Coaching/Mentoring Contract for a High-performance team

Leaders are the coach of the team. Scrum master is coach the team. Senior team members are the mentor for the teams. Once Individual have reached a particular level of maturity, coaching and mentoring by these individual will aid others to become better at whatever we are doing.

We need to coach and mentor where we identify opportunities to ensure we build a strong High-performance team.

How do we start this journey?

Coaching and Mentorship is an agreement where two individuals conform to adhere to a particular way of functioning for an accepted goal & Purpose.

The goal could be to become better whatever we are operating.

The learning has to flow from upstream to downstream( from Mature team members to new/entry-level team members). The awareness has to grow, unknown challenges have to explore and come out with unique ways to resolve for progress.

Both the party will steer for a known and unknown territory together and come out with diverse experiences. Better or bitter whatever it may be.

The purpose could be, both the parties should candidly discuss what could be our short-term goals and capture those.

Few areas can help us to structure and start this journey.

We openly examine and capture the benefits of such type of agreement and we acknowledge if there is any adjustment desired.

This meeting has to be scheduled in the calendar in well advance so that everyone is ready.

As coaches or mentors, we have to establish a space where we allow team members to share their side of the story. As a coach, we suggest many queries to explore their world and motivate team members thought to investigate and explore many options.

As a coach & mentor, we recommend many tools and guidelines to look into and come back with queries, if any.

A) Where are we now?

B) What is our overall goal? Short term and Long term? What we would admire to achieve? Solving the complex question, Improving the performance gap. Enhancing current ways of operating, etc

C) What are our roles and responsibilities? How do we ensure we are aligned for a common goal?

D) What is the support system enabling us? What are the things we should look into growing support from the system?

E) What cost we have to bear to achieve the new heights? Are we ready to pay this price?

F) How do we adhere to each other? what is our boundary?

G) What will be our feedback mechanism? Agreement to share constructive criticism.

H) When we will meet? How many times in a week? When we will demonstrate our progress?

I) A confidential agreement? The platform should be safe to discuss.

J) What behavior is acceptable and not acceptable?

K) How do we know we are irritating each other, hurting each other’s ego? what is the signal to check we have crossed the boundary

L) Celebration time, when should we celebrate? and based on what criteria?

M) Any point we do not choose to discuss? which are too personal and not impacting performance?

N) An agreement to create open, trusting, transparent ambient?

O) An agreement to come out from the contract? When should we choose that we have succeeded with our goal?

As Mentee or coachee, I adhere to these below points

A) As a Coachee, I understand the purpose of our meeting

B) As a Coachee, I understand what I am going to discuss

C) As a Coachee, I am prepared and share all the challenges and progress I am making

D) As a Coachee, we discuss together to measure the progress

E) As a Coachee, I devote my times to demonstrate dedication and commitment

F) As a Coachee, I look for feedback which can help me to experiment, study and reflect

G) As a Coachee, I openly discuss what is working and what is not working and we agree to course correct

H) As a Coachee, we identify the development areas and work upon on those

I) As a Coachee, I comment about the openness, a trust created in our discussion

J) As a Coachee, I share my feedback about my coach/mentor

K) As a Coachee, I ensure I cancel the meeting well ahead and the same action admitted from the Coach/mentor side

L) As a Coachee, I ensure our relationship maintained and we work together to improve the same

When we prepare ourselves with such a structural approach, we can discover how will this procedure is supporting all of us.

We could be a mentor or Mentee, coach, or coachee all of us will get benefit from this structural preparation. We can consistently customize and reform upon this.

Establishing our own product?

How can practice product discovery attributes to establish our own product?

a) Hook up with the target users. This is a remarkable ongoing drive where we ensure that we find all the probable ways to discover who will be our potential consumers. What needs do they have, what can we offer to bridge those gaps? It is not obvious, though, to identify individuals who will be our users. There are no proven approaches. We require to discover like a hawk who desires our service. There will be a barrier between what we offer and the individuals who look for those services.

b) Problem space and solution space: Both this discovery continues parallelly. We will never be adequate to express that now problem space has saturated or solution space has been completed. Let us concentrate on both spaces continuously,as both these spaces trigger each other to grow and flourish to a new level. Product discovery grows to obtain more value from both spaces. Technology solutions play a key role in satisfying the needs of end-users.

c) Dealing with Uncertainty and Ambiguity: The problem space is full of unknowns. The skill that we need most is an association among all the team members. As problem space deals with unknowns, it is reasonable to get frustrated. Natural to raise stress and anxiety level. It is the support of each other to experiment more, to know the unknown benefits. Rapid prototype and move on is the way forward. There is no point in assuming something and stuck later.

d) Great communication skills and empathy helps: The more numbers of users we can talk, the better. For that, the magnificent tool we are going to use is emotional maturity and awesome communication skills. These skills stimulate us to unearth the unsaid expectations. Substantiate those later with the users.

