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10 Solution Focused Coaching Questions For Dev Teams

Posted On: March 8, 2022

It’s time to do some team introspection with these 10 Solution Focused coaching questions for dev teams.

 

Speaking up is a team effort. While we may want to focus on only the quiet ones and put the onus on them to talk, that typically gets them to clam up even more. And, as we create a more inclusive, psychologically safe environment, it’s essential to keep in mind that this will not just impact the person that may be the “one who needs to speak up,” it will essentially impact the entire team dynamics and functioning. How can we get from quiet to a true individual contributor while ensuring everyone is heard and seen AND given credit for their ideas and work well done?

 

We do this through a comprehensive coaching approach.

 

An approach I have been using for years now (probably more than a decade, without realizing it, until I became a certified Solution Focused Coaching Practitioner) – asking coaching questions to elicit the answers from within the team’s innate and already accessible knowledge and being. (It’s already there, even if you don’t know it, but a coach can help surface what we don’t see, know, feel or really BE yet….)

 

 

Here’s the Coaching Scenario:

Managers, clients, and/or stakeholders report that dev team members are not transparent with sharing blockers or brainstorming in general (reference to standup meetings and retrospectives). In advance of the coaching conversation with the manager, there would have been performance reviews completed, which highlighted the strengths and challenges of the team members. The manager managing the team is being coached on how to enhance the performance of the team with reference to sharing blockers and/or brainstorming.

 

10 Solution Focused Coaching Questions For Dev Teams

1. 1. 1. Outside of status update meetings, where have you noticed team members exhibiting these ideal skills?
      2. What ways could the skills you are noticing in other areas of team interaction be transferred to the status update meeting?
      3. What is the smallest thing you could notice to move the needle in the desired direction?
      4. Once team members start exhibiting desired behaviors, how would that evolve the overall team dynamics?
      5. When (name of team member, if discussed) starts to exhibit xyz skill or behavior, how would you notice and what would be different in the flow and/or outcome of the standup? (This question can be repeated for different team members.)
      6. How would your communication (as a TL or manager) be different in the standup as the team members adapt and implement these communication strategies? (or) How do you think you would show up differently in the standup as the team members adapt and implement these communication strategies?
      7. Suppose you reexamined XYZ process and general team communication outside of standups – what do you think would emerge?
      8. What are the ways you feel your relationships with your clients/stakeholders would change as these communication strategies are implemented in the standups?
      9. Let’s imagine all of what we talked about takes hold in your standup meetings (call out things the client said by name), how would you describe the ideal stand up meeting?
      10. Suppose you were at the point that all status update meetings were (use word/s coined above), how would your role in this meeting evolve and who would notice?

 

Jennifer Kumar, author has used the very same 10 Solution Focused coaching questions for dev teams when conducting programs such as Deliver Impressive Status Updates. If you want to learn these coaching strategies – learn about our Solution Focused Coaching Fundamentals Program as well. We look forward to being in touch.

 

 

You can use these questions on your own or with a Solution Focused certified coach (such as the author!). Looking for more questions that can get you on the path of solution focused success? Check out these blogs with question ideas from SF master guru Kirsten Dierolf:

1. 10 SOLUTION-FOCUSED QUESTIONS FOR IMPACT WHEN YOU HAVE NO OR LITTLE DIRECT AUTHORITY OR POWER WITHIN THE TEAM OR DEPARTMENT
2. 10 good exploration questions that are not “Why” questions 

 

photo credit: tirachardz at freepik