Coaching product development teams: a conceptual foundation for empirical studies

Coaching Product Development Teams

1

Coaching Product Development Teams: a conceptual foundation for empirical studies

Yoram Reich1 Faculty of Engineering

Tel Aviv University [email protected]

Georg Ullmann2 IPH - Institut für Integrierte Produktion Hannover

gemeinnützige GmbH, Hanover [email protected]

Machiel Van der Loos Center for Design Research

Stanford University [email protected]

Larry Leifer Center for Design Research


Corresponding author: Prof. Yoram Reich Faculty of Engineering Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv 69978 Israel Email: [email protected]

Keywords: coaching, product development, teamwork, terminology, conceptual framework, literature review, knowledge management, tacit knowledge

1 This work was done while this author was on sabbatical leave from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978. 2 This work was done while this author was visiting Stanford University from the Technical University of Munich.


2

Abstract Global product development teams work in ambiguously complex dynamic networks.

Characterization of the distributed work environment includes many factors, including:

individuals and sub-teams are geographically distributed; they belong to different organizational

cultures; they operate in different time zones; within different cultural and professional-

frameworks. From a communication perspective, individual team members may speak different

languages and lack a common tongue. Even in these scenarios, project teams are expected to

produce quality products and bring them quickly to the market. The design-to-market life cycle

has shortened markedly in the past decade in many industries. How do they manage to perform

effectively in the face of these many obstacles?

Development team “Coaching” has emerged as a guiding force in many project-organized

environments. Individuals may have arrived at the role informally, tacitly responding to the

needs of teams around them, or they are professionals with formal training as we find in SAP’s

“Design Team Services” group (Plattner, 2007). We have observed that the coach provides

project team members with support that ranges from solving problems to moral support. In spite

of the growing use of coaching, there is significant confusion about the nature of the role, the

attributes of good versus poor coaching, associated terminology and definitions, and finally, the

dimensions that define expertise and adaptiveness (Schwartz et al., 2005; Neeley, 2007).

We report on the development of a conceptual framework for further research in the emerging

domain of design engineering coaching. Our efforts began with an extensive literature review

that yielded leading candidates for role terminology and the scope of the subject. With that

framework in hand, we performed a field assessment (survey) in an industry-academic

environment that is noted for the extreme nature of its project-based-learning paradigm and deep


3

corporate engagement, including a mixture of industry liaisons and academic advisors who are in

coaching roles. We expect the combination of methods to provide common ground for further

work and to better explain the issues to students and industry partners. The resulting framework

consists of 5 main roles that design-team-coaches have been observed to assume. It is anticipated

that our results will help others identify new research questions and apply an expanded set of

empirical methods.

1 Introduction The proliferation of project-teams as the organizing principle of choice in many corporations has

made teamwork a strategic tool for enterprise competiveness. While teams are common, and

many teams have coaches, even if informally, the notion is largely absent in both academic and

corporate thinking. New Product Development (NPD) is one of the most demanding scenarios.

Most noticeably, these teams must be collectively creative while distributed in time, space, and

across organizational boundaries. Team members, have different cultural and professional

backgrounds. They often represent different companies and universities in joint ventures. They

may speak different languages and share no language in common (Jünemann and Lloyd, 2003;

Kayworth and Leidner, 2001; Smith and Blanck, 2002).

In many NPD projects, team members meet for the first time when the project starts and

consequently have little or no foundation for trust development, have an ambiguous sense of

each others’ competencies, and nothing beyond first impressions to guide personal adjustments

(Lipnack and Stamps, 1997). The absence of shared knowledge and experience further hampers

communication (Cramton, 2001). For virtual teams, the misalignment between tele-


4

communication affordances and natural human communication requires modified behavior to

accommodate the technology.

There is extensive literature on high performance technical teams, what differentiate them from

groups of professionals, and what is needed to assist teams (e.g., Duarte and Snyder, 2006;

Katzenbach and Smith, 1993; Lipnack and Stamps, 1997). These references use a variety of

terms often without precise definitions (see e.g., Katzenbach & Smith (1993) for a critique of the

use “team”). The apparent absense of a firm taxonomy in the field encouraged our field study.

A common approach to assist teams is through team leaders (not coaches) who assume various

functions, including: giving expert advice; motivating team effort: controling resources;

duplicating team member roles; and leading team social processes. Leadersship can present itself

in a variety of styles, including: commander, coache, facilitator, mentor, consultant, sponsor, etc.

There is extensive literature on theories of leadership and their imperfect empirical status (House

and Aditya, 1997). However, in a sense similar to our findings in the “teams literature,” the basic

foundation for our collective knowledge – agreement on terminology of leadership – is lacking

(Cramton, 2001). For example, there is little agreement in answers to the core question, “What is

a leader?” (Bryman, 2004; Gregoire and Arendt, 2004).

As opposed to a leader who is defined by the organizational hierarchy, an external coach might

be better at augmenting team performance processes because the main stakeholders, the

management and project team members, are pre-occupied with project outcomes and not with

how the team is working towards those outcomes. The development process, itself a complex

entity, is without a stakeholder. This missing piece in the enterprise can be just as dangerous as

an overlooked design requirement. Eodice (2000) found that in NASA spacecraft design, that a


5

requirement without an advocate (stakeholder) would most likely be missing in the delivered

system (3 of 4 cases studied).

The need for coaching has emerged as instrumental to keeping work processes in-mind, in-view,

and on-track. The role is crucial to averting problems that other stakeholders do not have time

and attention to envisage; to resolving interpersonal conflicts through insight and wisdom; and to

looking for the missing pieces – resources, experts, tools, ideas – that fuel the momentum of a

team.

In managing a new product development course at the graduate level, the instructors (Leifer,

Cutkosky, and Van der Loos) collaborated with two visiting scholars (Reich and Ullmann) to

empirically study the nature of coaching (typically by professional designers) within the course.

The course engages corporate partners who bring “hot development topics” on campus and

provide students with an ample budget for the production of several functional prototypes that

can be tested with clients and customers (Leifer, 1998). This reality test-bed has been the source

of data for a dozen PhD theses and has proven to be both realistic (industry equivalent) and

observable. It takes place within a design community who’s belief system includes the notion of

design team coaching. Though ubiquitous, and practiced for decades, we have no formal

knowledge of our tacit ways. This was the perfect situation for the questions at hand.

1. What do design-development team coaches do when they coach?

2. How can we help them do a better job?

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a detailed background for

this study. Section 3 describes the research method. Section 4 describes the development of a


6

foundation framework. Section 5 provides an initial verification of the framework and section 6

summarizes the goal, methods, results, and their interpration.

2 Literature that guided the design of this coaching study

This section reviews previous studies on the use of coaching and related concepts in a diverse set

of circumstances. Because context can seriously influence the interpretation of human activity

we give a detailed description of the context in which our study was performed.

2.1 Coaching studies

Many books have been written on coaching or leadership (e.g., Rauen, 2003; Schwarz, 2002).

We reviewed studies reported by English and German speaking authors (Bayer, 2000;

Brinkmann, 1994; Hamann and Huber, 1991; Huck, 1989; Looss, 1997; Rueckle, 2000; Schmidt,

1995; Schreyoegg, 1995; Weiss, 1993; Whitmore, 1994). For this paper, we do not attempt a

comprehensive review, rather, we highlight the studies and findings that most influenced the

design of our experiment.

Denison et al. (1995) reviewed the leadership literature and cite several authors who have

developed taxonomies of leadership types. One of these authors, Quinn, defined eight specific

leadership roles and organized them around two dimensions: 1) “internal versus external;” and 2)

“flexibility versus control” (Figure 1). The four leadership roles that are most relevant to our

study of coaching express the “Internal-Flexibility” dimensions of Denison’s typography

(Denison et al., 1995, p. 528).

“Broker: The broker is politically astute, acquires resources and maintains the unit’s

external legitimacy through the development, scanning, and maintenance of a

network of external contacts.”


7

“Monitor: The monitor collects and distributes information, checks on performance, and

provides a sense of continuity and stability. …”

“Facilitator: The facilitator encourages the expression of opinions, seeks consensus, and

negotiates compromise. …”

“Mentor: The mentor is aware of individual needs, listens actively, is fair, supports

legitimate requests, and attempts to facilitate the development of individuals.”

In addition to reviewing the literature, Denison et al. devised a study to test the model using its

spatial property.

Figure 1: An organization of eight leadership roles (adapted from Denison et al., 1995).

DeRue and Morgeson (2005) conducted a review of leadership and team effectiveness literature,

identified 517 unique behavioral items, and classified them into fifteen behavioral patterns. We

interpreted the categories to be functions that a leader could perform, they include:

1. Selecting team members

2. Training and developing team members

3. Performing team tasks

4. Structuring and planning team activity

5. Making sense of the situation


8

6. Setting goals

7. Monitoring mission progress

8. Challenging team members

9. Monitoring team member interactions

10. Managing resources

11. Managing performance expectations

12. Assisting with problem solving

13. Managing team boundaries

14. Providing performance feedback

15. Encouraging team self-management

Whereas Denison et al. concentrated on leadership roles and each of their roles is described by a

set of functions it could support, DeRue and Morgenson chose to focus on the functions that

leaders should provide with an apparent emphasis on managing, in the sense of control.

Terminology ambiguity is apparent. Denison et al’s mentor role is absent in DeRue and

Morgeson’s analysis. Is the function, “managing team boundaries,”3 related to the “broker” role.

A study that combined the roles and functions was conducted by Pearce et al. (2003). They

analyzed the literature to extract four types of leaderships:

1. directive leadership;

3Its detailed description is: “Buffers the team from the influence of external forces or events; Helps different work

teams communicate with one another; Acts as a representative of the team with other parts of the organization …;

Advocates on behalf of the team to others in the organization;’ and Helps to resolve difficulties between different

teams.”


9

2. transactional leadership;

3. transformational leadership; and

4. empowering leadership.

In their analysis, they list numerous other studies that include reviews of many leadership

taxonomies. For each type, they also list associated functions (see Table 1). These types and

functions are again different from those in Denison et al. and DeRue and Morgeson.

Table 1: Leadership types and their functions (after Pearce et al., 2003)

Leadership type Associated functions Directive leadership • organizing

• problem solving • clarifying roles and objectives • informing • monitoring

Transactional leadership

• recognizing • rewarding

Transformational leadership

• planning • motivating and inspiring • networking

Empowering leadership • consulting • delegating • supporting • developing and mentoring • managing conflict and team building.

Hackman and Wageman (2005) chose functions over roles as the basis for developing a theory of

coaching. In doing so, they avoid defining who is performing the function. Of course, the “who”

is highly relevant in most organizations. The theory includes three coaching functions; defines

times when coaching is likely to happen; and, describes conditions under which team coaching

could and could not be expected to improve team performance. The three functions address

process difficulties; they are: motivational, consultative, and educational. As the authors point

out, these functions do not address interpersonal issues. The best times for coaching intervention


10

are the beginning, midpoint, and end of project. This view is portrayed as being better than other

positions, such as Tuckman’s (1965) team life cycle. Given its pre-defined nature, the timing,

seems both self evident and un-informed by real-time process and performance variables.

Furst et al., (2004) also focused on the life-cycle of teams with the intent to determine when best

to use coaching interventions. In contrast to Hackman and Wageman, they used Tuckman’s

stages as the basis for their analysis. For each stage, they specify the most suitable functions.

One reason for the diversity of findings in the cited studies lies in their abstraction. They are not

grounded in recorded evidence. Our study was designed to remedy this situation. We let the

conceptual model emerge from the data and arrived at consensus agreement through negotiation

driven by the data.

2.2 Status of coaching studies

There is a difficulty thinking about the admixture of leadership and coaching styles. Different

situations call for different roles and functions (Denison et al., 1995; Kayworth and Leidner,

2001; Hackman and Wageman, 2005). The needs of a team are time varying and may best be

characterized as “missing functions and roles” that team members are ill situated to deliver

(Hackman and Wageman, 2005).

Quantitative, contingency-based, studies have been conducted to understand when and how

personal style impacts role and function execution and its impact on on team performance. The

leadership literature is particularly concerned with this issue. Unfortunately, we encountered

severe difficulty in applying the findings in this field to our own grounded experience base.


