How are you developing your employees? Are there clear expectations and development pathways? In this era of the great resignation it is more important than ever to be aware of how you are developing and motivating your employees. Daniel Pink’s work on motivation resulted in a theory that we need intrinsic motivation and to achieve that we need to address 3 factors. Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
Let’s talk about Mastery. This year I have been working with a company to develop an in house training programme for their internal candidates to become Agile coaches.
They had previously used one of the big companies and had a lot of material to support a training programme but needed a way of putting it all together into a structure that enabled new coaches to proceed through in a self directed manner with some support networks setup. It needed to be practical and have lots of ability for them to practice their skills as they learned.
My programme started off being 12 weeks, mainly because they seemed like a good number 3 months, a quarter, it aligned nicely with their OKR cycle enabling teams to easily set goals and allow capacity for the training.
The success criteria for the programme was:
- It used 90% of existing collateral.
- Created a development plan on how to progress to the next level.
- Could be used ongoing by any member of the coaching chapter.
I utilised the agile coaching growth wheel subjects along with Lyssa Adkins Agile coach competency framework to determine the topics. In addition I reflected on training programmes I had been on and what was covered in each and important to know. I thought about what I have had to do in my role as an Agile coach and pulled that all together to come up with 12 modules and a self mastery / mindset underlying theme. As I developed the modules I discovered that there were some that were much wider and required more time than others. Hence my sizing. I also discovered early on that I wanted my trainees to go through the first 3 modules first as they were generally people who had no prior agile or coaching experience. I wanted them to quickly understand what they were getting in to.
The training is bespoke for this organisation. It pulls in their existing collateral in terms on online training, powerpoints, self learning, buddy system and trainer led sessions. I used the training from the back of the room framework and the 4 C’s.
- C1 – Connections. Connect learners to the topic
- C2 – Concepts. Introduce the knowledge
- C3 – Concrete Practice.
- C4 – Conclusions – reflection.
This proved a great way to structure the sessions and link to the learning outcomes. It also provided an engaging self directed process for the learners.
Each module was on it’s own separate Miro board and linked back to a main board where the learner created their toolkit for Agile coaching and engaged with their manager for development and their buddy for support and applying learning in the real world.
So far we have 2 new coaches going through the programme. I have been blown away with their mindset changes and how they are challenging themselves with the activities. It is providing growth not only in their skills at work but also in their home life.
