Anne-Marie has been working with James Bach in order to write a book on coaching Testers & research for this book has involved the (Skype) coaching of many Testers. This session was a quick glimpse into how online coaching works.
Anne-Marie (AM) had put together a really interactive session which involved a small amount of “lecturing” from AM at the beginning which transitioned nicely into AM coaching a student in front of our eyes! The slides for the “Coaching Testers” session can be found here
The demo from AM involved the student testing a file (which was an image) which had previously been sent over to the student. It was interesting to see the responses from the student & how they differed from how I would have answered.
The final part of the session involved us getting our hands dirty with some online coaching. There were 4 laptops set up at the back of the room, each with a student Tester waiting to be coached.
It was great to observe the coaches coaching the student & to see what they were getting out of the session. It was interesting to see the coaches response when the student didn’t answer the question as the coach expected it. It was great to see how dynamic the coaching session needed to be & how as a coach you need to be ready for anything!
The session was well attended & participants really enjoyed the hands-on aspect so much so that the come-&-try-it element of the session continued on into the Test Lab later that evening.
Skype coaching is something I would really recommend, having had a session with both Anne-Marie & James Bach and coaching is definitely an area I’m interested in exploring.