e) Analysis and research on discovery: There must be some time concentrated on the discovery and extracting insight out of those. As a whole team, we can deep dive and study into our next course of action to be taken based on the unique insights that have emerged. Employ many evaluation tools to work out a comprehensive work here.

f) Success KPI: As a team, we need to discover indicators that are extremely relevant in our context, which reveals that we are moving towards the required direction. This is an ongoing process that encourages us as a team to consider specific, crucial parameters about the problem space and solution space. We continue to expand and ripen our discovery journey

g) What risks are we dealing with: We have to be vigilant about the diverse risks which can jeopardize our discovery process. Locating those risks continually is also another step we require to be conscious about. Risks realization reveals our evolution and diminishes disturbance.

h) Understanding the context: It is essential that many of us from the team have to be masters in the domain so that we are conscious of why? what, and how part. If we are developing a rocket to travel to Venus. We are required to understand space technology and all the pertinent intelligence about that. Product discovery will be efficient when we have team members who are mindful of the context. Not all the team members should know the context; we again require the devil advocate in our team to establish the discovery robustly.

i) Alignment workshop: There are many tools available to align many involved team members to build the solutions. Hackathon, Open space technology, etc facilitation technique we can apply to align our diverse views and come out with a robust solution with shared understanding, We need to tap the collective wisdom to produce the stronger solution, so such workshop is the platform where we are collaborating and aligning for the bigger cause

j) Creating the Maps: There are many tools available that help to create many maps, Journey maps, Empathy maps, Road maps, user journey maps, etc map. All maps have some of the other benefits. Each tool tells some part of the product discovery. Exercise all these and squeeze the benefits from these tools.

k) Right team composition: We require to have the appropriate mixture of individuals from both spaces. Some individuals are excellent at problem space; some individuals are useful at solutions space. Both require diverse skill sets, mindsets, and know-how. In a wonderful product, we have team members to complement each other all the time. Look for this composition and missing elements.

LS principle to evolve better products and solutions?

Why should Product Managers apply the LS(Liberating Structure) principle to evolve better products and solutions?

When we deal with complex product solutions, there are too many variables and too many unknowns.

Most of the time, individuals grow into ambiguous as the way forward is not so obvious.

Chance is that we may fall trapped into the old habit which is controlling!

Control influences innovation is the negative way

How can we unleash the power of a product owner or product manager in the product development life cycle?

Most of the coaches are employing the Liberation structure principle at their facilitation sessions.

We are also coaching our product owners and product managers, why not the Product Management team use the same to build better products and solutions?

We recommend that this LS principle can be adopted by the product owner during their various meetings to solve the complex issue.

Let us see how these are relevant in the product development context

• Liberating Structures:
• Include and Unleash Everyone
• Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions
• Build Trust As You Go
• Learn by Failing Forward
• Practice Self-Discovery Within a Group
• Amplify Freedom AND Responsibility
• Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See
• Invite Creative Destruction To Enable Innovation
• Engage In Seriously-Playful Curiosity
• Never Start Without Clear Purpose

Never Start Without Clear Purpose:

Most of the product owners invariably start with Product vision and chop down that product vision into sprint vision. The team recognizes the purpose of the product and the same with sprints.

Let the product owner persistently apply the purpose-driven Agile ceremonies.

Engage In Seriously-Playful Curiosity:

The boundless curiosity brings innovation into the work context. Product owners for the best product are immensely curious to know more about the customer requirements and many other product requirements.

They encourage the team to be curious, to get the benefit of the curiosity. I have worked with many great product team members who have this skill. As a Product owner encourage, people, to ask silly questions or guide them to think like children. Allow them to feel like it is ok to fail.

Invite Creative Destruction To Enable Innovation:

Most of the time in backlog grooming sessions product owners can apply this technique to bring the best from the team. Encourage people to speak out without fear. Give them ambient to convey their mind. In the product discovery session when things are not so clear as things are evolving, that is the time where product owners can demonstrate such traits.

Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See:

During the sprint demo the working product has been demonstrated to all. This will establish the possibility, based on the working software, to expand the image of what else can be done. Never grant negative comments to kill the power of expanding possibilities.

Amplify Freedom AND Responsibility:

As a Product owner let us use the “fail fast” thoughts and let this thought dominate the flow. The major learning comes when we experiment freely and rapidly. The fear-free culture will encourage people to take ownership and find out the unknown. Let us not put too much role and constraint with stiffening the freedom.

Practice Self-Discovery Within a Group:

Allow team members to find their own solution. Let them discover the solution by passing through the pains and gains. The highly diverse teams are, good for the product and solution. They will be produced to be part of the team. Evade top-down solutions and provoke team-centric solutions.

Learn by Failing Forward:

The maximum learning comes when we experiment with something and it did not proceed as we had expected. We learn and prepare better. Small risks are better as it have less impact. The new product feature is invariably gone by small iterations and impact analysis of that iteration. Take the call as a product owner on how much risk a team can take and move on. Do we have to be successful all the time? Memorandum this answer in the perfect manner.

