Essay on
Team Coach´s Best Tools
Johannes Partanen
We started quite heavily using this book in Aconditor in the first year of our team's existence. Since we were the first year of the whole Team Academy Prague, we had to dig ourselves to find out the methodology of TA. Even the well-known training, reading, practice or applying theory to practice was a complete mystery to us. So this book very soon became something of a bible for our team. A guideline through the methodology that we should follow. The steps we should take in order to learn, grow and do business the Team Academy way. So together with trusting the process (dramatic pause 🙂) we used the help of Johannes Partanen through this book.
The first time I opened this book was, well first of all when all the pages still held steadily together (who opened the book in TAP recently knows what I'm speaking about), but the reason for opening this book for the first time was that I took the responsibility of introducing ATP model to my fellow penguins. And, what I found out there, it made sense. I would like to put my notes from that time up here and comment on how I look at this today versus in my first year.
Three project phases and specific tools to use in those in specific order. Brilliant. We started using pre-motorola and post-motorola quite a lot. Although, we had many more post-motorolas than pre-motorolas at the beginning. From the first phase - before launching the project, I have personally struggled throughout the whole studies to keep a routine with reading programme and BoB was more of a guideline for me as I liked to search for my own books.
Now looking back at this I am noticing things that I find very very important now that I did not pay attention to before. Maybe because it seemed too complicated for me when in fact it can be pretty easy. Budget framework, limits? It doesn't mean you have to do a full analysis on five pages. I think when working on projects we often tended to either stick with the methodologies and made it sacred so it took us much more time than needed or we just went and started doing something without using almost any methods. Now looking back at it, it is not something that should postpone our project for weeks or months, this can be done with the team within a few days and gives you a much higher chance to succeed.
There are things that soon became very automatic for us, like having a learning diary on every training session or the fact that we have to write essays and reach a specified number of points throughout our studies. Though, like many of my teammates I struggled with keeping a balance between reading and practice. So if I should give an advice to someone starting out now, it would be..try to keep training, reading and practice balanced right from the start. Of course, nothing is ideal and we should always strive for getting as close to the ideal as we can. Maybe that is what is so amazing on Team Academy. You can never feel like you don't have more space to grow.
There is one thing that I don't know how to work with until today. And that is a reflection paper. Now looking in the Team Coach´s Best Tools I think I have an idea on what it should look like. It is interesting to look at how difficult it was for me to understand some tools in the first year and how clear and easy to use they look like for me today.
Thanks to ATP I got the first idea of what a project plan should look like. Also that there is something called a steering group (took me a while to wrap my head around that one) or that we should create something called a dependency chart. We tried and failed with different techniques of dependency charts, with Gantt chart leading the way.
What an evolution Birth Givings have had throughout the time I have been here. At first, viewed as a challenge for the whole community and one project team usually ending up with a new customer thanks to BG. I actually had a customer for social media for more than two years from our very first BG and we also scored a customer for my biggest project throughout my studies thanks to BG. It was marketing services for a new glamping accommodation. Nowadays we have birth givings more team focused. Teams use Birth Givings as their offering to customers and as a way to gain money for the whole team.
This book is amazing. It can speed up your adaptation process in TA so much, like it did for me. It is not only the ATP model that you find in there. There is also a rocket model and skill profile. Other useful tools to get to know throughout your studies. Thank you, Partanen!