11

First, there is no agreement on terminology (Bryman, 2004; Cramton, 2001; Gregoire and

Arendt, 2004). The scholarly study of social leadership has existed for about 100 years (House

and Aditya, 1997; Gregoire and Arendt, 2004).

Second, most quantitative studies are based on self-administered questionnaires. Even if we

ignored the lack of common terminology and meaning, the answers and interpretaton of these

surveys is highly suspect (Werth et al., 2006).

Third, analysis across quantitative survey studies often finds a correlation between team

leadership and team performance, but with high variability (Nair, in press; Stewart, 2006). There

may be several reasons: (1), there are always additional factors that influence the success of

leadership (Nair, in press; Stewart, 2006) and the perception of teamwork effectiveness (Ingram

and Desombre, 1999); (2), terminology is vague and difficult to generalize for analysis across

studies; (3), there are conflicting circumstances in the original studies; (4), the results in the

original studies may lack statistical significance; and (5), the studies may be ignoring the fact

that multiple leadership styles are applicable in diverse situations (Kayworth and Leidner, 2001).

Fourth, if we apply the results of these studies in practice, we are still faced with deciding what a

specific team leader should do in a particular situation (Kayworth and Leidner, 2001; Zaccaro et

al., 2001). For example, how can management apply the assertion that “empowerment

leadership” corresponds (non causally) to increased team performance? Results tend to be too

general for practice. Even the most detailed studies (e.g., Kim et al., 1999) face the same issue

and stirs debate in management journals about the value of quantitative studies (Bryman, 2004;

Jones and Wallace, 2005). In counterpoint, Bryman advocates the need for more qualitative

studies in order to copy adequately with the complexity of the phenomena.


12

2.3 Our perspective in ME310

Our personal quest for a conceptual framework emerged from the increasing reliance on

coaching in several design-development courses at Stanford University in the Department of

Mechanical Engineering's Design Group. The graduate course most closely built on industry

design challenges and practice is “Team-Based Design Development with Corporate Partners”

(ME310), a 3-quarter (9 month), industry-sponsored, project-based learning course. At the time

of study reported in this paper, the enrollment was 30-40 students working in teams of 3-5

persons each (present enrollment is red-lined at 80 students, 40 at Stanford, 40 at globally

distributed institutions. The pedagogy, reality based learning, has made the course robust, with

over 30 years of relevance, over 300 projects and over 100 companies. The syllabus consists of a

tightly choreographed series of design deliverables, product and service prototypes created to

accelerate learning. There is emphasis on iteration, testing, benchmarking, and user-centered

evaluation. There are many interim presentations of work in progress. Year end functional

prototypes, suitable for technical and user validation, are transferred to the sponsoring corporate

partner in June together with extensive documentation of the design process, questions posed,

decisions made, and the rationale for both. It is the intent of the course to pre-launch the

companies next design cycle. The emphasis is on new product innovation. Corporate liaisons are

engaged at all times and serve as industry-coaches in parallel with the academic coach assigned

to each team. The course gives priority to teaching the process for team-design. The learning of

specific engineering tools and techniques is given second priority contingent on the nature of

each project. There are 3 faculty and 4 course assistants assigned to the course. The academic

coaches are volunteers, usually professionals working in the area, or students who took ME310

in previous years and are PhD candidates. A coach is a team resource, not a grader. This


13

distinction is important to underscore, since the relationship between coach and team is built on

trust and mutual respect. Coaching has been an integral component of ME310 for 30 years and

yet formal awareness of the special power of design coaching has only been recognized since

2001. This study is the first full scale attempt to understand what we are doing, why, and how it

works (or doesn’t). The critical role and function of coaching has increased with the move to

globally distributed design teams. Starting in 2000, ME310 began to partner with product-design

courses at several other to provide a more realistic environment for designers in today's world of

multi-national corporations with globe-spanning R&D, marketing, and manufacturing facilities.

Given our emphasis on the design-development process (the thinking), the global dimension has

challenged students with new learning opportunities. It has also challenged in the teaching team

to delivering instruction and guidance for faculty, teaching assistants and coaches world

wide. While the teaching team members have had a professional relationship with faculty at the

other universities for many years, the coaches have not; yet, it is the coaches on whom the

greater burden falls in assisting the student teams through the added complexities of timezone

differences, videoconferencing logistics, cross-cultural issues and language barriers.

Furthermore, the coaches themselves do not necessarily have the expertise to handle this added

layer of activity, depending on their own background. Our observations and experience have led

to the study of coaching in multi-site distributed design-development teams in order to address

the need for more formal coach-training.

Our goal is to support effective coaching in distributed work. This can be accomplished first by

understanding the larger context in which coaching takes place. Figure 2 shows three cycles of

reflection and learning that teams and their coaches are engaged in while designing (Eris and

Leifer, 2003). Effective coaching must take into account the three learning loop.


14

Figure 2: Three cycles of learning and reflection (adapted from Eris and Leifer, 2003) building on the “double loop learning” contributions of Argyris (1977).

Improving performance in the second loop has become time critical in the context of globally

distributed teams. Coaching by observations is severely impaired and the absence of general

theory regarding the nature of coaching leaves us, and our industry partners, under prepared for

the task at hand. Driven by this need, the following study was conceived.

3 Overall research method There are several ways to approach the study of coaching. The most common is the contingency-

based quantitative study in which a self-administered questionnaire is used to assess the impact

of process inputs, including coaching, on process output (Kim et al., 1999; Nair, in press; Werth

et al., 2006). Another type that is gaining increased acceptance is a qualitative study (Bryman,

2004) in which few or even one case is thoroughly analyzed through methods such as action

research (Hartley and Benington, 2000), structured interviews (Lloyd, 2005) or repertory grids

(Boyle, 2005; Senior and Swailes, 2004). Each method has its limitations and advantages. Used

in concert, they can complement each other to yield both increased depth and breadth in our

understanding (Creswell, 2002).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220042281_Double_Loop_Learning_in_Organizations?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-812a3600-43d1-46f3-b1f1-213c705eb5ad&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyNzE1MjYyNjtBUzo5OTQzNDU5MTQyNDUyOEAxNDAwNzE4NDYyODA0


15

Our research method combines qualitative and quantitative methods executed in sequential steps

(see Figure 3). The first step consists of a constructive analysis by two researchers that creates a

shared understanding to serve as the foundation for designing a survey for testing aspects of the

foundations.

CoachingSituation1Coaching

Situation1CoachingSituations

1.2 Analysis

1. Constructive analysis

1.1 Data 1.3 Results

1.4 Refinement

3. Survey study

2. Surveydesign

3.1 Surveys 3.3 Results

3.2 Hypothesistesting

4. Feedback

Figure 3: Outline of the mixed research method: 1. qualitative phase employing constructive analysis of coaching roles by collecting data (1.1), analyzing it (1.2), presenting the results (1.3)

and refining the data (1.4); 2. designing a survey to test the roles; 3. quantitative phase indcluding the survey study; 4. providing feedback to the roles.

The constructive analysis employs repertory grids (Kelly, 1955). Repertory grids represent

objects of any kind (e.g., coaching situations) with different constructs (e.g., coaching

dimensions) that might have different scales (e.g., discrete, ordinal). These grids could be

analyzed and reveal insight into the space of objects. Using repertory grids can be time

consuming but the results are contextually relevant to the study of participants in a way that

cannot be accomplished by traditional methods. This benefit and others can be expected to help

companies perform in such studies (Boyle, 2005; Cassell el al., 2000; Senior and Swailes, 2004)

in much the same way that academic institutions do. Hence, we have chosen experimental

methodology for, in part, its applicability in corporate settings. Constructive analysis is a bottom

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233333487_Surfacing_embedded_assumptions_Using_repertory_grid_methodology_to_facilitate_organizational_change?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-812a3600-43d1-46f3-b1f1-213c705eb5ad&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyNzE1MjYyNjtBUzo5OTQzNDU5MTQyNDUyOEAxNDAwNzE4NDYyODA0


16

up approach to analyzing data on coaching. We have successfully used such constructive

analysis in other studies (e.g., Reich, 2000; Reich and Kapeliuk, 2005; Shai et al., 2007).

4 Understanding coaching through examples – developing a conceptual framework

This section goes into great depth and length due to the importance we place on research

methodology in complex situation typical of the coaching phenomina in industry and academia.

Our approach to study coaching is bottom up. First, we identified numerous situations that are

related to coaching, even if in some cases the connection appears remote. These situations arose

from formal repertory grid analysis, our intuition, and some distantly related studies (e.g., a

parent helping a child to ride a bike in Hackman and Wageman, 2005). These situations are real

examples of human interaction in advice/assistance giving situations that represent a superset of

coaching situations. They allow for exploring the space coaching and identifying its boundaries.

Second, we developed a set of dimensions characterizing the coaching situations observed.

Third, we used a method for analyzing the scope of coaching situations in a way that provides

insight into the structure of the space and defines coaching as it emerges from the data.

4.1 Stereotypic advice-giving situations between people

Table 2 provides a set of stereotypical situations of human advice-giving interactions that we

expect to span the entire space of relevant coaching aspects. Online Appendix C4 provides a

short description of each situation. While this selection seems foreign to and somewhat divergent

from product development, the situations all have parallels in product design. For example, let us

consider a confession, a situation seemingly unrelated to product development. Suppose a

company hires a young engineer and the department’s manager tells him in the first meeting that

4 Online material is available at: http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~yoram/coaching/REDapp.pdf


17

he has six months to learn his job. Anything he does in this period, including mistakes, does not

count toward his future evaluation. The only thing mandatory is that he talks to the manager

about his mistakes. The manager says he will teach the new engineer what he needs to know to

avoid repeating them. In spirit, this situation is similar to encouraging “confessions.” As a

concrete industrial example, consider that the IDEO Product Development Company keeps its

staff creative by removing bureaucracy, encouraging cross-fertilization of ideas, and allowing its

employees “to fail in a culture of try it, fix it, try it again, and learn from the experience” (Perry

1995, p. 16). Online Appendix D provides a detailed description of several stereotypical

situations and carryovers to product design.

Table 2: Examples of human interaction in advice or assistance giving situations

no. label no. label 1 moderator of a mailing list 18 physician and patient 2 moderator of e-learning 19 commercial service 3 editor and co-authors writing a book 20 tax consultant 4 coaching a football team 21 priest in a confession 5 instructor of a Project Based Learning class 22 conductor of an orchestra 6 external coach in a Project Based Learning

class 23 professor and Ph.D. student

7 consultant for business process reengineering

24 coach for a Chief Executive Officer

8 design consultant 25 any knowledgeable colleague 9 parent-small child relationship 26 government consultant 10 professional coach over the phone 27 space shuttle crew and mission control 11 student coaching freshmen 28 addiction or marriage counseling 12 moderator of a discussion 29 police officer monitoring an intersection 13 librarian 30 nurse giving advice to disabled people 14 extreme coaching 31 company financial comptroller 15 pilot trainee and instructor 32 board of directors coaching a startup Chief

Executive Officer 16 judge 33 car dealer 17 friend giving advice


18

4.2 Coaching dimensions Each of the 33 coaching situations can be described by a set of dimensions. They are subdivided

into three categories: 1), situational or general dimensions (see Table 3); 2), coachee-related (see

Table 4); and 3), coach-related (see also Table 5). While situational and general dimensions are

mentioned in the literature (Rauen, 2003, pp. 140), the other categories are not. We are

particularly interested in capturing the explicit contribution of all participants in the coaching

situation. Online Appendix E describes each dimension and defines its extreme or representative

values.

