How we use Pair Coaching at idealo
There is a lot of potential that lies in working alongside other (Agile) Coaches. This article provides insights into how we tap into that potential for the benefit of all.
Providing a great price comparison experience for six European markets is a complex undertaking. We are dealing with a range of technologies and dynamic markets. This requires a lot of expertise. And it calls for a different way of working, in the world of product development commonly referred to as Agile. We have been on a path to transform our work that way since before 2012. It was around that time that we hired the first so-called Scrum Master. This role supports single development teams by guiding them through the adaptation and improvement of agile ways of working. Later, we started hiring Agile Coaches to do the same for the product development department as a whole.
Since then, idealo has seen a lot of growth. Today, we are a dozen Agile Coaches in the product development department. We support both teams and the organization in finding the best ways of dealing with complexity in order to generate the most value.
Having such a big group of coaches is a great asset. The question is how to best leverage the potential that lies in having such a wide and deep set of coaching expertise.
I had the great opportunity to talk about that topic at this year’s Agile2018 conference. Amongst other things I talked about pair coaching. This might be the single most powerful way to leverage the potential of working with more than one coach.
Pair programming has been around in the world of software development for quite some time. In a nutshell, you design and write code as a pair of programmers. This provides many benefits: you detect mistakes early on, you always have two people who know the system you are building, you spread knowledge e.g. between a new colleague and someone who is familiar with the company’s systems, etc.
Pair coaching is similar: you work in a pair with another (Agile) Coach. In practice this can mean facilitating workshops together, pairing up to reflect on the status quo and to design structures that help teams or the organization to continuously improve their ways of working.
Just as with pair programming, you might get questions like “so you have to pay two people to do the job of one?”. And just as with pair programming the answer is: “no, you give a job to two people to get better results”. The benefits should be visible on both sides:
As a coaching “client”, you should get a much better service. Being able to draw from the experience and toolkits of two coaches is a big asset. And pairing up as coaches means that you have feedback loops build into what you do, so you can quickly adjust your activities to better fit their purpose.
As a coach that is working in a pair, you will benefit from another coach’s experience and toolkit. And since that person knows your job inside out, they can give you very in-depths feedback on your work. This can have a great effect for your personal and professional growth as a coach.
At idealo, the Agile Coaches are dedicated to a specific unit. Larger units have two coaches, which means they can easily pair up for work. For some projects, we also use a pair of coaches. Last not least, idealo has two team leads who share the responsibility of leading the Agile Coaches. So in a lot of situations, pair coaching will happen naturally.
In other situations we need to consciously seek to pair up. For that we have multiple ways, like a channel in our chat to ask for help, and a weekly meeting where we discuss new possible projects and who might take them on.
Let’s look at two examples of how this plays out in our work.
A department sought our help to kick-start a process towards more self-organization in their teams. One colleague took this on. At some point he realized that his capacity wasn’t enough for the trainings required. So he looked for a colleague to support him. Together, they finished the concept for the training. The new colleague challenged the existing ideas and helped to refine them.
There were several groups of different sizes that went through the training. The two coaches did the first, large training together to see how their original ideas would play out. During the training they used breaks to exchange their observations and ideas for interventions to lead the group through the training. After this premier, they would take on trainings with smaller groups by themselves while continuing to exchange lessons learned with each other.
In another case two coaches took on the task of coaching a unit for a certain time. They hadn’t worked together before and quickly realized that they had different approaches to their job, and both of them were valid. While still acting together, they would divide their work according to their strengths. And while one would be in the lead in a given situation, the other could observe, learn, and prepare relevant feedback to his colleague.
Though it might seem like common sense, we did realize the importance of consciously working on the pairs. Be it through regular 1–1 feedback or supervision through a third coach, it is after all a working relationship that needs to grow and evolve. A good way to kick this off is to early on talk about how to go about it. This could simply be to agree to give each other frequent situational feedback, or set up a regular time to ask how are we doing?
It was a process of inspection and adaptation that got us where we are today. And we continue to reflect on the status quo. What we are currently observing is that more departments are focussing more on coaching and organizational development.
So we now have sparring partners in other corners of the organization that we can share experiences with, and potentially pair up to make idealo as an organization and as a service even better.
We took first steps these past days by organizing a first coach exchange, and set up a chat to easily tab into the wisdom of all coaches at idealo. We are curious where 2019 will take us.
Please let me know if you found this article useful (👏🏻) so others can find it too, and share it with your friends. You can follow me here on Medium (Gerrit Lutter) or on Twitter (@gerritlutter) to stay up-to-date with my work. Thanks a lot for reading!