Build Trust As You Go:

A great product built by great team members. A great team member forms with many months and years of working collectively. Those journeys are strengthened by considerable team support and holding each other in all the time. Turbulence time demands more trust among team members. A great product owner knows this part.

Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions:

Understand the people’s expertise for their contribution. In a great product, every team member creates a space in their team through their expertise and support. Encourage the skill and capability development with the periodic acknowledgement of their contribution.

Include and Unleash Everyone:

In all the agile ceremonies, it is significant to engage all the team members for a better solution. Encouraging everyone to talk and share their comments, Call out their name if voluntarily people hesitate to make the comments.

These techniques will alleviate any product owners to become better by developing a better product and solution;

After talking with the product owner, they felt wow satisfaction as the team outcome has improved. All these develop positive mindsets among team members.

Software Platform and Product ( Wholesale & Retail Market)

Agile coaching for the Software Platform team?

We were debating Coaching for Product teams and Platform teams, are these same or does something require to change while doing team coaching?

We want to help our platform team’s product owner, what coaching strategy variation is essential?

Let us look at the characteristic.

Products are the technology-enabled offerings adopted by customers and employees.

Just to understand the business model a bit separately

What is the Difference Between Wholesale and Retail Business Models?

The word wholesale commonly means selling in bulk quantities and retail stands for selling merchandise in limited volumes.

Wholesale and retail are two distribution arrangements that create a significant part of the supply chain. When the goods are manufactured, they are sold in large quantities (wholesale) to the wholesalers who further sell them to the retailers who permanently sell them to the absolute clients.

While a wholesaler sells goods to the businesses, as they purchase goods to sell it further. On the other hand, a retailer targets the final consumer and sells goods to them.

Can we apply the same strategy for both these teams?

WHOLESALE

Wholesale is a business in which goods are sold in enormous volumes to retailers, industries, and other businesses.

Wholesalers do not pay much attention to the location of the shop and its appearance and display of goods because they sell particularly a unique type of items, and their customers are normally retailers or other businesses who purchase the goods for the purpose of resale. These things do not matter to them at all.

In wholesale business, the wholesaler offers higher significance on the number of goods, not on the quality.

The customers of a wholesale business are extended in diverse cities, towns, or even in various states. Most goods are sold on credit to the customers of the wholesale business. The price of purchase on wholesale is lower as it consists of fewer profit margins.

RETAIL

When the goods are sold to the ultimate consumer in limited lots, then this type of business is called retail.

Retail means selling goods in modest parts. When the goods are sold to the final customer, for consumption and not for the purpose of resale, in minuscule volumes

Retailers are the middleman between wholesalers and customers. They purchase goods from wholesalers in volume and sell them to the ultimate consumer in small lots.

The prices of goods purchased in retail are comparatively high. The first and foremost reason behind this is the advertisement cost, and the profit margin is high. Moreover, they include other expenses in the price of goods on a proportionate basis, like the rent of premises, salary to the workers, electricity expenses, etc.

Let us consider same context for Product(Retail market) and Platform(Wholesale Market).

A product is a functional or valuable portion of a program, while a platform is a system that facilitates a product to perform or interact with another product.

Products produce a single revenue stream, while platforms, which we single out as mediators that link two or more separate customer groups and grant direct communication between them, can provoke several revenue streams.

Product teams concentrate on delivering the needs of end-users in ways that bring about revenue, boost yield, or otherwise straight establish value for a company. They operate like miniature businesses, responsible for go-to-market planning, user experience, and adoption, in extension to technology delivery.

Platform teams concentrate on establishing an organization’s core systems available, reusable, and modern, so that they effectively facilitate products.

Platforms serve to scale down engineering friction, which, in turn, provides rapid value delivery to end-users. Efficient platform architectures happen at the junction of engineering, industry, and people, harmonizing each one’s goals in the function of promoting accelerated value delivery to consumers.

Platforms serve with the distribution of applications, which can be “Tech tool stack Architecture”, aiding the implementation of outstanding practices in an enterprise within program and cost constraints.
Facebook is a marvelous example of a platform AND a software product

For an Agile coach to coach all these teams, platform teams, infrastructure teams, service teams, and products are distinct. Their team visions, team strategy, team KPI, etc are different, need to treat differently.

We will not able to use the same lens when we have stakeholders’ coaching strategies crafted out for these teams to enhance their ways of working.

McKinsey forecasts that 30% of all global economic activity ($60 trillion) could be mediated by platforms within new digital ecosystems by 2025.

In The platform world

• It is a long term thinking
• It is not a consumer world, but both producers, consumers, developers, everyone's world need to think about
• It is more related to architectural capabilities ( Build an end to end system)
• Product comes first, them product stabilization in the market and next Platform. So the platform has a history
• Product ( External facing) to the platform ( Internal capability facing )
• Resolve complex problems by using the platform capabilities( What are those)
• Ecosystem orchestrating through a platform
• Converging wholesale market and retail market!

I am sure you have already experienced the same as what I am experiencing.