Table 3: General dimensions of coaching situations

no. label no. label

1 scale of team activity 10 level of involvement

2 teamwork setup 11 content delivered by the coach

3 (a) potential cost of coaching activity failure 12 type of involvement

3 (b) resources for conducting coaching 13 duration

4 human risk of coaching activity failure 14 availability of second opinion

5 starting stage of coaching 15 number of coaches

6 trigger to introduce coaching 16 number of coachees

7 chronological mode 17 coach and coachee emotional relationship

8 monitoring style 18 final decision made by coach or coachee

9 object mediating coaching

Table 4: Dimensions of coaching situations related to coachee

no. label no. label

19 size of coachee entity 23 coachee-coach dependency

20 professional level of coachee 24 (a) level of trust coachee has in the coach

21 coaching experience of the coachee 24 (b) expected evolution of trust

22 coach acceptance by coachee

Table 5: Dimensions of coaching situations related to coach


19

no. Label no. label

25 coach perspective 31 coach´s responsibility concerning product

26 possibility of team modification 32 coach´s responsibility concerning process

27 coach training 33 influence and control

28 task-related knowledge of coach 34 trust coach requires from coachee

29 coach´s reason to participate 35 integration of coach in coaching networks

30 practical coaching experience

4.3 Organization of coaching situations

We used the repertory grid tool WebGridIII (Gaines and Shaw, 1996) as a knowledge acquisition

tool to describe coaching situations and their dimensions, organize them, as perform various

analyses. WebGridIII guiding mechanisms are especially well-suited to this purpose since it

identifies potential difficulties in the structure of the knowledge being elicited. For example, if

two coaching situations have similar dimension values, WebGridIII suggests that the user adds a

dimension that would differentiate between the two.

Figure 4(a) shows the cluster of situations in grids prepared by one of the authors. A different

cluster was created by another author from a different country and cultural background. The

clusters are clearly different. In order to understand the differences we followed the process in

Figure 5:

1. Following on an intiatial clustering of the coaching situations (a), individual raters re-

deined the clusters in their own terms until the clusters matched their intuition (b).

2. Each cluster was analyzed and prototype descriptions of the clusters summarized the

essence of the cluster members (c).

3. These steps were followed by a shared analysis of the grids to understand the reasons

behind major differences in the ratings and to derive a final, single clustering.


20

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(a)

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(b) Figure 4: Clusters before and after refinement (rater A): The focus of this figure is not on the detailes of

each cluster but on the differences that arise from the refinement process demanding that such refinement takes place and executed carefully.


21

Coaching Situations

Coaching Situation1Coaching Situation1

(a)

Prototypes

Clustering

(b)Refinement

(c)

Labeling+Characterization

Clusters

(d) (e)Microalignment

Macroalignment

Coaching Situations

(a)

Prototypes

Clustering

(b)Refinement

(c)

Clusters

Rater A

Rater B

Figure 5: Process of understanding differences in clusterings of different raters. Each rater goes through a sequencial process of clustering (a), refinement (b) and labaling (c) while interacting with the other rater to understand differences in understanding the differences in the coaching

situations (d) and in the clusters (e). This process iterates until the differences are perceived small by the raters.

Step 1: Refining situation ratings ((a), (b) in Figure 5)

The clusters in Figure 4 make explicit the individual perspective of the person who rated the

situations. Often, the first clustering creates classes that contain members that do not seem right

to the rater. For example, Figure 4 shows two clusters before (a) and after (b) refinements. The

clusters are completely different. For example, the addiction marriage counseling was thought to

be similar to a nurse giving advice to disabled people and professional coach over the phone.

This led to examining the ratings given to these three situations. Several such sequences led to

the revision of the clusters. Problems and limitations aside, this iterative refinement process led

to a coherent set of ratings for all the situations for each rater.

Step 2: Prototype labeling and characterization ((c) in Figure 5)


22

Subsequent to the iteration of ratings, the clusters were labeled based on commonality of

situational characteristics, for each rater. The labeling and characterization for rater A were:

(1) Exchanging experiential knowledge (content expert): This cluster consists of a core:

situations 13, 24, 25, which describe knowledge transfer between colleagues with mutual

respect and potentially long-term relationships.

(2) Advice giving (advisor): The coaches of this cluster give situation-based advice. In doing

so they might share knowledge, but the essence is the advice, typically about process.

(3) Forceful advice (convincer): In these situations, the coaches are expert in conveying their

advice and are doing their best to convince the coachees to follow that advice.

(4) External consulting (consultant): This cluster includes situations in which outsiders with

significant experience and execution capabilities are brought in to help 2 or more people in

a particular situation.

(5) Teaching/transmitting knowledge (teacher): This cluster consists of situations for which

the core activity is teaching (presenting) knowledge and demonstrating skills in educational

situations, both academic and industrial.

(6) Process enforcement (enforcer): This cluster includes situations in which coaches

monitor the activities of others and intervene to adhere to guidelines.

A Similar characterization was done to the clustering of rater B.

The classes in both sets of clusters were labeled by commonly-used concepts whose definitions

are given in Online Appendix B. The difference between the dictionary definitions and ours is

that now these concepts have a richer meaning situated in the larger context of similar societal

roles.


23

Step 3: Collaborative comparison ((d) and (e) in Figure 5)

Grids developed by two or more people can be compared in several ways (Shaw and Gaines,

1989). In our case, the comparison is simple because the situations and dimensions are the same.

Differences in the ratings could be easily identified by subtracting the ratings of grids. High

differences reflect major disagreement between the raters. By focusing on the major differences,

we could easily differentiate interpretations and dimensions. This comparison can be referred to

as micro alignment of grids (Figure 5(d)). In addition, we could compare the clusters or even

just the prototypes and their characterizations to check differences at a high level. This

comparison is called macro alignment (Figure 5(e)).

We first performed micro alignment. Some examples appear in Table 6. These examples show

how an initial focus on the largest misalignments led quickly to the identification of differences

in interpretation of coaching situations. The majority of the differences arose because one rater

interpreted a situation as dealing with a particular act (micro interpretation) whereas the other

rater saw the overall relationship (macro interpretation). For example, “conductor of an

orchestra” could be interpreted as the act of conducting during a concert (micro) or as the overall

task of a conductor as the musical director of the orchestra (macro).


24

Table 6: Examples of aligning different interpretations

Situation Rater-A Rater-B Action

1 Conductor and an orchestra

Overall task of conductor as music director (Macro)

Act of conducting, follow “rules” of the composer (Micro)

Change to micro

2 Expert/librarian Librarian as a metaphor for experienced expert who likes to record history and serve as a “librarian” for previous projects.

Librarian in an organization helping a professional find the right information

Changed to B’s interpretation

3 Judge in a trial Interaction within a big group of people negotiating differences. The judge can rule in favor of any one of the parties or create a compromise that none had in mind before the trial.

Interaction among three entities (2 lawyers and a judge) negotiating differences that the two lawyers encounter, with the judge deciding between the two parties.

Mutual agreement on the intersection

Following the alignment process, one interpretation was selected for each situation based on

mutual agreement. Following the agreement, the grids were modified to accommodate the new

interpretations. While this reduced the differences, it by no means eliminated them. There will

always be differences in the ratings of the situations between raters due to personal, cultural, and

experiential reasons. This analysis provides a systematic means to understand and describe them.

The final step is the macro alignment. On the level of the two resulting sets of micro-aligned

prototype clusters, a final single clustering has to be constructed. For that reason, we carefully

analyzed each prototype cluster individually and, following that, in collaboration by means of

verbal discussion. At the end of this process, we agreed upon a single clustering that comprises

both individual understandings and perceptions best and the corresponding prototype cluster is

chosen to be the foundation to develop a detailed as well as comprehensive definition and

characterization of the final coaching clusters.


25

4.4 Final Coaching Clusters

While pursuing the process described in section 3.3 we derived a matrix that resulted in five

elementary clusters. The final clustering can be seen in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Final coaching clusters

Each of these clusters receives a comprehensive definition and characterization comprising the

most characteristic dimensions and their respective specification as well as details on coach,

coachee, trigger and relation, course of events, and goals. Tables 9-13 in Appendix A provide

this detailed information. A label is also associated with each cluster by comparing the detailed

(c)

(s)

(i)

(f)

(m)

(c)

(s)

(i)

(f)

(m)


26

characterization with the etymological meaning of certain coaching related notions in Online

Appendix B. The labels and short definitions for each final cluster are as follows:

(c) Consultant: Coaching as professional, problem-focused intervention in the coachee’s task

process due to urgent product or process related needs. The expert coach is considered to

be a worker as well as a source of knowledge. Nevertheless, the coachee decides where

and when the coach will intervene.

(s) Supervisor: Coaching as professional, problem-focused intervention in the coachee’´s task

process. The coach has authority over the coachee. The authority stems from a higher

hierarchical position of the coach and/or the fact that the coach represents and enforces

obliging laws/rules. The coach has a strong impact on the coachee’s behavior and the

coachee is expected to obey the rules or laws enforced by the coach.

(i) Instructor: Coaching as professional, learning-focused guidance along an educational path

to impart knowledge and expertise. Theoretical as well as practical issues are being

taught to the coachee concerning a specific field of interest. Due to the coach’s

theoretical and practical coaching expertise as well as expert content knowledge, the

coach receives high acceptance by the coachee and furthermore has strong influence and

control over the coachee.

(f) Facilitator: Coaching as an informal, independent relationship that focuses on the offer of

specialized services by the coach and identification of sources of expert knowledge.

Coach and coachee need not establish a close relationship; the coach, as a person, is less

important and can be replaced quickly. The coachee decides where, when, and to what

extent the coach will intervene.


27

(m) Mentor: Coaching as a voluntary, sometimes emotionally laden interaction that focuses on

the procurement of moral support, environmental protection, and non-expert, task-related

help. Coach and coachee interact in an open and faithful behavior. The development of

such an (intimate) relationship takes time, and the process is normally focused on long-

term goals. In general, the coachee decides where, when, and to what extent the coach

will intervene.

With respect to bringing the five coaching clusters into the context of coaching in engineering

design, we will now consider them as the five primary roles a design coach might fill at any one

time while coaching a design team. Section 5 presents the results of a questionnaire-based study

in which aspects of the derived foundation are tested in an engineering design course at Stanford

University.

4.5 Summary

The framework with its roles and their detailed description creates common terminology that

circumvents some of the problems and negative consequences of misaligned terminology so

familiar in research (e.g., Bryman, 2004; Gregoire and Arendt, 2004) and practice (e.g., Sargent

et al., 1992). Moreover, a common understanding of the clusters will allow both coach and

coachee to understand and communicate to each other the context of a coaching event, thereby

improving coaching performance. In the terminology of this paper, this is referred to as the

“micro” situation. Finally, the clusters, representing different styles of coaching, could lead to

developing a basis for matching a coach to a team and/or for the coach to adjust his style to the

situation at hand. This is referred to as the “macro” situation.


28

5 Questionnaire-based study – verifying the conceptual foundation

5.1 Research question and organizational framework guiding the study

The conceptual foundation developed in Section 4 improves our understanding of coaching and

facilitates communication and expertise transfer. As coaching in design processes is rather new

to product development (Carrillo et al., 2003), knowledge about this topic has been largely

implicit and anecdotal. We argue that the five coaching roles – consultant, supervisor, instructor,

facilitator, and mentor – could serve as a basis to make this knowledge explicit and,

subsequently, accessible by others. This aspect of sharing design coaching knowledge is thought

to be essential. Hinds and Pfeffer (2003) assert that the usage of mutually understood language is

an inevitable precondition to bridge the gap between experts and the intended knowledge

recipients. The well-defined coaching labels and roles we have empirically derived could

constitute this mutual language and consequently facilitate the transfer of knowledge to new

design coaches, coachees that have never been coached before, or other participants in a

coaching process.

With the objective to establish the five coaching roles on a linguistic basis, differentiation and

completeness of the roles need to be assured. On the one hand, all coaching roles need to be

different and clearly distinguishable. On the other hand, the entire coaching space should be

embraced, meaning that all possible yet reasonable coach styles or reactions are covered. Even

though we employed a scientifically accepted method to derive the five coaching roles, it does

not guarantee completeness. Furthermore, differences are expected and are reflections of

personal and culturally-influenced interpretations of societal roles and rules.

Consequently, we decided to conduct a questionnaire-based study in a realistic lab context in

order to answer the following research questions empirically:


29

(a) Are the five coach roles clearly distinguishable and distinct?

(b) Do they comprise the entire meaningful design coaching space?

The null hypotheses are that the roles are not distinct and that they do not cover the space

completely. Our study hypothesis answers questions (a) and (b) positively.

