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Leadership Coaching For Dev Teams

Posted On: March 21, 2019

Has training not worked for your dev teams? Let’s try something different, more personalized with more long-lasting results: Leadership Coaching for dev teams.

 

Let’s talk about coaching for Leadership Coaching for Dev Teams! 

Coaching is not training or content delivery. No more boring PowerPoints or sitting quietly in the back of a packed training room. Virtual, online coaching is a dynamic interaction – candidates actively participate in customized one-on-one coaching conversations that build a host of soft-skills that lead to workplace success (brainstorming, critical thinking, problem-solving, prioritizing, time management, team building and team dynamics, taking initiative).

 

We specialize in working with international career professionals and business people with 3-30 plus years in their fields, holding a variety of job titles. While a majority of our clients are English as Second Language (ESL) speakers, ideal candidates are moderately to completely fluent in English, and are looking to polish Business English, Global English, English with US Americans or build conversational fluency in day to day work related situations and networking events. A majority of our clients also look to build cultural competence, especially in working with US Americans from offshore or while staying or living in the US.

Our coaching process builds communication confidence and cultural competence for offshore and onsite tech workers on global, remote teams and skilled immigrants and international students in the USA.

Let’s look at the steps involved in our process. This process has been written from the viewpoint of a start-up or company sponsoring a candidate for coaching. However, for those reading this wanting to self-sponsor themselves through coaching, we are happy to work with you as well!

 

Our Coaching Process – Based on Iterative and Incremental Development such as what is common in Agile Software Development Cycles

Step 1: Requirements Gathering & Planning

In this strategy session, we analyze the scope of our work together to design a personalized coaching roadmap.

Collecting User Stories
Stakeholders, along with the candidate, identify professional development goals for the candidate, creating ‘user stories’ as ideal outcomes of coaching.

Note: When the team doesn’t have much or any knowledge of the type of business, service or motivations of the end users, rich user stories could help fill in the blanks.

Fill in the blanks:
As a [job role], I want [to achieve some goal] so that [ideal outcome].

Prioritizing and Managing User Stories
We look at all these ‘user stories,’ prioritize them and break them down into manageable chunks (iterations) to start working on immediately. From the intake meeting itself, we work on project management!

Coach will maintain a log of goals, meeting notes and time keeping.

To make the most of this strategy meeting, prepare in advance.

 

Step 2: Coaching Iterations

The chosen candidate meets with us 30-60 minutes every 2-3 weeks for several months, via Zoom, Skype, etc.

Structure of sessions:

1. Mini Stand-Up: Candidate Check in and accountability
2. Coaching conversations, brainstorming, role plays. We can say we work on the “project backlog” during this part of the meeting.
3. Recap, Identify awareness and skill building exercises.

Notes:
Recordings of actual client calls and/or email threads can be shared to assess client facing skills.

Step 3: Testing Out and Deploying

In between sessions, candidates will deploy their identified solutions as the situations arise.

Based on their test runs, candidates will tweak their skills and approaches to work more effectively with their clients, stakeholders and team mates.

Steps 2 and 3 will continue between 2-3 months in an ideal situation. However, as we know project work gets busy, and client demands can cause schedule changes, in many cases, steps 2 and 3 can continue for 4-5 months.

 

Step 4: Monthly Stand-Ups

Once a month by email or call, the coach shares with the stakeholders what we:

• Have completed 
• Are currently working on
• Are planning to work on
• Roadblocks or additional information needed

The Project Manager will share feedback of progress seen with client facing communication skills.

Step 5: 3-Month/ One Cycle Evaluation

Typically, one cycle of coaching completes within 3 months (4-6 sessions). At this time, we meet with the candidate, project manager and any stakeholders to assess progress, assess anything remaining to work on (backlog) and next steps.

Depending on the outcomes of this conversation, we may return to steps 2, 3 and 4 for several more sessions, or we may opt to stop coaching sessions.

Step 6: 4- Month Check in

A month after we decide to stop regular coaching sessions, the coach will check in with candidate, Project Manager and any stakeholders to assess the skill application and scope for further coaching.

*We respect your privacy and confidentiality. A confidentiality form will be discussed and signed.

It is this time, a mutual decision is made to continue coaching with the same candidate or select another candidate.

 

Your coach, Jennifer Kumar, born and raised in the US, has lived in India twice (Kochi and Chennai) for almost 10 years. She has earned her Master’s in India, started her business in India, and worked with over 3,600 professionals, totaling over 1,800 coaching and training hours since 2011. Her expertise and approach builds teams like yours with outstanding results. Rather than read lofty words, let’s jump on a call and talk more about how we can help you or your team today! 

 

Author, Jennifer Kumar as worked with over 50 companies with a presence in the US and India (see full resume, here). She has a PCC (Professional Certified Coach) certification from the International Coach Federation. See the Managing Client Expectations and Deliver Impressive Status Updates programs that feature group and team coaching and training. Add Manager’s Coaching Cafe for an all-encompassing experience.

 

See more of our Training and Coaching Programs for Tech Professionals

External Resources and Experts That Agree Coaching Works!
If your CEO has a coach, maybe you deserve one too – from qz.com
How tech professionals can use virtual career coaching to boost their skills – from techrepublic.com
Photo credit: Masa Israel Journey