Training Coaches

Training Coaches is a practice designed to enhance the effectiveness of coaches by equipping them with the skills and knowledge needed to foster growth, facilitate learning, and encourage the continuous improvement of individuals and teams in a software development context. This practice focuses on the development of soft skills such as active listening, asking insightful questions, and assuming good intent, which are critical for building trust and driving constructive engagement.

Goal

The primary goal of training coaches is to empower coaches to be more effective in their roles, thereby enabling teams to achieve their full potential. By honing their skills in communication, empathy, and facilitation, coaches can better guide teams towards self-organisation, problem-solving, and the delivery of high-value products.

Context

In traditional organisations, managers are more likely to adopt a directive approach, telling team members what to do rather than facilitating their own problem-solving process. In environments with self-organising teams, managers transition to a coaching role, where they support teams in making decisions, solving problems, and improving their performance. This is a big shift that requires training and development to be effective.

The Coaching Kata

A useful structured technique from Mike Rother's Toyota Kata. The Coaching Kata is a repeatable five-question loop the coach uses with the coachee to guide them toward setting their own next target and the actions to reach it. The same structure works whether the topic is career growth, a product goal, a process improvement, or a personal development area.

The loop:

1. What is the target condition? Where does the coachee want to be? This could be a career-ladder progression, a product outcome, a personal capability, or anything else specific enough to make progress against.
2. What is the actual condition now? Self-assessment by the coachee, with the coach's perspective added.
3. What obstacles are in the way? Which one are we addressing now?
4. What is the next step? What does the coachee plan to do, and what do they expect to happen?
5. When can we see what we have learned? Set the next checkpoint.

The five questions are deliberately short and asked in order. The coach resists the temptation to provide answers, even when they have one. The practice's value is in building the coachee's capacity to work through the loop themselves over time.

A common application: in a one-on-one, the coach uses the Kata to walk the coachee through their own development. Over many sessions, the coachee internalises the loop and starts asking the questions of themselves.

Inputs

Outputs

Anti-patterns

• Assuming the Solution: Jumping to solutions without fully understanding the problem or context.
• Directive Coaching: Telling team members what to do rather than facilitating their own problem-solving process.