As mentioned earlier, the organizational framework for this study is a graduate level mechanical

engineering course entitled Team-Based Product Design Development with Corporate Partners

(ME310) at Stanford University. All student teams are supported by an individual design coach

through the whole course span of three academic quarters. Most coaches are graduates of the

course who are either still enrolled at Stanford or work in local industry. All coaches are

volunteers and are not being paid. Coaching has been extensively used as a tool in this and other

courses (Carrillo et al., 2003), and an internal coaching guideline was recently developed (Geva

and Van der Loos, 2005).

In order to be able to answer the research question stated above we chose to conduct the study in

this environment. The questionnaire was designed to fit into the context of the ME310 course to

ensure maximum acceptance and relevance. The survey was implemented as an official class

assignment toward the end of the 9-month course sequence to maximize the design process

knowledge the students had already absorbed.

5.2 Questionnaire Design

The structure of the questionnaire is illustrated in Figure 7. It consists of an imaginary design

problem scenario (DPS) and five descriptions of possible reactions (CR(a) – CR(e)) a design

coach might exercise in this situation. For each possible coach reaction, one question is posed

(QCR(a) – QCR(e)). The question asks survey participants whether their personal coach behaves like


30

this. Each question has to be answered on a Likert scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly

disagree). In order to collect sufficient data for statistical analysis, six DPSs with their reactions

were developed. An example of one DPS used in the original survey, including the possible

coach reactions and questions, is presented in (Reich et al., 2007) and in Online Appendix F.

Figure 7: The structure of the questionnaire

It is important to notice that each of the coach reactions represents one of the coaching roles

developed earlier. According to our understanding and the detailed description of the coaching

participants. Each coach reaction attempts to be stereotypical for its underlying coaching role

through the expected choices of characteristics such as trigger and relation, course of events, and

goals. In addition, we asked the survey participants to give a short statement on the coach

reactions they agreed with most and least, or to provide an alternate coach reaction (QaCR) (not


31

considered in the example in Online Appendix F). In doing so, we sought to assure that all

possible meaningful coach behaviors are considered. In case no fundamental different coach

reactions are added by the survey participants this would indicate that the developed foundation

is comprehensive. The extent to which the coach reaction statements are clearly distinct is

answered by the participants’ ratings according to survey questions QCR(a-e).

For statistical reasons, all coach reactions CR(a) – CR(e) of a DPS are randomized, meaning that

their sequence changes with each DPS. In addition, the sequence of DPS presentation to

participants was randomized.

The survey was distributed to a total of 54 people: 5 belonged to the teaching team, 10 were

design coaches, and the remaining 39 were students. Thus, three groups of participants (teachers,

coaches, and students) were considered and traceable in the data set. Forty seven complete and

usable surveys were returned by teachers (5), coaches (9), and students (33) for an effective

response rate of 87%. However, since one coach as well as two out of four students of the

corresponding team did not answer the survey, this team was removed from the analysis.

Consequently, the survey results of 5 teachers, 9 design coaches, and 31 students, corresponding

to a total of 45 people, were considered. All teachers as well as all coaches are males. Four of the

31 students are females.

5.3 Results and Discussion

The General Linear Model (GLM) repeated measures procedure was used to analyze the

variance of the rating means. Null hypotheses about the effects of within-subjects factor roles

(coach reactions in the questionnaire) were tested, in this case for one dependent variable (Likert

scale ratings).


32

Addressing research question (a), the test of within-subjects effects presented in Table 7 reveals

that the “roles” factor is significant (Sig.≈ 0.000); therefore, the null hypothesis can be rejected.

Further tests of within-subjects contrasts provide detail to this finding (Table 8): all but two pairs

significantly differ in their mean values. Considering these two pairs, an analysis of the

supervisor (s) and facilitator (f) roles (Sig.<0.750) as well as of the instructor (i) and mentor (m)

roles (Sig.<0.745) reveals the following. In general, the lack of statistical significance might

stem from the sample size; an unclear distinction between these roles in the questionnaire; the

lack of difference in the minds of the raters between the two roles; or the nature of the particular

design context. The design context provides partial explanation in our case because the

supervisor-facilitator distinction is openly minimized in the ME310 design culture. The same

holds for the instructor-mentor roles. Hence, a valid set of distinguishing roles created to

describe the general case may be explicitely distorted to a perceived pedagogic (management)

objective. We hypothesize that this distortion in ME310 is derived from our semi-extreme

emphasis on creative design and the intent/requirement to produce innovative outcomes. In

contrast to these statistical results, the textual content of the roles is obviously distinct (see

definitions in Section 4.4 and Appendix A) and we did conclude from our cluster analysis that

there are five distinct coaching roles; therefore, we need to investigate the differences more fully

and improve our stereotype coaching statements for future surveys as well as administer them in

different design contexts.

Detailed analyses of all surveys furthermore indicate that the five coaching roles are

comprehensive, meaning that they cover the entire meaningful design coaching space. None of

the survey participants suggested fundamentally different coach behavior according to any of the


33

six DPS. From this, answering research question (b), we anticipate that the developed roles are

comprehensive, at least in the tested environment.

The questionnaire data is presented in detail and analyzed in greater depth elsewhere (Reich et

al., 2007). Only data validating the coaching roles is presented here.

Table 7: Test of Within-Subjects Effects (GLM with roles as repeated measures): Only one source – “roles” – is considered in this analysis. The 2nd column labels the results based on the assumption of sphericity of data and its various corrections. d.f. – degrees of freedom of the model. Sig. – statistical significance of the results

source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F-statistic Sig.

Sphericity Assumed 150.983 4 37.746 21.886 .000

Greenhouse-Geisser 150.983 3.177 47.530 21.886 .000

Huynh-Feldt 150.983 3.630 41.588 21.886 .000 roles

Lower-bound 150.983 1.000 150.983 21.886 .000

Table 8: Test of Within-Subjects Contrasts (factor: roles). The letters in the 2nd column refer to the coaching roles.

source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F-statistic Sig.

c against s 68.789 1 68.789 21.752 .000

c against i 231.024 1 231.024 59.012 .000

s against i 47.686 1 47.686 18.366 .000

c against f 59.677 1 59.677 22.237 .000

s against f .324 1 .324 .103 .750

i against f 55.866 1 55.866 14.715 .000

c against m 208.293 1 208.293 60.688 .000

s against m 37.680 1 37.680 8.962 .005

i against m .588 1 .588 .107 .745

roles

f against m 44.987 1 44.987 21.609 .000


34

6 Conclusions Starting from a personal participation in coaching practice in an educational setting, we observed

that existing publications did not sufficiently elaborate coaching in product development, and

furthermore, that there is general inconsistency in the terminology of this knowledge domain.

Consequently, we sought to derive a conceptual and grounded foundation for coaching and

applied a mixed research method whose qualitative part is built upon the theory of repertory

grids and the quantitative part employs survey and statistical analysis. From this foundation, we

distilled five fundamental coaching roles termed consultant, supervisor, instructor, facilitator,

and mentor. By developing and applying a questionnaire based survey we collected data in an

industry project based educational environment at Stanford University. After analyzing and

assessing the data by statistical means, and together with the initial qualitative analysis, we found

evidence and explanations that the five coaching roles are comprehensive and distinct. No

fundamentally different coach behavior was provided by any of the study participants.

Consequently, we propose that our coaching framework captures the practice of coaching in

product development. Further analysis of the survey results appears elsewhere (Reich et al.,

2007) leading to more insights into coaching behavior and perception in dynamic product design

contexts.

Our study is exploratory. First, it was conducted in an educational setting: therefore, its

agreement with industrial perspectives on coaching needs to be investigated. Second, we need to

replicate the survey with another population in an educational setting. Third, we would like to

simplify the alignment process so that others could exercise it and create context-dependent

coaching frameworks.

Some research topics for improving the use of coaching in product development include:


35

1. Seemingly well understood concepts such as coaching, clearly have different

interpretations by different people. How can we anticipate that members of a group

would have different opinions that would hinder cooperation? Can we generate an

instrument that will reveal different perceptions about coaching that could be used for

identifying necessary interventions? This question is addressed in (Reich et al., 2007).

2. How does coaching competency evolve in response to dynamic contexts? How is it

possible for coaches to diagnose whether the problems they are encountering are due to

their coaching-style and relationship to the team or due to the dynamics of the design

process?

3. If we detect diverse interpretations of coaching, how can we align participants’

understandings of coaching (and design situations in general) in the context of

collaborative distributed design?

We anticipate that answering these and other related questions will lead to improving the use of

coaching in product development.

7 References 1. Argyris C. (1977) Double loop learning in organizations, Harvard Business Review,

55(5):115-129.

2. Bayer H. (2000). Coaching-Kompetenz: Persoenlichkeit und Fuehrungspsychologie (2 ed.). Muenchen: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag.

3. Brinkmann R. D. (1994). Mitarbeiter-Coaching. Der Vorgesetzte als Coach seiner Mitarbeiter (Arbeitshefte Fuehrungspsychologie, Band 22 ed.). Heidelberg: Sauer Verlag.

4. Bryman A. (2004). Qualitative research on leadership: A critical but appreciative review, Leadership Quarterly, 15:729–769.

5. Cassell C., Close P., Duberley J., and Johnson P. (2000). Surfacing embedded assumptions: Using repertory grid methodology to facilitate organizational change, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 9(4):561-573.

6. Cardozo R. N., Durfee W. K., Ardichvili A., Adams C., Erdman A. G., Hoey M., Iaizzo P. A., Mallick D. N., Bar-Cohen A., Beachy R., and Johnson A. (2002). PERSPECTIVE:


36

Experiential education in new product design and business development, The Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19:4–17.

7. Carrillo A., Carrizosa K., Leifer L. (2003). Design team coaches, Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition.

8. Cramton C. D. (2001). The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration, Organization Science, 12(3):346–371.

9. Creswell, J. W., Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, 2nd Ed., Sage Publications, 2002.

10. Denison D. R., Hooijberg R., and Quinn R. E. (1995). Paradox and performance: Toward a theory of behavioral complexity in managerial leadership, Organization Science, 6(5):524-540.

11. DeRue D. S. and Morgeson F. P. (2005). Developing a taxonomy of team leadership behavior in self-managing teams. Poster session presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Los Angeles, CA.

12. Duarte D. L. and Snyder N. T. (2006). Mastering Virtual Teams, 3rd ed., Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

13. Eodice, M. (2000). A Theory of Requirements Definition in Engineering Design, PhD Thesis, Stanford University, 163 pages

14. Eriz O. and Leifer L. (2003). Facilitating product design knowledge acquisition: Interaction between the expert and the team, International Journal of Engineering Education, 19(1):142-152.

15. Furst S. A., Reeves M., Rosen B, and Blackburn R. S. (2004). Managing the life cycle of virtual teams, Academy of Management Executive, 18(2):6-20.

16. Gaines B. R. and Shaw M. L G.., (1996). WebGrid: knowledge modeling and inference through the World Wide Web, In B.R. Gaines & M. Musen (Eds) Proceedings of the Tenth Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems Workshop, pp.65-1-65-14. Banff, 1996.

17. Geva U. and Van der Loos M. (2005). On Coaching, Forming Informal Team Relationships Formally. ME310 course coaching guidelines, Stanford University, d.school.

18. Gregoire M. B. and Arendt S. W. (2004). Leadership: Reflections over the past 100 years, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 104(3):395-403.

19. Hackman J. R. and Wageman R. (2005). A theory of team coaching, Academy of Management Review, 30(2):269-287.

20. Hamann A. and Huber J. J. (1991). Coaching: Der Vorgesetzte als Trainer. Darmstadt: Hoppenstedt-Technik-Tab.-Verlag.

21. Hansen M. T., Nohria N., and Tierney T. (1999). What's your strategy for managing knowledge? Harvard Business Review, 77(2):106–116.

22. Hartley J. and Benington J. (2000). Co-research: A new methodology for new times, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 9(4):463 – 476.


