amy kidd - mini upa - peer coaching
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Peer CoachingA Simple & Effective Way for User Experience Teams to Help Each Other
Amy Kidd
UPA Boston Mini-Conference
May 28, 2008
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The Story of Peer Coaching or Who, What, When, Where, How, & Why (reordered)
Who..? Where did it happen? Why did we do it? When did all this happen? What is peer coaching? How did it go?
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Who…?
Amy Kidd Senior Team Lead at The MathWorks Bentley MS HFID grad akidd@mathworks.com
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The MathWorks Usability Group
Participated, gave great feedback, and made this program possible
Who…?
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Who…?
And, I had lots of extra help from
Portia O’Callaghan & Michelle Erickson
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Where did this happen?
The MathWorks makes software for technical computing and Model-Based Design 90+ products including MATLAB and Simulink 1800+ employees worldwide Private company headquartered in Natick
Usability/User Experience at The MathWorks Over 35 Usability professionals Integrated part of Development process and teams
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Why did we do it?
Lots of reasons …
growth
coaching
design reviews
cross-team interaction
leverage our team
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Why…? Growth
Rapid growth of our group over 5 years 5 team members -> 35 team
members 1 team -> 5 distinct subteams Many team members here for less
than 1½ years
This brought challenges… Strong company culture
Best way to learn and adapt is by working with “old timers”
Wanted more long-term partnerships Existing “new hire buddy”
program not enough
Needed to leverage senior team members for coaching Hiring more junior Usability
professionals
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Why…? Coaching
To provide additional avenues for coaching
Management bandwidth increasingly limited Increase in staff, hiring efforts, other initiatives…
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Why…? Design reviews
To encourage use of one-on-one design reviews
Improve deliverables Reinforce company core
value
“Continuous Improvement and Pursuit of Excellence”
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Why…? Cross team interaction
To encourage more cross-subteam interaction Build relationships within the larger Usability group Encourage consistency in design processes and standards
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Why…? Leverage our team
To better leverage our team’s variety of skills and expertise
Many years of experience, on many different kinds of projects, at many different companies, with many different academic backgrounds
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When did this happen?
Kicked off the program in April 2007
6-month cycles Today, 2 cycles complete, 3rd in progress
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What is peer coaching?
A loosely structured way for pairs of coaching partners to support each other.
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What…? Goals
Use our skills to help each other
Use one-on-one design reviews to improve our work
Share ideas
Build relationships with other usability people
Learn about projects outside our areas
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What…? Partners
Goals for creating pairs of coaching partners Each person paired with someone from a different subteam New hires paired with someone at the company for at least 1 year Junior team members paired with more senior team members
Added 2 additional considerations after the 1st 6-month cycle Each person should have a new partner for the next 6 months Individuals can make requests for specific partners (but there are
no guarantees)
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What…? Changing partners
Assigning new partners for each six-month cycle is important Promotes relationship building - everyone gets to know
someone new Accommodates changes in staffing – we can handle the
addition of new hires or occasional departure of a team member Allows for adjustments - if someone is dissatisfied they will get a
new partner at the end of the six month cycle
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What…? Assigning partners
Find out who is participating Participation optional
Program coordinators draft initial list of partners Using guidelines and partner
requests
Review list with management team Managers know their direct
reports best Make adjustments based on
strengths or improvement areas
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What…? Suggestions for pairs
Meet with your partner for 1 hour every other week Each should get ½ the meeting to focus on their work Discuss
What you’ve done in the past 2 weeks Top 2-3 challenges for the upcoming weeks
Bring an artifact for your partner to design review
Use your partner for design reviews or to bounce ideas around when opportunities arise between peer coaching meetings
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What…? 1st meeting checklist
Checklist to help new partners kick off a 6-month cycle
Learn about each other What groups do you support? What are your current projects? What usability methods are you using or learning about?
Set goals for your peer meetings Write down specific goals for the next 6 months and keep copies
Set up meetings Determine how often and when to meet Schedule recurring meetings for the next six months
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What…? Managing six-month cycles
Kick-off a cycle Create coaching pairs Roll out program goals, partners, and guidelines Encourage partners to schedule 1st meeting
Wrap-up a cycle Collect feedback on program Respond to feedback with changes as needed Collect partner requests for next cycle
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How did it go?
