Couple of Coaches

Couple of Coaches

Christine and I are long time co-workers, and engaged. We have worked together for 3 years at two different companies. We met as colleagues and began a relationship after some time of working together. We believe that our professional teaming has created a strong sense of partnership and respect that has helped create a strong personal relationship. After a while we went our separate way professionally but 6 months later we were back working together. We have since both started new gigs and aren't working together but both wanted a way to keep that professional partnership going and we thought a podcast may be a fun way to do that. This podcast will be about speaking with all the amazing people we have met along the way about work, life and anything else. We are so excited to see where this goes! read less
BusinessBusiness

Episodes

Episode6 - The Game Show
Jun 7 2022
Episode6 - The Game Show
This episode of a Couple of Coaches is a long one. Christine and I are playing a game against the clock where people call in and ask us questions and we need to align on a single coaching approach in ten minutes or less! We can ask questions to clarify however, the seat is hot, and the time crunch is on! We had a lot of fun special thanks to Teresa Reynolds from Culture ByUs for coming up with this format for the show. We will be releasing each question one by one in 10-15 minute snippets next week so that way you can send your colleagues a specific answer depending on their specific needs. Stay tuned our guest host wants to be the next contestant. Question 1: This organization has gone through a Value Stream session, and they have found that they are too heavy in middle management and too light in team members who do the work. How should I approach this situation when I want to support safety in my organization, but there are too many people in the wrong seats? https://mmutube.mmu.ac.uk/media/Top+10+Companies+with+a+Flat+Organisational+Structure/1_vl7na9gk/8063521 Examples of successful companies with Flat organizational structures. “Reinventing the Organization: How Companies Can Deliver Radically Greater Value in Fast-Changing Markets” By Arthur Yeung & Dave Ulrich Question 2: What should the Product Owner do when the Scrum Master that is not acting as a servant leader and isn’t doing what they are supposed to do draining the PO and others in the organization? “Scrum Guide” https://www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-guide “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” Patrick Lencioni “Coaching Agile Teams a Companion for ScrumMasters” Lyssa Adkins Question 3: How should a team handle calling every production support a top priority so that the work is better prioritized and understood by all? “Scrumban” by Corey Ladas https://www.agilealliance.org/scrumban/ “Team Kanban” SAFe https://www.scaledagileframework.com/team-kanban/ Question 4: What radical coaching practices do you recommend to get a learning mindset into executives who are stuck in their ways? “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott “Very Scary People” https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8CtIdCAyZTFOakkZlPQM “Tips for Reading the Room Before a Meeting or Presentation” by Rebecca Knight https://hbr.org/2018/05/tips-for-reading-the-room-before-a-meeting-or-presentation When to Call it Quits on a Transformation? https://soundcloud.com/coupleofcoaches/episode-2-when-to-call-it-quits-on-a-transformation?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Question 5: How do you coach a pilot project in an agile transformation when the deck (tools, transparency, and team structure) is completely stacked against you, and it’s all on a scope-based firm fixed price contract? “The Phoenix Project” Gene Kim, George Spafford, and Kevin Behr Question 6: How do you best handle a feature migration/solution upgrade when the customer/executive believes all features are necessary in the new solution? REAN Foundation: https://www.reanfoundation.org/ Dr. Sri Vasireddy “The Journey Mapping Playbook: A Practical Guide to Preparing, Facilitating and Unlocking the Value of Customer Journey Mapping” by Jerry Angrave “A quick guide to business capability maps” https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/a-quick-guide-to-business-capability-maps Question 7: How do you increase engagement in a hybrid (Employee/Contractor) team so that the group becomes a high performing team? “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups” by Bruce W. Tuckman http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/15341_Readings/Group_Dynamics/Tuckman_1965_Developmental_sequence_in_small_groups.pdf “Revisited” by Bruce W. Tuckman and Mary Ann C. Jensen http://faculty.wiu.edu/P-Schlag/articles/Stages_of_Small_Group_Development.pdf “Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play” By Luke Hohmann Team Building games: https://teambuilding.com/blog/team-building-games Enjoy!
Episode 4 - Organizing a Business and Guac Delivery Optimization
Feb 2 2022
Episode 4 - Organizing a Business and Guac Delivery Optimization
Today Christine and Ross are joined by Will Evans, and they ended up discussing almost everything. The topics include organizational design, the skills needed to be a leader in a more modern and change heavy system, organizational and technical debt, middle management, strategic objectives and OKRs, choice architecture, management, performance reviews, and the things Will is up to on the horizon. Will Evans is a brilliant and experienced product, strategy, and design. Will is a treasure trove of knowledge coupled with a personality to teach. Please get in contact with Will to discuss opportunities to take his product training recommended by Christine in the show as well the behavioral economics training, he is also creating. Will brings a wealth of experience with several of the best-known and most successful companies in experience design, healthcare, and the consumer web. He focuses on integrating design thinking and service design to delight customers and increase profitability. Essential to that effort is the development of forward-thinking organizational transformation teams that can work seamlessly across organizational functions—an area where Will brings deep expertise. Equal parts business strategist and creative visionary, he has served as a principal and executive creative director for design organizations and functions where he built teams, a client base, and products and services from the ground up. He holds patents for several products he designed in online search and navigation systems.