37

23. Hinds P. and Pfeffer J. (2003). Why organizations Don´t "Know What They Know”: Cognitive and Motivational Factors Affecting the Transfer of Expertise. In M. Ackerman, Pipek V. and Wulf V. (Eds.), Sharing Expertise – Beyond Knowledge Management (p. 4-26). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

24. House R. J. and Aditya R. N. (1997). The Social Scientific Study of Leadership: Quo Vadis? Journal of Management, 23(3):409-473.

25. Huck H. (1989). Coaching. In H. Strutz (Ed.), Handbuch Personalmarketing (p. 413-420). Wiesbaden: Gabler.

26. Ingram H. and Desombre T. (1999). Teamwork: comparing academic and practitioners' perceptions, Team Performance Management, 5(1):16-22.

27. Jones R. L., Wallace M. (2005). Another bad day at the training ground: coping with ambiguity in the coaching context, Sport Education and Society, 10(1):119-134.

28. Jünemann E. and Lloyd B. (2003). Consulting for virtual excellence: virtual teamwork as a task for consultants, Team Performance Management, 9(7-8):182-189.

29. Kayworth T. R. and Leidner D. E. (2001). Leadership effectiveness in global virtual teams, Journal of Management Information Systems, 18(3):7-40.

30. Katzenbach J. R. and Smith D. K. (1993). The discipline of teams, Harvard Business Review, 71(2):111-120.

31. Kelly G. (1955). The Psychology of Personal Constructs (Vol. 1 & 2). New York: Norton.

32. Kim Y., Min B., and Cha J. (1999). The roles of R&D team leaders in Korea: a contingent approach, R&D Management, 29(2): 153-166.

33. Leifer, L.J., (1998). "Design Team Performance: Metrics and the Impact of Technology," in Evaluating Organizational Training, Brown, S.M., and Seidner, C., editors, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998

34. Lipnack J. and Stamps J. (1997). Virtual Teams: Reaching Across Space, Time, and Organizations with Technology, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

35. Lloyd B. (2005). Coaching, culture and leadership, Team Performance Management, 11(3-4):133-138.

36. Looss W. (1997). Unter vier Augen. Landsberg/ Lech: Verlag Moderne Industrie.

37. Nair A., Meta-analysis of the relationship between quality management practices and firm performance—implications for quality management theory development, Journal of Operations Management, in press.

38. Neeley Jr., W. L. (2007). Adaptive Design Expertise: a theory of design thinking and innovation, PhD Thesis, Stanford University, 149 pages.

39. Norton B. and Smith C. (eds.) (1997). Understanding the Virtual Organization. (Barron's Business Success Guide). Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series.

40. Pearce C. L., Sims Jr H. P., Cox J. F., Ball G., Schnell E., Smith K. A., and Trevino L. (2003). Transactors, transformers and beyond: A multi-method development of a theoretical typology of leadership, Journal of Management Development, 22(4):273-307.


38

41. Perry T. S. (1995). How small firms innovate: designing a culture for creativity, Research, Technology Management, March-April, 14-17.

42. Plattner, H. (2007). personal comunication.

43. Rauen, C. (2003). Coaching (3 ed.). Goettingen: Hogrefe-Verlag.

44. Reich, Y. (2000). Improving the rationale capture capability of QFD, Engineering with Computers, 16(3-4):236-252.

45. Reich Y. and Kapeliuk A., A framework for organizing the space of DSS with application to solving subjective, context dependent problems, Decision Support Systems, 41(1):1-19, 2005.

46. Reich, Y., Ullmann, G., Van der Loos, M., Leifer, L., (2007). Perceptions of coaching in product development teams, in CDROM Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED), The Design Society.

47. Rueckle, H. (2000). Coaching. So spornen Manager sich und andere zu Spitzenleistungen an. Landsberg/ Lech: Verlag Moderne Industrie.

48. Sargent P., Subrahmanian E., Downs M., Greene R., and Rishel D. (1992). Materials’ information and conceptual data modeling, in Barry T. I., Reynard K. W. (eds) Computerization and Networking of Materials Databases: Third Volume, ASTM STP 1140, American Society For Testing and Materials.

49. Schmidt, G. (1995). Business Coaching: Mehr Erfolg als Mensch und Macher. Wiesbaden: Gabler.

50. Schreyoegg A. (1995). Coaching. Eine Einfuehrung fuer Praxis und Ausbildung. Frankfurt/ M.: Campus Verlag.

51. Schwartz, D. L., Bransford, J. D., and Sears, D. (2005). Efficiency and Innovation in Transfer, in Transfer of Learning from a Modern Multi-disciplinary Perspective, Information Age Publishing, pages 1–51

52. Schwarz R. (2002). The Skilled Facilitator - A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches (2 ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

53. Senior B. and Swailes S. (2004). The dimensions of management team performance: A repertory grid study, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 53(4):317-333.

54. Shai O., Reich Y., Rubin D., Creative conceptual design: extending the scope by infused design, submitted for publication, 2007.

55. Shaw M. L. G. and Gaines B. R. (1989). Comparing conceptual structures: Consensus, conflict, correspondence and contrast, Knowledge Acquisition, 1(4):341-363.

56. Smith P. G. and Blanck E. L. (2002). From experience: leading dispersed teams, The Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19:294-304.

57. Stewart G. L. (2006). A meta-analytic review of relationships between team design features and team performance, Journal of Management, 32(1):29-55.


39

58. Tuckman B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups, Psychological Bulletin, 63(6):384-399.

59. Weiss J. (1993). Selbst-Coaching. Persoenliche Power und Kompetenz gewinnen (4 ed.). Paderborn: Junfermann.

60. Werth L., Markel P., and Forster J. (2006). The role of subjective theories for leadership evaluation, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 15(1):102-127.

61. Whitmore J. (1994). Coaching fuer die Praxis - Eine klare, praegnante und praktische Anleitung fuer Manager, Trainer, Eltern und Gruppenleiter. Frankfurt/ Main: Campus Verlag.

62. Wilde D. J. (1997). Using student preferences to guide design team composition, DETC97/DTM-3890, Proceedings of DETC '97, 1997 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences.

Appendix A: Final Coaching Clusters This appendix provides a detailed description of each coaching cluster. The following remarks

hold for all tables:

* the dimensions marked with a star do not belong to the dimensions of the respective cluster

that are closely similar (delta <= 1). Nevertheless, the author perceives them to be very

stereotypical for that situation cluster and therefore lists them in the respective table.

** does not really fit in the description since it does not share all characteristics of the cluster.

Table 9: detailed characterization of the consultant coaching style

consultant definition: Coaching as professional, problem focused intervention in the coachee’s task process due to

urgent product or process related needs. The expert coach is considered to be a labor force as well as a source of knowledge. Nevertheless, the coachee decides where and when the coach will intervene.

coachee: The coachee is an autonomous, self-confident and self-determined entity. The coachee seeks for professional help in realms in which the coachee is no expert or does not have the intellectual distance to keep an objective point of view. The given task is of very high importance to the coachee.


40

coach: The coach is a professional in the respective realm. He/ she has extensive theoretical knowledge (methodologies) and practical experience. The coach offers his/ her help to the coachee and in case an interaction is initiated the coach takes over an actual work part regarding the coachee’s task. For this part of the coachee’s task the coach has high responsibilities. The coach has to react fast, precisely and professional to the coachee’s needs.

trigger and relation:

The coachee addresses the coach with his / her individual, urgent and special needs and asks the coach for professional help. The industrial setup of these coaching situations implies some kind of professional and business relationship. In general, the relation is close regarding the concerned business – in some cases coach and coachee might also be part of one, bigger organizational entity. In this case, as well as in any medical related case, the coach’s help to the coachee is obligatory.

course of events:

1. Coach and coachee analyze the coachee’s situation and condition and define - in coordination but with the coachee as the driving force - the critical subtasks to be accomplished; these subtasks are according to the special needs the coachee has and the specific capabilities of the coach.

2. Coach and coachee conduct the defined subtasks in cooperation and/ or separately.

3. Coach and coachee analyze the achieved outcomes and evaluate further procedure (step back to 1. if needed)

4. The coach accompanies the coachee to ensure appropriate task handling until final achievement

goals: 1. initialization of professional help for the coachee

2. high quality task accomplishment of the coachee

Due to the huge size of the consultant cluster high similarity within the situations is accepted if delta <= 2;

Table 10: detailed characterization of the supervisor/advisor coaching style

supervisor / advisor definition: Coaching as professional, problem focused intervention in the coachee’s task process due to

high authority of the coach. The authority stems from a higher hierarchical position of the coach and / or the fact that the coach represents and enforces obliging laws/ rules. The coach has a strong impact on the coachees’ behavior and the coachee has to obey the rules or laws enforced by the coach.

coachee: The coachee is a mainly independent entity that seeks to accomplish his/ her task in cooperation with the coach. The coachee him-/ herself is rather well educated and/ or experienced in the given task but nevertheless needs directing advice/ supervision due to his/ her rather little (abstract) overview of the particular situation and the fact that the coachee often has to coordinate his/ her actions with a larger entity he/ she is part of.

coach: Due to the official representation and/ or enforcement of obliging laws/ rules, the coach looks from a higher or more abstract position on the coaching process. This implies a high professional level of the coach as well as a comprehensive responsibility concerning process and product. The coach has strong influence on the coachee and might control him/ her due to the coach authority.


Every time the coachee – consciously or unconsciously – encounters a situation in which the coach (by his/ her official status) has obliging power over the coachee the coaching process is initiated. The coach-coachee relation is professional but not necessarily business related and


41

the coachee is rather dependent on the coach to accomplish the task.

course of events:

1. The predefined work plan (defined by the coach) rules the coaching process but still the situation has to be analyzed by coach and coachee

2. The coach pilots the coachee through the situation according to also predefined rules. These rules can be established either through a higher authority or the coach.

3. A final assessment is not necessarily needed; coach and coachee will separate after the session easily.

Remark: during the whole process the coach serves as a reference point which the coachee accepts and refers to due to the respect he has for the coach.

goals: 1. high performance task accomplishment of the coachee

2. rule/ law compliant task accomplishment of the coachee

Table 11: detailed characterization of the teacher/instructor coaching style

teacher / instructor / moderator / trainer definition: Coaching as professional, problem focused guidance along an educational path to impart

knowledge and expertise. Theoretical as well as practical issues are being taught to the coachee concerning a special field of interest. Due to the coach’s theoretical and practical coaching expertise as well as his/ her expert task knowledge the coach receives high acceptance by the coachee and furthermore has strong influence and control over the coachee.

coachee: The coachee is regarded to be a capacious, interested and independent entity. The coachee seeks for knowledge, expertise and guidance. The learning aspect is the main focus and incentive of the coachee; he/she has already experiences in being coached.

coach: The coach is a professional in the respective realm. Furthermore, the coach has extensive theoretical and practical experience in being a coach. The coach receives high acceptance from and therefore authority over the coachee. However, this authority, influence and control may also come from the higher hierarchical position of the coach.


From a macro point of view the coaching process is requested by the coachee. The coachee voluntarily decides to attend “lectures” or to receive any kind of education in the respective realm. However, if analyzed from a micro point of view, the process could also be regarded as enforced. Once the coachee decided to participate the process implies certain rules and assignments to be met by the coachee. The coach-coachee relation is professional, the coachee accepts the coach and furthermore the coach has high influence and control over the coach regarding the educational path.

course of events:

1. Coach and coachee assess the coachee current situation and design a work plan or exercise (strongly according to the experience and expertise the coach has).

2. Coach and coachee run through the workplan/ exercise. This does not necessarily have to be in parallel. The coach tries to impart as much of his/ her knowledge and expertise as possible to the coachee; this might be subjective and may have a strong influence on the coachee.

