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At the end of 2020, we ran an online course teaching product leaders how to use coaching techniques to make their one-to-one meetings with direct reports more effective. Product leaders held a one-to-one with line reports, gathered feedback on it from them, went through our online course with a cohort of product leaders and private coaching, then did another one-to-one with their line reports to see what the impact of their new coaching techniques was.

We put a lot of time and effort into designing and testing the course. And all the participants in the first cohort found it really valuable.

But, based on their feedback and sales conversations, we thought we could make the experience even better.

So, we made some changes.

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What we learned and what we changed

Product leaders love being coached

I mean product leaders really love being coached. The one-on-one coaching was by far their favourite part of the experience.

So, we added more coaching. In fact, we made coaching sessions the driving element of the offering, taking the total number of sessions in the 4-week program from one to four.

They want to start at a time that suited them

In sales conversations, we found that product leaders didn't want to wait to start the course. If they wanted it, they wanted to start now. An immediate start with their own private coach outweighed the benefits of waiting for a set start date then running through the course with a cohort of other product leaders.

Based on this information, we made the course a private experience with just the product leader and their coach, meaning that product leaders could start straight away in their first coaching session.

Product people want to be able to test and learn

Having plenty of data to show you what's changed between the beginning and end of the sprint was highly appealing to product leaders. And now that the course was a private experience we could make even more of it. So, we kept the concept and enhanced it.

We created the Lean Coaching Canvas to use in all our coaching sessions. It encourages the coach and client to capture the expected outcome of what they are doing so at any stage in the process, they have an idea of how effective they are.

Product management isn't one-size-fits-all

Everyone came to the course with different expectations and goals. While they were able to focus on the materials and activities in the course that gave them most value, they did have to work through the whole thing, which meant reviewing quite a bit of content.

By shifting the format of the program to be based on one-to-one coaching, the coach can personalise the elements that the client needs to complete, meaning that they save time and prioritise the most impactful content and activities for their specific goals.

Sprints fit with how product managers work

In product management, most of us are used to working in sprints, and our work schedules are structured around that. An online course with a rigid timetable including group events can cut right across that and be difficult to incorporate into the flow of work.

We decided to let clients book coaching sessions at a time that suits them so they can make them work for their schedule, then complete the follow-up tasks from the session as actions within their regular workflow rather than being forced into the timeframes of an online course.

Enter the coaching sprint

By the time we'd incorporated all these changes, we realised we had something quite different to an online course. It was much closer to the format our coaching work than either a typical online course. So, we decided to call it something different: a coaching sprint.

A coaching sprint is a short, intense, personalised learning program designed to fill a specific skills gap. It's based around four one-to-one coaching sessions with supporting tasks, activities and learning materials. You can find out find out more on our coaching sprints page.

We've been running coaching sprints on a range of topics and are always adding new ones to our library. So far, we've found they fill a neat gap for people who want to upskill quickly in specific areas while working though a current work challenge they have. And, of course we'll continue fine-tuning the format as we get more feedback from clients.

If you're interested to find out more about coaching sprints, or would like to talk to use about coaching in general, book a coaching consultation and we'll be happy to help you out.