  On Using ‘Ideal’ Elements	‘Ideal’ elements are a very good way to explore scenarios, ask ‘what if’ questions, and be more specific in your enquiry
  On Research Design, Purpose, and Analysis	The importance of having a good research design so that you know which analysis method or methods will be the most suitable
  Back to a Few Basics	A few hints for absolute newcomers to Repertory Grid
  On Propositional Constructs	One particular piece of jargon is worth exploring - that’s the question of what is meant by the term ‘propositional’ construct
  Repertory Grid in Recruitment and Selection Interviewing	Nobody can fake a Grid, and so if they feel uncomfortable they retreat into silence or giving you propositional constructs - there’s no place to hide, and you’re into rather speedy self-revelation
  A Brief Illustration of the Importance of Laddering	Laddering up is the process where you try to get closer to the person’s core values and preferences
  Visual Inspection of Grids	Assume that not only do you not have a computer now, you never will. You are confined to paper, pencil, scissors, and listening skills
  Teaching and Learning Repertory Grid	The processes that happen when someone is learning Grid interviewing are related to administration, analysis, and application
  The Importance of Pilot Sessions	If you don’t pilot, you could have a furniture van full of data which will not meet the purpose, people leaning on you for the results you’ve promised them, and a general question ‘How do I analyse this?’ which is unanswerable
  Where's the Beef...	Where in the process a repertory grid interview are you going to find your most useful and insightful information?
  A New Acronym I Give Unto You...	All computer users will be familiar with the common piece of geek-speak ‘RTMF’ - It is an invitation to read the manual first
  A Common Mistake and How to Avoid It	A common mistake is to select a set of elements each of which is really one pole of a construct

  
  
  
• Sweet and Simple Techniques - examples of how to design effective Grid studies that do not depend on computer analysis:-
  
  

  Sweet and Simple #1	Performance appraisal using a simple, low-tech, cost-effective application of repertory grid - an approach that you can adapt to other applications from the example where appropriate
  Sweet and Simple #2	Conflict resolution using a simple, low-tech, cost-effective application of repertory grid
  Sweet and Simple #3	The repertory grid interview as part of a process, rather than an end in itself - one more low-tech example of how that can be achieved using Grid simply and effectively

  
  
  
• Skills for an Effective Rep Grid Interviewer - a set of seven hints is designed to help people who want to use Repertory Grid but don’t have much experience and/or access to supervision:
  
  

  Understanding George Kelly and Personal Construct Theory	The purpose here is to give you enough understanding of the background to Grid to be able to plan, understand, and analyse a Grid interview
  Designing a Session	An overview of your choices when designing a Repertory Grid session
  Learning the Repertory Grid Interview Process	The learning curve or being an effective Repertory Grid interviewer is very steep, and requires that you practise your first few interviews in a safe place, with a tolerant friend, on non-controversial topics
  Construct Analysis	Our observation suggests that at least half the serious problems people experience with Repertory Grid are due to failure to include the method of analysis into the project plan
  Feedback	In good Grid feedback the principle is for the interviewer to act, as much as possible, as a skilled mirror, rather than the interviewer offering an interpretation or judgment
  Reminders, Tips and Wrinkles	If you get stuck, or need a spot of inspiration here is a collection of ‘Handy Household Hints'

Resources

• Some Resources for Understanding Repertory Grid - a number of resources which can be used for study and personal research to gain a good understanding of Personal Construct Psychology and the Repertory Grid interview and their application;
• Other Related Websites - Web sites with substantial material on the Repertory Grid interview and Kelly's Theory of Personal Constructs.

Enquire Within Software

• What Enquire Within Does - how the Enquire Within software application uses the Repertory Grid interview for deriving cognitive maps;
• How It Works. How the Repertory Grid interview process is used to interactively elicit a person's cognitive map;
• An Overview of Enquire Within - how the Enquire Within interviewing software application implements the Repertory Grid interview faithful to the underlying grid process;
• An Outline of a Repertory Grid Session Using Enquire Within - How a typical Enquire Within Repertory Grid interview would proceed by using, as an example, Enquire Within as human resources software to assess a salesperson's skills for training needs analysis or as part of a selection interview;
• Saving Time and Improving Precision - a technical note for Repertory Grid users about the support Enquire Within provides you through all the stages of gathering and refining your information, analysing the Grid matrix, feeding back the results to the interviewee and refining it further if that is appropriate;
• How People Use Enquire Within - an overview of the most common ways that Enquire Within can be applied;
• Examples of Repertory Grid Sessions - repertory grid in action for self-interviewing by showing how some Repertory Grid sessions might start using as examples an exploration of knowledge of World War II Commanders, market research, strategic planning and enhancing self-insight, motivation, etc;
• Examples of Enquire Within in Action;
• Learning to Use Enquire Within - about learning to use Enquire Within;
• Tutorials - a series of tutorials introducing the use of the repertory grid interview in various applications such as counselling, decision making and organizational development;
• Technical Facilities built into the Enquire Within software - a list of the features available when using Enquire Within;
• What You Need to Use Enquire Within - Enquire Within was developed to run on Microsoft Windows and works well in all Microsoft Windows environments from Windows 95 and later. There are options available to enable its use on a Macintosh machine;
• Why and How Enquire Within was Developed;
• Enquire Within Reviews - reviews by Peter Everette and Bob Sexton;
• Unsolicited Comments - comments from people who have tried Enquire Within;
• What's New With Enquire Within;
• Enquire Within Costs - what Enquire Within costs and what we provide;
• Download Enquire Within - download Enquire Within to try it for yourself.

Search Facilities and Miscellaneous

• Search - specialised search facilities for finding stuff on this web site and the Internet;
• Table of Contents;
• Enquire Within Home Page;
• Join our mailing list - how to receive e-mail information about Repertory Grid;
• Discussion Group - Join the learners and the experts at the RepGrid User Group;
• Privacy Policy - our policy with regard to personal information provided by our visitors;
• Feedback - tell us what you think about this site and make suggestions for improvement;
• The Laws of the Navy - something completely different.