3. Finally coach and coachee reflect the session and assess the coachee’s knowledge gain.

goals: 1. procurement of professional knowledge and expertise to the coachee


42

2. practical training of theoretical knowledge gained by the coachee

Table 12: detailed characterization of the facilitator coaching style

facilitator definition: Coaching as a loose, independent relation that focuses on the offer of specialized services by

the coach. Coach and coachee do not establish a close relation ship, the coach - as a person - is less important and can be replaced quickly. The coachee decides where, when and to which extent the coach will intervene.

coachee: The coachee is regarded to be a highly independent and self- confident entity. The coachee seeks for specialized services to support its work without huge expenses or complexity but quickly. The coachee is not necessarily an expert in being coached but – at least in the business related situations – the coachee has some experiences concerning this matter. The coachee’s needs are less urgent or important.

coach: The coach, as a professional in the respective realm, offers his/ her services to the coachee. The coach has no influence on, nor control over, the coachee. In contrast to the consulting cluster the coach does not have a particular expertise in the task the coachee has to fulfill. However, the coach has extensive practical experience.


The coachee addresses the coach to receive a particular service or to purchase a particular product. The coach is part of a larger community offering the same service or product the coachee seeks. Due to that and the fact that the coachee is not dependent on the coach due to any time or urgency constraint, the coachee can choose from any of the coaches in the respective community. The loose coachee-coach interaction is short term and synchronous, in general.

course of events:

1. The coachee assesses its situation and identifies its needs by itself; these needs (product and process related) are rather small and simple and refer to every day problems. They can be satisfied easily by the community of people (coaches) that has access to the right tools or products 2. The coachee addresses one individual (organization) [coach] of the appropriate community with the respective need 3. In case this individual (organization) [coach] is able and willing to satisfy the coachee’s needs, product or process tools are exchanged and coach and coachee separate easily and quickly; in the other case the coachee needs to address another individual of the respective group [another coach].

goals: 1. customer (coachee) needs satisfaction

Table 13: detailed characterization of the tutor/mentor coaching style

tutor / mentor definition: Coaching as voluntary, sometimes emotionally related interaction that focuses on the

procurement of mental support, environmental protection and non-expert task related help. Coach and coachee interact in an open and faithful behavior. The development of such an (intimate) relation takes time. In general, the coachee decides where, when and to which extent the coach will intervene.

coachee: The coachee is regarded to be an independent entity that needs the protection and/ or help of a social - not directly task related - environment. The coachee, who may or may not be a professional in its task, seeks for open feedback from coaches the coachee perceives to be


43

trustworthy. Besides, the coachee might also seek for task related help or experience which he/ she is aware of will not necessarily be of high expertise but general experience.

coach: The coach is – concerning the coachee’s task – a non professional. Nevertheless, the coach has broad experience in his environment. As a result of a close – but by no means business related relation – the coach offers mental support to the coachee. The coach does not necessarily have expertise in the coachee’s task nor has the coach a theoretical training in coaching. The coach does not have any decisive power over the coachee (except parent child relation; compare situation 9). In general, the coach will have a rather detailed image of the coachee’s condition and situation; the coach is sensitized for the coachee.


In most cases the coachee addresses the coach to receive mental support or non-expert task related help. The coach participates voluntarily in the mainly synchronous process. The coach-coachee relation is (emotionally) close, the coachee has extensive trust in the coach and due to this close relationship the coach is strongly accepted by the coachee. Coach and coachee exchange personal information that is not to be revealed to the coachee’s professional environment. The coach provides the coachee with mental and social support.

course of events:

1. The coachee perceives its situation and condition as unknown, uncomfortable, cramped and possibly endangering. Therefore, the coachee addresses the coach to receive mental support, protection, space (clearance) and advice. 2. The coachee describes its situation and condition to the coach in case the coach is not completely informed 3. The coach gives open and subjective feedback/ advice to the coachee; the feedback is influenced by the close relationship that coach and coachee have established beforehand, it is meant to strengthen the coachee in its situation and to encourage and focus further actions 4. the coach may establish the coachee in his/ her (the coach’s) social/ professional environment to provide the coachee a save, familiar and comfortable basis

goals: 1. providing mental support 2. protecting the coachee from external criticism, pressure or the unknown


44

Coaching Product Development Teams: A conceptual foundation for empirical studies

Online Appendices B-F

Yoram Reich5 Faculty of Engineering

Tel Aviv University [email protected]

Georg Ullmann6 IPH - Institut für Integrierte Produktion Hannover

gemeinnützige GmbH, Hanover [email protected]

Machiel Van der Loos

Center for Design Research Stanford University [email protected]

Larry Leifer Center for Design Research


Citations: Reich, Y., Ullmann, G., Van der Loos, M., Leifer, L., (2007) Coaching Product Development Teams: A conceptual foundation for empirical studies, Research in Engineering Design, XXX.

5 Corresponding author. This work was done while this author was on sabbatical leave from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978. 6 This work was done while this author was visiting Stanford University from the Technical University of Munich.


45

Appendix B: Etymological meaning of coach and related concepts The terms coach, mentor, moderator, trainer, tutor, supervisor, and teacher all deal with the

relationship between two entities where one provides knowledge, support, and assistance in

doing some task to the other. The differences between the terms lie in the particular way in

which the relationship between the entities is exercised. The definitions in Table 14 certainly

show differences between the relationships. For example, a coach carries a coachee through an

activity. There is a sense of being there when the activity is performed and providing help if

necessary. In contrast, a mentor provides off-line mental or cognitive support that then needs to

translate into practice.

What becomes evident is that each of these functions, whether coach, mentor, or supervisor, can

be very useful to the effective transfer of knowledge and skill between people. Therefore, in this

study, we would like to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the role of coaching as

we perceive and practice it in order to improve its management.

Table 14: Definition of coach-related terms

Term Definition Source

Coach

1556, "large kind of carriage," from M.Fr. coche, from Ger. kotsche, from Hung. kocsi (szekér) "(carriage) of Kocs," village where it was first made. In Hungary, the thing and the name for it date from 15c., and forms are found in most European languages. Applied to railway cars 1866, Amer.Eng. Sense of "economy or tourist class" is from 1949. Meaning "instructor/trainer" is c.1830 Oxford University slang for a tutor who "carries" a student through an exam; athletic sense is 1861.

http://www.etymonline.com/

index.php?term=coach

(11/23/2004). see also OED

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi

/findword?query_type=word

&queryword=coach&find.x=

0&find.y=0&find=Find+wor

d

Mentor

"wise advisor," 1750, from Gk. Mentor, character in the "Odyssey," friend of Odysseus, adviser of Telemachus (often actually Athena in disguise), perhaps ult. meaning "adviser," since the name appears to be an agent noun of mentos "intent, purpose, spirit, passion" from PIE *mon-eyo- (cf. Skt. man-tar- "one who thinks," L. mon-i-tor "one who admonishes"), causative form of base *men- "to think" (see mental).


index.php?search=mentor&s

earchmode=none (02/03/2005)

Moderator 1398, "ruler, governor," from L. moderator "manager, ruler, director," lit. "he who moderates," from moderatus (see moderate (adj.). Meaning "one


index.php?search=moderator


46

who acts as an umpire" is from c.1560. &searchmode=nl (02/03/2005)

Trainer (to train)

"instruct, discipline, teach," 1542, from train (n.), probably from earlier sense of "draw out and manipulate in order to bring to a desired form" (1375). The meaning "to travel by railway" is recorded from 1856. Trainer is recorded from 1598; trainee from 1841.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=trainer&searchmode=none (02/03/2005)

Tutor

1377, "guardian, custodian," from O.Fr. tutour "guardian, private teacher," from L. tutorem (nom. tutor) "guardian, watcher," from tutus, variant pp. of tueri "watch over," of unknown origin. Specific sense of "senior boy appointed to help a junior in his studies" is recorded from 1689. The verb is attested from 1592; tutorial (adj.) is recorded from 1742; as a noun it is attested from 1923.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=tutor&searchmode=none (02/03/2005)

Supervisor

1588, "to look over," from M.L. supervisus, pp. of supervidere "oversee, inspect," from L. super "over" (see super) + videre "see" (see vision). Meaning "to oversee and superintend the work or performance of others" is attested from c.1645; supervisor in this sense of "one who inspects and directs the work of others" is first recorded in 1454.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=supervisor&searchmode=none (02/03/2005)

Teacher (to teach)

O.E. tæcan (past tense and pp. tæhte) "to show, point out," also "to give instruction," from P.Gmc. *taikijanan (cf. O.H.G. zihan, Ger. zeihen "to accuse," Goth. ga-teihan "to announce"), from PIE *deik- "to show, point out" (see diction). Related to O.E. tacen, tacn "sign, mark" (see token). O.E. tæcan had more usually a sense of "show, declare, warn, persuade" (cf. Ger. zeigen "to show," from the same root); while the O.E. word for "to teach, instruct, guide" was more commonly læran, source of modern learn and lore. Teacher "one who teaches" emerged c.1300; it was used earlier in a sense of "index finger" (c.1290).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=teacher&searchmode=none (02/03/2005)

Appendix C: Stereotypes of coaching situations The following list provides a detailed description for each stereotypical coaching situation

employed in the repertory grid analysis. The order of items corresponds to the order the

situations are listed in the WebGridIII input matrix.

1. Moderator of a mailing list – In a mailing list a group of people shares information open

to everyone who subscribes to the list. The moderator (as list owner) controls who joins

the list and usually reads most of the messages – at least superficially. If any participant

violates openly agreed-upon rules, the moderator can remove the person from the list.


47

2. Moderator of e-learning – The moderator of an e-learning environment manages the

particular e-learning session. Tasks include distributing learning materials, operating the

digital environment, and presenting learning contents, in addition to serving in a

traditional instructor role as in any other teaching setting.

3. Editor and co-authors writing a book – The editor initiates a process that eventually

leads to the publication of a book or similar product. The editor selects the book topic,

invites several co-authors to contribute sections or chapters, and edits their contributions.

The author also contributes to the outcome by personally writing editorial note,

introduction or chapter.

4. Coaching a football team – The coach of a football (or any other sport) team first selects

possible team members and trains the team on a regular basis. The coach participates

physically in the training. Before and during a game/contest, the coach selects the players

and guides their actions throughout the game/contest. The coach is also the team

representative who deals with the other participants (opposing team members, logistics

support personnel, referees) and the environment (transportation, stadium, impact of the

weather, etc.).

5. Instructor of a PBL class – The instructor of a project-based learning (PBL) class

performs the customary teaching functions such as presenting and distributing learning

materials, teaching the actual lessons and grading assignments. The instructor also

provides feedback on a scheduled basis and on a case-by-case basis when requested by a

student. Other duties involving the organization and management of the course

environment include dealing with project partners, financial issues and sponsor

interactions.


48

6. External coach in a PBL class –External coaches voluntarily join a PBL class, serving

as an interface between teacher(s) and student team as well as between project partners.

The coach is not involved in the grading process, but rather represents a neutral resource

the team might access at any time. Problems that the team would prefer not to discuss

with the teaching team should be addressed to the external coach, at least initially, for an

independent, impartial, but professional opinion.

7. Consultant for BPR – A business process reengineering (BPR) consultant is hired by the

head of a company or other organization that seeks to reorganize its internal process(es).

The consultant first analyzes the current process, gathers data by interviewing process

participants and superiors, and then applies certain tools to organize and analyze the data.

Finally, the consultant provides recommendations to company management, possibly

including all BPR participants.

8. Design consultant – The design consultant offers professional expertise to a company’s

design/product development department by applying product design tools and

methodologies to the design of a particular product, especially in early portions of a

project. In typically short sessions, the consultant teaches the staff about focused topics

that move the process forward. The consultant may also be engaged later in the process,

for example in user testing and prototype iteration.

9. Parent-small child relationship – Some of the most important aspects of parenting a 3-

year old child involve protecting against possibly harmful environmental influences,

teaching appropriate behavior and imparting as much individual experience/expertise to

the child as possible. A strong emotional relation binds parent and child. The parent is

the most important point of reference for the child.


49

10. Professional coach over the phone – The coachee, i.e., any individual, relies on the

process-related support (e.g. task planning, reflections on professional and private issues)

that a professional coach offers. A face-to-face meeting might be valuable in establishing

a close working relationship between coach and coachee. The coaching process addresses

specific needs of the coachee and is focused on the procurement of best practices to solve

those problems. This phase is carried out mainly over the phone. Coach and coachee

split after the coachee is able to address the problem independently and without the

coach’s aid.

