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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