For quick & useful role descriptions, try crowdsourcing.

What do you do when your team is growing but your colleagues aren’t sure how they themselves can grow? Our engineering team recently faced that question when setting out to strengthen our career growth support. We had assembled a small group of engineers across experience levels and asked them, “How can we do better at helping you grow?” The first suggestion came through clearly: “We want a better understanding of the roles on the team and the potential paths for advancement.” It was an excellent suggestion.

Well-understood roles serve as guideposts for career growth. They help employees answer important questions such as “What can I do next?,” “How do I get there?,” and “How do I know if I’m doing a good job?” While our Product & Engineering team had long included roles such as Team Lead, Coach, and Senior Software Engineer, we hadn’t yet written down the goals or responsibilities of the roles. With our hiring accelerating across multiple offices, in order to grow effectively, we needed to clarify and document our team roles.

To develop role descriptions, organizations commonly ask a senior team member to take a first cut, then circulate the result for feedback. With senior staff loaded with many responsibilities, this approach risks extended delays as more urgent priorities take precedence. In hopes of avoiding delays, we decided to try internal crowdsourcing.

At our next Coaches’ Meeting, we let our Coaches know that our team wanted clearer role descriptions. The group decided to start by outlining Mavenlink’s Coach role itself. We brainstormed together about what our Coaches do, why we have the role, and how it fits into our team.

An hour later, we had a Coach role description that was thoughtful and broad, though not fully polished. It didn’t need to be. We didn’t need a standalone document that could be read independently. Rather, we wanted a reference that could support conversations about our Coach role, with clear and limited goals in mind:

• Help people understand the role and its function within the team
• Orient new participants into the role
• Help role participants evaluate their own service in the role

Our rough, crowdsourced Coach role description was good enough to serve these goals. It was a suitable MVP.

Software Engineer Paulette Luftig, one of the leaders of our coaching practice, noted that the Coaches’ discussion was itself interesting and valuable: “I really appreciated how we all had our unique ways of looking at the coaching experience. The emphasis on building strong relationships really stood out. That kind of group discussion builds a lot of trust.”

So, what does a Coach do at Mavenlink anyway? Glad you asked! In brief, our Coaches guide the careers of a set of colleagues. Through mentorship, peer feedback, 1:1s, and advocacy, our Coaches ensure that our colleagues grow professionally, enjoy their experience, and advance toward their goals. For more details, check out our actual crowdsourced role description.