By Kevin Burns at ProductCamp Twin Cities 2016 We've heard of agile coaches but what about product coaches? We'll talk about what makes a great coach and how you might apply coaching concepts to leading product teams. This talk will includes concepts related to: • Child vs adult learning styles • Four Types of Learners • Socratic Method • Scientific Management vs Servant Leadership • The Zen Master, Phil Jackson • Shu Ha Ri • Edward Deming

1. What makes a great product coach?
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2. Kevin Burns
Agile Coach
Org Cultural Change Agent

3. Agenda
• Goals and Objective
• Survey
• Coaching topics:
• Background
• Child vs Adult Learning Styles
• Socratic Method
• Scientific Management vs Servant-leadership
• Shu Ha Ri
• Leading Minds
• Exercise: Top Ten Great Coach Attributes
• Exercise: Great Coaching Practices
• Exercise: Agile Principles
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4. Goals & Objectives
• Increase our understanding of what we believe makes a great coach
• Learn new coaching techniques
• Recognize some of the coaching practices in place today
• Identify new coaching practices we want to try
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5. Text ‘kevinburns785’ to ‘22333’,
and then type A, B, C, D
Culture Survey

11. Westrum Model: How orgs process info
Pathological Bureaucratic Generative
Power oriented Rule oriented Performance oriented
Low cooperation Modest cooperation High cooperation
Messengers shot Messengers neglected Messengers trained
Responsibilities shirked Narrow responsibilities Risks are shared
Bridging discouraged Bridging tolerated Bridging encouraged
Failure scapegoating Failure justice Failure inquiry
Novelty crushed Novelty problems Novelty implemented

12. Coaching, Mentoring, Learning
How do we learn?
What helps us learn?
How psychologically safe is our environment?
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15. Child vs Adult learning style
Children (Pedagogy) Adults (Andragogy)
Rely on others to decide what is important to be
learned
Decide for themselves what is important to learn
Accept info being presented at face value Need to validate the info based on their beliefs
and experience
Expects what they are learning to be useful in
their long-term future
Expects what they are learning to be immediately
useful
Have little or no experience upon which to draw –
are relatively “clean slates”
Have much experience upon which to draw – may
have fixed viewpoints.
Little ability to serve as a knowledgeable
resource to teacher or fellow classmates
Significant ability to serve as a knowledgeable
resource to trainer and fellow learners.
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16. Four Types of Learners
Learner Tactics
Visual Learners prefer to see info and to
visualize the relationships between ideas
Give them charts and graphics, make your
presentation highly visual and show
relationships between your points
Auditory learners prefer to hear info rather
than reading it or seeing it displayed visually
Give them a chance to repeat your points back
to you by asking questions, calling for audience
participation
Reading/Writing learners prefer to interact
with text more than hearing or seeing it
graphically
Give them written quizzes or a chance to write
what they are learning and give them
handouts to read.
Kinesthetic learners prefer hands-on
experiential learning; they learn best by doing.
Give them exercises that get them out of their
seat and into role play type exercises.
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17. Socratic Method
• Cooperative argumentative dialogue, based on asking and
answering questions to stimulate critical thinking
• Method of hypothesis elimination
• How can we validate what we don’t know?
• How can we turn unknowns into knowns?
• Help team members arrive at their own conclusions based on
Q&A. Don’t give answers away, rather, ask questions that guide
team members to the right answer.
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18. Scientific Management vs Servant Leadership
Scientific Managers Servant Leaders
Study tasks of others Help others complete their tasks
Develop employees Promote teamwork over individual heros
Provides detailed instruction and
supervision
Doers know best how to improve, help find
way forward
Divide work nearly equally between
managers and doers
Remove barriers to improvement/progress
and facilitate teamwork
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19. Shu Ha Ri
• Shu, the student copies techniques without adapting them.
• Learn
• Ha, the student reflects on what’s been learned and breaks free from traditions.
• Practice
• Ri, the student is now a practitioner extending the art.
• Innovate
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20. Teams are motivated by…
1. Distinct vision and mission, a view of future state
OKR = Objectives and Key Results
2. Foster personal growth and career development
Do we foster a learning culture?
3. Recognize performance, celebrate success
Did we achieve our Key Results?
4. Listen to employee comments, complaints, ideas and take action where appropriate
How psychologically safe is your environment?
Are you a Server Leader or a Scientific Manager (or both)?
5. Encourage and empower employees to be self-directed
Are you encouraging experimentation?
Do you have a generative environment?

21. Quotes
“Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to
engagement.” Daniel Pink
“Treat them like volunteers” Mary Poppendieck
“Quality tends to fan out like waves” Robert M. Pirsig
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22. Leading Minds

23. The Zen Master
1. Lead from the inside-out
2. Bench the ego
3. Let each player discover his own destiny
4. The road to freedom is a beautiful system
5. Turn the mundane into the sacred
6. One breath = one mind
7. The key to success is compassion
8. Keep your eye on the spirit, not on the scoreboard
9. Sometimes you have to pull out the big stick
10. When in doubt, do nothing
11. Forget the ring
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24. Edward Deming
Statistical process control and PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act)
1. Appreciate the system
Are you aware of your constraints?
2. Understanding variation
How dynamic is your environment?
3. Psychology
Are you safe?
4. Epistemology
How are you developing knowledge?
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25. Lean Startup
Build Measure
Learn
Value
Use a scientific method to learn

30. Exercises to try
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31. Exercise: Top Coaching Attributes
1. Everyone writes their top coaching attributes on individual
posted notes
2. We take turns putting them on the board into themes
3. We rank them in terms of important/value in our work
environment
4. We discuss how to put them into practice
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32. Exercise: Great Coaching Practices
1. Everyone writes their top coaching practices on individual
posted notes
2. We take turns putting them on the board into themes
3. We rank them in terms of important/value in our work
environment
4. We discuss how to put them into practice
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33. Exercise: Agile Principles Survey Review
1. Conduct an Agile Principles Survey
2. Review and discuss results
3. Where are we doing well vs not so well?
4. What can we do to improve low preforming areas?
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34. Wrap-up questions
• What did you learn today that you want to try?
• Is there anything blocking you from trying it?
• When will you try it?
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36. ?
Kburns@sagesw.com
@kevinbburns

37. Appendix
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38. Video Recap Pulls these concepts together
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39. Great coach references
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1765804/pdf/v013p0ii22.pdf
2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/teaching-adults-what-every-trainer-needs-
know-adult-bruce-d-
3. https://www.amazon.com/Eleven-Rings-Success-Phil-
Jackson/dp/1594205116?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari
5. http://martinfowler.com/bliki/ShuHaRi.html
6. http://www.mentalgamecoach.com/articles/CoachingQualities.html
7. http://www.fastcompany.com/3031708/the-future-of-work/5-crucial-
emotional-intelligence-traits-of-highly-effective-leaders
8. http://www.iidmglobal.com/expert_talk/expert-talk-
categories/leadership/coach_mentor/id42522.html
9. https://blog.prezi.com/the-four-different-types-of-learners-and-what-they-
mean-to-your-presentations-infographic/
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