11. Student coaching freshmen – A senior-year student volunteers some time to introduce

incoming freshmen to the new and unfamiliar university environment during their first

year of studies. Information about courses, preparation for exams, finding internships are

typical topics. Training is conducted in presentations as well as in team-building

exercises. Furthermore, joint activities are organized. The coach goes through an

appropriate training before starting coaching.

12. Moderator of a discussion – A discussion moderator verbally guides invited speakers

through a – to some extend artificial – conversation. There is typically an audience. The

moderator sequentially addresses the participants to state their opinions/expertise on a

certain, predefined discussion topic and tries to equalize the amount of time each speaks.

Besides, the moderator has to maintain a certain code of conduct during the session, yet

has to elicit as much polarization as possible to keep the discussion controversial. In

many cases, the discussion is also meant to have an educational and informative aspect

for the audience.


50

13. Librarian – The librarian collects knowledge or expertise and transforms it into some

kind of storable information for the library. A librarian also manages and organizes the

captured information and makes it available to anybody who requests it. The coachee

addresses the librarian with a more or less specific search query. The librarian either

teaches the coachee how to efficiently seek the information in the database or conducts

this process for the coachee.

14. Extreme coaching (open source programming phenomenon) – In the open source

software development community, many individuals are gathered in global, virtual

environment due to some mutual interest in developing a particular piece of software.

Depending on each individual’s experience and expertise, anybody can become coach as

well as coachee. The single coachee addresses either a single coach or the whole

community to elicit help on certain software or hardware related problem. The response

can come from one or many individuals. However, the quality and quantity of the

answers are not necessarily reliable.

15. Pilot trainee and instructor – During the extensive education of a pilot trainee, the

instructor imparts theoretical as well as practical knowledge in how to properly fly an

airplane of a certain kind. Especially in the practical and possibly dangerous flight

lessons, the instructor constantly monitors the pilot trainee’s actions and behavior. The

instructor can overrule the trainee’s actions at any time in order to preserve safety.

16. Judge – A judge is called in when two disputing individuals or two disputing parties seek

an objective, law-compliant judgment. The parties may consist of several individuals and

if necessary may be represented by lawyers. The judge receives information from both

sides, reviews the situation, and after deliberating the facts, including existing laws,


51

comes to a decision. The result is obligatory for the opponents to follow unless one party

appeals to a higher court.

17. Friend giving advice – In certain and sometimes critical situations, the coachee can

address – or is addressed by – a friend (coach) to receive either immediate help, moral

support or some piece of advice, all of which are meant to be as truthful and pertinent as

possible to the best of the coach’s knowledge. The establishment of a friendship takes

time and is built up through shared experiences and emotions. It leads to mutual and close

understanding and trust between the coachee and the coach. A friend is informed about

the coachee´s situation and condition and keeps an eye on him/her.

18. Physician and patient – The patient (coachee) suffers from either psychological or

physical pain or disease and needs more or less urgent professional help from the

physician. During typically short sessions, the coachee is being examined, treated,

medicated and/or counseled by the physician. The interaction can last over a long period,

however. The physician is obliged to help the patient in case of an emergency, which

makes the patient highly dependent on the physician.

19. Commercial service – Any common service, for example a haircut, directory assistance,

cleaning, or copy shop service is characterized by its widespread availability. The

coachee can choose between several providers taking personal preferences, habits or

biases into account. No close relationship is established. The coachee seeks fast,

uncomplicated but competent support for as little expense as possible.

20. Tax consultant – A tax consultant counsels either an individual or an organization

(coachee). Both provide the tax consultant (coach) with the information needed to remain

fiscally responsible. This information is to a certain extent critical to the coachee and


52

requires the coach to sign to a non-disclosure-agreement. The coach-coachee relation is

therefore close and rather long term orientated.

21. Priest in a confession – An individual confession happens in private between the priest

(coach) and the believer (coachee). For example, in the Christian Church, God has the

power to provide forgiveness to people who want to be absolved of their guilt. In the

confession the coachee talks about the sin and the desire of reconciliation with God and

the people. The priest awards forgiveness for the coachee´s guilt and implicitly enters

into to a non-disclosure-agreement about this episode.

22. Conductor of an orchestra – During a concert the conductor provides visual

information about the rhythm and the intonation of the piece played. The orchestra is

supposed to follow those rules but is not obliged to do so. In case an individual musician

is very familiar with the piece, he/she may abandon the conductor’s advice as long as the

rhythm and notes are correct.

23. Professor and Ph.D. student – The Ph.D. student (coachee) decides to do research in a

certain realm of interest. Subsequently, the student contacts a professor (coach) who is an

expert in that domain to provide academic advice. Together, the Ph.D. student and the

professor define a specific research task. The Ph.D. student then conducts this research

independently but receives feedback and, if needed, correction by the professor on a

regular basis.

24. Coach for a CEO – Similar to situation 10, the coach for a Chief Executive Officer

(CEO) of a company is a professional. The coachee, who has large-scale responsibilities

within the company or organization, consults with the coach regarding professional and

private matters. The coach provides best-practice ways – that may be adapted to the


53

coachee´s individual situation/ condition – to solve problems, gives objective feedback

and serves as a contact person regarding any problem the coachee cannot or does not

want to address with company associates. Due to the sensitive nature of the issues

involved, the coachee carefully selects the coach. The collaboration tends to be long term.

25. Any knowledgeable colleague – The coachee addresses the coach (colleague)

concerning mostly work related topics, yet this can include personal issues. The coachee

knows the coach in the context of the professional environment, but at this level, the

relation is close to some extent. The coachee perceives the coach to have extensive

knowledge, experience or information concerning the issues at hand.

26. Government consultant – The coachee (government) has large-scale responsibilities for

and influence on issues concerning individual and global matters. Due to that the extent

of this activity, the coachee cannot oversee every detail and therefore engages specialized

consultants (coaches) to collect large amounts of data on a certain issue. The consultant is

also asked to condense, present and sometimes interpret the data and to make it

accessible to and easily usable by the coachee.

27. Space shuttle crew and mission control – During a space mission the Shuttle crew is

remote and largely dependent on Mission Control, situated in a control center on earth.

Vital data is downloaded from the Shuttle to Mission Control. Communication, technical

and scientific data are exchanged on a bidirectional basis. In case of an emergency, the

safe return of the crew has the highest priority. All participants are selected carefully, are

experts in their individual domains as well as in the system, undergo extensive

(collective) training and share a mutual understanding and language.


54

28. Addiction or marriage counseling – The coaching situation is characterized by a very

critical situation and condition concerning psychological and physical issues that the

coachee is experiencing. Both the drug addict and the couple undergoing serious

relationship problems are coachees who need rapid and professional help. The coachee

addresses the coach, or is forced to do so. The coach-coachee relation at first is

characterized by caution, and both coach and coachee pay careful attention to the other.

Assuming that the coachee really wants to solve the problem, the coach-coachee

interaction has to build trust to bring out the deeper reasons for the coachee´s situation

and condition.

29. Police officer monitoring an intersection – In daily traffic situations, road users

(coachees) are guided by one or more police officers to safely cross an intersection or any

other traffic obstacle. The police officer (coach) visually pilots the coachee through any

situation that could possibly endanger the coachee or any other person who happens to be

in the area. Since the instructions are conveyed visually, the coach and coachee are

required to pay careful attention to each other. In case the coachee, either consciously or

unconsciously, violates the rules, the police officer has the authority to call the coachee to

account.

30. Nurse giving advice to disabled people – Due to some impairment, the coachee is not

able to live entirely independently. The attendant or nurse (coach) provides the coachee

with everything necessary to have a high-quality lifestyle under the circumstances. That

includes physical and moral support. The coach’s activities range from meal preparation

and cleaning services to minor medical treatments and brief but personal talks. The


55

relation normally lasts a long time since very personal and intimate issues are concerned.

Over time, coach and coachee may develop a personal friendship as well.

31. Company financial controller – Large companies or organizations (coachees) have to

keep track of their financial affairs for legal and economic reasons. The financial

controller (coach) is part of a department within the company dedicated to collecting and

processing the company’s financial data on an on-going basis, and then providing status

information on demand to company officers and other employees. The extent, nature and

granularity of the information the financial controller provides are determined by the role

and seniority of the employee in the company.

32. Board of directors coaching a startup CEO – The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a

rather small team of employees has comprehensive responsibilities, and as coachee, is

guided and monitored by a group of business-savvy coaches (board of directors), who

may not necessarily be familiar with the company’s product niche. The coaches are at a

higher level, hierarchically, and may have invested financially into the startup company

as well. On the one hand, the coaches want the coachee to succeed (and support the

coachee with their knowledge, expertise and/ or influence in other domains), but on the

other, they will also withdraw support from the coachee in case they do not receive (or

expect to receive) a return on their investment.

33. Car dealer – The customer (coachee) wants to buy a used or new car, and consults with a

car dealer (coach), talking about specific needs, personal preferences and biases. To some

extent this situation is similar to situation 19 since both involve the availability of

multiple car dealers (coaches). The coach has the strong desire to sell one or several of


56

his/her products with as large a margin as possible. The reverse is true for the coachee,

who seeks to pay as little as possible. Bargaining drives the whole situation.

Appendix D: Stereotype coaching situations in product design Many of the aforementioned stereotypical situations translate directly into product design

situations:

1. Editor with co-authors working on a book or single paper translates into co-authoring

some PD document (e.g., requirement specification).

2. Consultant that assists a company in its business process reorganization

3. Expert on quality design giving workshop to a company and further being consulted on

the matter from now on.

However, there are some situations that do not seem to be related to PD yet close examination

reveals similar design situations:

1. Parent-child relationship could exist in family businesses when parents introduce their

children into the organization.

2. Extreme coaching - open source phenomena may exist in an organization with a strong

community of practice (COP) formed internally.

3. Judge might correspond to a regulatory agency (e.g., FDA) that demands that the process

and product adhere to some standards.

4. Priest and a confession could also be translated into PD scenario: A young engineer is

hired by a company and the department’s manager tells him in the first meeting: you have

6 months to learn your job. Anything you do in this period including mistakes do, not


57

count. The only thing mandatory is that you talk to me about your mistakes. I’ll teach you

what you need to know to avoid them.

IDEO, a famous Palo Alto design firm, keeps its staff creative by removing bureaucracy,

encouraging cross-fertilization of ideas, and allowing its employees “to fail in a culture of

try it, fix it, try it again, and learn from the experience (Perry 1995, p. 16).”

Appendix E: Dimensions of coaching situations The following list provides a detailed description for each coaching dimension employed in the

repertory grid analysis. The order of items corresponds to the order the dimensions that are listed

in the WebGridIII input matrix. Each item in the list has the following structure: name of the

dimension, poles, brief describing explanation.

1. Scale of team activity: small – large: Describes the extent to which the coachee is

involved in collaborative teamwork while the actual coaching takes place. This can range

from small (e.g., a personal relation/ interaction between two individuals) to large (e.g.

interactions in a large team).

2. Teamwork setup: educational – industrial: Describes the main focus of attention of the

coaching activity. This can range from educational (e.g., any situation for which the

intention is to impart knowledge or generate practical experience to the participants) to

industrial (e.g., any situation for which the intention is the creation of monetary value).

3. (a) Potential cost of coaching activity failure: low – high: Describes the potential cost

for coach, coachee and/or community/society in case the coaching activity fails to

achieve its main goal. This can range from low to high. The comparison should be

conducted relative to the presented situations.


58

(b) Resources for conducting coaching: low – high: Describes the resources (mainly

financial) needed to conduct the actual coaching activity. This can range from low to

high. The comparison should be conducted relatively to the considered situations.

4. Human risk of coaching activity failure: low – high: Describes the potential risk – i.e.,

to cause physical and psychological harm to coach, coachee and/or the human

environment – in case the coaching activity fails to achieve its main goal. This can rank

from low (e.g., no possible physical/psychological harm at all) to high (e.g., possible life

threatening physical/psychological harm).

5. Starting stage of coaching: detailed – pre-conceptual: Describes the moment when the

initial coaching takes place with reference to when the coachee first encounters the

activity being coached. "pre-conceptual" stage is early in the project, and the coach is

assisting the coachee in understanding how to approach the problem. "detailed" stage

refers to the time when a coachee is clear on the problem or project task and is looking at

ways to solve it.

