choong pw

As an engineering manager and the leader of my team, coaching is an important duty to ensure the success of my team. As per the title, the first book recommended to me was “Trillion dollar coach”. A story about Bill Campbell, a success coach for the executive of the big name (Google, Apple, etc.) we know today.

Back to the topic, to be effective in my role as a manager and leader, we need to leverage others to get the work done. Apart from just delegating work downstream, we also need to be mindful of the capability and capacity of our direct reports. Some might just join us right after they graduated. Therefore, coaching in the form of helping them be more effective at deriving their work pattern is the key.

Say for example:

• What does it mean by a Spike?
• How should you plan the spike to make the most use of the available timebox?
• How do you document and communicate back to the team?
• etc.

With the scheduled routine 1:1, we would bring it up to talk more about it. I find it much easier for them to be vulnerable and relate to using this channel.

Our focus is usually on the process rather than the actual technical skill or problem. Things like tools to braindump ideas, organize to-do, draft documentation, and more. Still, sometimes being an engineer myself, we do get slipped away to try solving it. Oh well…

Nevertheless, it was mesmerizing to see once they manage to figure out what work for them. And then share it back with me, so that I can use it as an example and story for the newer dev.

I view coaching as a process to helps individuals to develop their skills and abilities to reach their full potential. Doing so, help to build a more capable team for solving problems which leads to an increase in productivity and morale.