Feedback collected after each 6-month cycle Survey all participants
How often pairs met and results obtained How well the program met goals Areas for improvement Success stories
Anecdotal reports Results used to answer 2 primary questions:
Should we continue the program for another 6 months? What changes should we make for the next cycle?
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How did it go? Survey results
The following slides summarize combined results of surveys for 2 six-month cycles.
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How did it go? Overall rating
Overall how would you rate your experience with the peer coaching program?
Note: Several respondents agreed with one who said “I'd have given Good if that was a rating. Very good and excellent seem similar to me”. This will be changed on future surveys.
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How did it go? Overall experience
Overall how would you rate your experience with the peer coaching program?
Response themes: 65% of the participants rated their first six month peer coaching
experience Very Good or Excellent. Most participants enjoyed the program and felt it was worth
continuing.
Quotes from participants: “Best idea since I came - and there is a lot of good competition!” “It's definitely worth another round.” “I strongly support the program…”
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How did it go? Goals
We started the peer coaching program with 5 goals. Based on your experience, please rate how well the program missed or achieved each goal.
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Use our skills to helpeach other
Use one-on-one designreviews to improve our
work
Share ideas Build relationships withother Usability folks
Everyone learns a littleabout projects outside
their area
Exceeded
Achieved
Didn't quite meet
Missed completely
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How did it go? Goals
Based on your experience, please rate how well the program missed or achieved each goal.
Response themes: Each pair felt they achieved a subset of the goals fairly well, but
no pair felt they were able to achieve all of the program’s goals.
Quotes from participants: “Just to explain: I gave 'missed completely' score for 'use
design reviews' and 'share ideas'. This is because we didn't get to these activities during the meetings we had.”
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How did it go? Pluses
What did you like best about your peer coaching experience?
Themes in Responses: People enjoyed meeting with/getting to know someone from
outside their sub-team
People enjoyed learning about the talents of their peers
People liked getting advice and feedback from someone else
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How did it go? Pluses
What did you like best about your peer coaching experience?
Quotes from participants: “I like getting the perspective of someone who is here at this company
but in different groups and can look at things objectively. And everyone has something extra to bring to the table, which is nice.”
“Getting insight into their work, issues and their best practices. [My partner] is a highly organized colleague so it was insightful to see the tools she uses to support that style of work.”
“I got a chance to get to know someone from the other team, I got to benefit from [my partner]'s technical expertise, and I learned about projects going on in other areas of the company.”
“I liked reviewing my plans with [my partner]. It was good to get another person to validate and provide feedback.”
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How did it go? Changes
What should we change about the peer coaching program?
Themes in responses: Find a way to help folks prioritize this effort and make time to meet or
change recommended frequency of meetings
Making participation opt-in
Share agendas, ideas for things to talk about, etc. to help folks structure their meetings
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How did it go? Changes
What should we change about the peer coaching program?
Quotes from participants: “I'd like the option to opt-out sometimes.” “I don't know if this is a program change, but I think my peer
and I could do a better job of setting agendas for our meetings. We have been winging it and in that way may be missing out on things we should be discussing.”
“We never had a second meeting; we scheduled and rescheduled several times because we're both so busy. I am guilty of seeing the need to schedule one more meeting with someone as more of a burden than an opportunity at times…”
“Beat the drum louder. It's great!”
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How did it go? Lessons learned
Things we changed based on feedback from 1st cycle Added option to “opt out” Added option to request a partner Added recommendation for coaching pairs to set their personalized
goals Created 1st meeting checklist and additional suggestions for pairs
Making time for peer coaching is challenge – it’s often an easy thing to cancel during a busy week
(and most weeks are busy)
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How did it go? Success stories
2 individuals have kicked off a large scale effort to focus on cross-product workflow usability
One individual new to the field had the opportunity to work with a seasoned mentor
Several pairs have continued their partnerships with ongoing coaching and design reviews
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How did it go? Overall results
We’re very happy with the program Recently kicked off 3rd peer
coaching cycle with 76% of team participating
Others in our organization are considering trying peer coaching
We are still trying to understand why using one-on-one design reviews to improve work is the least met goal
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Questions?
For more information or electronic copies of this presentation and other program documents, email me: akidd@mathworks.com
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