6. Trigger to introduce coaching: enforced – requested: Describes the characteristics of

the actual impetus that initiates the coaching activity. This can rank from enforced (e.g.,

the coach or another authority forces the coachee to be coached) to requested (e.g., the

coachee directly addresses the coach or any other point of contact to receive coaching).

7. Chronological mode: asynchronous – synchronous: Describes the chronological

relation between the coach’s and the coachee´s activity. This can rank from asynchronous

(e.g., coach and coachee do not act at the same point in time and communicate through

some kind of medium such as email to convey information to overcome the time shift)

and synchronous (e.g., coach and coachee act and interact at the same point of time).


59

8. Monitoring style: thermostat – over the shoulder: Describes the way that the coach

oversees the coachee´s actions and behavior and how the coach collects and processes

information from and toward the coachee. This can rank from thermostat like behavior

(e.g., the coach only intervenes when the behavior or the situation of the coachee over- or

under-runs predefined boundary conditions) to over-the-shoulder like behavior (e.g. the

coach constantly monitors the coachee and figuratively looks over the coachee´s shoulder

at all times).

9. Object mediating coaching: limited – rich: Describes the communication options

available to coach and coachee in the actual coaching situation to mediate the information

they want to exchange. This can rank from limited (e.g., unstable connection with low

bandwidth) to rich (e.g., permanent solid connection with high bandwidth).

10. Level of involvement: restricted – comprehensive: Describes the interaction between

coach and coachee especially regarding the way the coach is involved in the coachee´s

process/situation. This can rank from restricted (e.g., the coach only provides

verbal/visual cues like questions, statements and gestures) to comprehensive (e.g., the

coach is deeply involved in the coachee´s process, sharing the task load).

11. Content delivered by the coach: poor – rich: Describes the quality and the quantity of

the content the coach contributes to make the coachee achieve the task at hand. This can

rank from poor (e.g., the coach contributes very little maybe because the job is to oversee

the process) to rich (e.g., coach and coachee actually work together on a joint work).

12. Type of involvement: reactive – proactive: Describes the engagement of the coach in

the coaching process. This can rank from reactive (e.g., the coach waits until the coachee

faces an impasse; this can be due to educational or other reasons) to proactive (e.g., the


60

coach anticipates future developments of the coachee and/or situation and intervenes

before these developments interfere too much with the coachee´s process).

13. Duration: short – long: Describes the length of the time frame during which the coachee

and the coach interact. This does not necessarily refer to a single session length but the

complete time frame during which one or several coaching sessions can take place. The

dimension can be ranked from short (e.g. one single coaching session lasting for maybe

one hour) to long (e.g. several coaching sessions distributed over a long period of time).

14. Availability of second opinion: yes – no: Describes the coachee’s opportunity to consult

a second opinion from another coach. This can rank from one (e.g. only one coach is

involved in the process) to many (e.g. many individual coaches are involved in the

process).

15. Number of coaches: one – many: Describes the number of coaches involved in the

coach-coachee interaction. This can rank from one (e.g., only one coach is involved in the

process) to many (e.g., , only one coachee is involved in the process) to many (e.g., many

individual coachees are involved in the process).

16. Number of coachees: one – many: Describes the number of coachees involved in the

coach-coachee interaction. This can range from one (e.g. only one coachee is involved in

the process) to many (e.g. many individual coachees are involved in the process).

17. Emotional relationship between coach and coachee: low – high: Describes the

emotional extent to which coach and coachee are connected to each other. This can rank

from low (e.g., a coach-coachee relation that does not involve any particular human

emotion regardless of whether this emotion is positive or negative) to high (e.g., a coach-


61

coachee relation that does include particular human emotion regardless of whether this

emotion is positive or negative).

18. Final decision made by: coach – coachee: Describes the decision process in the coach-

coachee relation. In any given case it is not important who – either coach or coachee –

makes the respective decision, but who would have the final say in case the coach and

coachee do not agree upon the matter. This dimension can be ranked from coach (e.g., the

coach has the final word and could overrule the coachee) to coachee (e.g., the coachee

has the final word and could overrule the coach).

19. Size of coachee entity: one person – entire organization: Describes the size and

organizational complexity of the coachee. This can rank from one person (e.g., the

coachee is involved in the coaching process as a single individual) to an organization

(e.g., the coachee is involved in the coaching process as a member of a complex and

extensive network of individuals).

20. Professional level of coachee: novice – expert: Describes the level of professionalism of

the coachee concerning the task at hand. Both educational training as well as practical

experience are considered. The dimension can be ranked from novice (e.g., the coachee

has no formal or informal knowledge about the task) to expert (e.g., the coachee

underwent an extensive education and has considerable practical experience in this type

of task).

21. Coaching experience of the coachee: novice – expert: Describes the extent to which

the coachee already has theoretical knowledge or practical experience in being coached

by a coach. This can rank from novice (e.g., the coachee has neither theoretical


62

knowledge nor practical experience in being coached) to expert (e.g., the coachee has

extensive theoretical knowledge and practical experience in being coached).

22. Coach acceptance by coachee: weak – strong: Describes the extent to which the coach

is accepted by the coachee. This includes for example how deep the coachee integrates

the coach in the task process and how much information the coachee shares voluntarily.

The dimension can be ranked from weak (e.g., the coachee does not accept or integrate

the coach’s advice at all, the coachee does not share any information voluntarily) to

strong (e.g., the coachee accepts and integrates a lot of the coach’s input, the coachee

voluntarily shares all relevant information with the coach).

23. Coachee-coach dependency: independent – dependent: Describes the extent to which

the coachee is dependent on the coach regarding the task or the process the coachee

follows. This can rank from independent (e.g., the coachee is not bound to or does not

need a particular coach to perform the task) to dependent (e.g., the coach is bound to or

does need a particular coach to perform the task).

24. (a) Level of trust coachee has in the coach: low – high: Describes the extent to which

the coachee trusts in the coach’s behavior in the coaching process. This can rank from

low (e.g., the coachee does not trust the coach due to some subjective or objective reason)

to high (e.g., the coachee completely trusts the coach due to some subjective or objective

reason).

(b) Expected evolution of trust: low – high: Describes the extent to which trust in the

coach-coachee relation ship might develop over time. This can rank from low (e.g., the level

of trust stays the same over a long period of time) to high (e.g., the level of trust evolves over

a long period of time). The dimension assumes a positive trust evolution.


63

25. Coach perspective: same level – higher level: Describes the perspective from which the

coach participates in the coaching process. This can rank from same level (e.g., coach and

coachee have the same perspective on the coachee´s task/process regarding granularity

and abstraction) to higher level (e.g., the coach has a higher perspective on the coachee´s

task/process; since the coach is not involved so deeply, it is easy to maintain a more

objective and abstract perspective of what the coachee is doing).

26. Possibility of team modification: yes – no: Describes the extent to which the coach can

modify the coachee team. This can rank from yes (e.g., the coach may change the

coachee entity) to no (e.g., the coach may not). This dimension does not focus on whether

the coach can choose or not choose to coach.

27. Coach training: none – formal: Describes the extent to which the coach underwent

theoretical training in being a coach before actually conducting coaching activities. This

can rank from none (e.g., the coach has no theoretical education in being a coach) to

formal (e.g., the coach participated in appropriate education and gathered the necessary

theoretical background).

28. Task-related knowledge of coach: novice – expert: Describes the level of

professionalism the coach has in the coachee´s task/process. This can rank from novice

(e.g., the coach does not have any practical or theoretical knowledge in what the coachee

is doing) to expert (e.g., the coach has extensive in the coachee´s task and/or the process

the coachee goes through).

29. Coach’s reason to participate: volunteer – job definition: Describes the coach’s

motive and reason for participating in the given coaching process. This can rank from

volunteer (e.g., the coach participates due to personal reasons and motivations – there is


64

no formal constraint that causes the coach to participate) to job definition (e.g., the

coach’s professional job description includes coaching, making it obligatory to

participate).

30. Practical coaching experience of the coach: novice – expert: Describes the practical

experience the coach already gathered in coaching before being involved in the given

coaching situation. This can rank from novice (e.g., the coach hardly ever performed as a

coach and, as a result, has no practical experience) to expert (e.g., the coach has been

involved in multiple coaching situations and therefore has collected extensive practical

experience).

31. Coach’s responsibility concerning product: little – a lot: Describes the extent to which

the coach is responsible of what the product of the given task is like regarding end-

product quality and/ or quantity. This can rank from little (e.g., the coach is not

responsible for the actual outcome) to a lot (e.g., the coach is fully responsible for the

actual outcome).

32. Coach’s responsibility concerning process: little – a lot: Describes the extent to which

the coach is responsible for task/process quality and/or quantity. This can rank from little

(e.g., the coach is not responsible for the actual performance of the process) to a lot (e.g.,

the coach is fully responsible for the actual performance of the process).

33. Influence and control: negligible – high: Describes the extent to which the coach has

conscious and/or unconscious influence and/or control over the coachee. This can rank

from negligible (e.g., the coachee´s decisions are not influenced by the coach) to high

(e.g., the coachee´s decisions are highly influenced and controlled by the coach).


65

34. Trust coach requires from coachee: none – comprehensive: Describes the extent to

which the coach requires trust from the coachee to conduct the actual coaching process.

This can rank from none (e.g. there is no trust needed between coachee and coach to

perform the coaching process) to comprehensive (e.g. the coachee needs to trust the

coach in a comprehensive way to conduct the actual coaching process).

35. Integration of coach in coaching networks: low – high: Describes the extent to which

the coach is integrated in coaching networks (professional community) regarding the

continuous exchange of information concerning developments in coaching in general.

This can rank from low (e.g., the coach does not participate in such a network or

exchange information with other coaches) to high (e.g., the coach is integrated in a large

coaching network and extensively exchanges information with other coaches).

Appendix F: An example of one design problem scenario (DPS)

DPS

Team ”Aloha - Surfboard Structural Dynamics” has to deliver a first draft of the final prototype in two days. The team made interesting changes to the board structure during the last two quarters. Since these changes - according to the statement of an expert engineer - promise to help minimize the structural deformation, the team needs to obtain quantitative analysis results, e.g., from a FEM simulation. Without such a simulation, it will be difficult to convince anyone in the teaching team of the innovative nature of the board design for the final prototype. Unfortunately, no one on the student team is an FEM expert. However, the coach has extensive theoretical and practical expertise in the field.

CR (a)

(f)

The team does not consider the FEM simulation to be too important. However, the team asks the coach for help with the given problem. The coach decides to provide the team with a workstation that has an FEM software package installed on it, and offers them some minor help during the software usage.

QCR(a) Would your coach behave like this?

strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree

CR (b)

(m)

The team talks to the coach about this problem. The coach does not see any possibility to reach the goal of a serious simulation in the short time left and suggests presenting the prototype without any simulation. The coach further encourages the team not to worry too much about that and affirms that the teaching team will not insist on an FEM simulation if the students present a promising prototype. co

ach

reac

tions

QCR(b) Would your coach behave like this?



66

CR (c)

(i)

The coach realizes the problems of the team and initiates an immediate team meeting. In that meeting the coach teaches the team how to use one particular software tool that does simple dynamic FEM simulations. During the simulation itself, which is conducted by the team, the coach answers any questions about the software.

QCR(c) Would your coach behave like this?


CR (d)

(c)

The team addresses the coach to help them with the simulation. Due to the team’s urgent and critical need, the coach agrees to help, takes the CAD model generated by the team and makes a simple but meaningful dynamic simulation. The next day the coach presents the team with the results and answers all the questions the team has.

QCR(d) Would your coach behave like this?


CR (e)

(s)

The coach realizes the problems of the team and initiates a team meeting. To that team meeting the coach brings along three software packages that would allow them to make a relatively easy and quick dynamic FEM simulation. The coach tells the team about some of the software characteristics of each package, outlines the general rules one should follow to receive reasonable results, tells them where they can find additional information and then leaves any further action to the team.

QCR(e) Would your coach behave like this?


Coaching product development teams: a conceptual foundation for empirical studies

Documents