Version 1.2 | 2 June 2023

The coaching relationship is different than a manager, trainer or colleague relationship. It is a true collaboration. It is precisely because of this that coaching can be so valuable and transformative when undertaken sincerely.

What coaching is not:

• Therapy

• Training

• Handing you the answers

What coaching is:

• Safe space to work at three levels: 1) inspiration and education on expanding your own Product skills, 2) focusing on your overall career progression and 3) committing to actions that integrate who you are as a whole human being with your career.

• Helping you help you. No one knows your job, company, colleagues or situation better than you. I bring deep Product and leadership experience and (important) neutrality. Together, we will help you identify your best answers to your professional questions, small or large.

As coach, I bring over twenty years of technology product management/ leadership experience. I have been in roles similar to yours. I have lived startup and growth and mature company stages. As such, I have plenty of strong opinions and advice to give. But as your coach, I will try to listen and synthesize more than advise.

Why?

No matter how much experience I have, I have never stood in your exact shoes. No one has. You ultimately know better than anyone what you should do next. The problem is having enough time/ objectivity/ breath to uncover your own best ideas and insights.

Coaching creates carved out space for you to do this work and combines it with a knowledgeable listener who has faced similar challenges before. I will be asking you lots of deeply rooted questions (sometimes annoyingly on repeat). I will ask you why a lot. I be experimenting with you on how to clear your own roadblocks and improve your professional skills.

None of this work is easy, instant or straightforward. We will be combining Product know-how with human vulnerability and intuition. Just like product work itself. If you bring a strong product mindset to your own coaching sessions (particularly curiosity, experimentation, unbiased observation) it goes a long way.

That is what you can expect in terms of vibe.

As your coach, I will:

• Arrive at our coaching sessions on time, prepared, and focused. I do a lot of thinking about our specific work between sessions.

• Wait for fifteen minutes if you are late and then consider the session canceled/billed.

• Ask you to determine the contents of the session as you see fit. When you schedule your session, the Calendly appointment form asks what topic you want to cover. Feel free to add your ideas for the coming session there… or just show up with your topics in mind.

• Listen without judgment and work with you as coach, eliciting your own thoughts before offering my own advice or “solutions” unless you ask specifically for mentoring or training which is a different track.

• Maintain confidentiality unless I have reason to believe that there is a risk of harm to any person or am required to do so by law. Occasionally, I will have explicitly agreed to share certain types of session information with someone else at your company (typically your boss) and I will disclose this to you at the start of our work together. What I share there will be limited and known to you. Overall, what you share is between you and me.

• Ask a lot of questions intended to help you explore your ideas and options.

• Hold you accountable for the actions that you commit to in our sessions.

• Be available for ad hoc sessions which can be scheduled here and for unlimited email correspondence between sessions as useful.

As coachee, you will:

• Commit to regular coaching sessions (approximately biweekly) for as long as the coaching relationship provides value.

• Provide 48 hours cancellation notice for a session. If you choose to reschedule, please give me at least 24 hours notice. You may cancel or reschedule through the Calendly appointment you booked under. If a call is cancelled less than 48 hours out, the session will be billed regardless. Please do your best to avoid short-notice reschedules (less than 24 hours out).

• Establish the focus area for each coaching session, either before the session or through a discovery process at the start of the session.

• Bring your whole self and be open, vulnerable, and honest in this work.

• Approach the experience with curiosity and openness to learning more about yourself.

• Tell me if the format or relationship is not working in some way (and, as product person, what could be better).

With that understanding, we agree to establish a coaching relationship.