The Team Software ProcessSM (TSPSM) will get each of your software development teams off to a good start. But what will happen after the launch? On-going software team coaching will assure that the team makes the best use of its members' Personal Software ProcessSM (PSPSM) Training. Your teams' coach will interact with each team on a weekly basis to be sure they are capitalizing on their newly-learned processes and turning them into habits. The coach is also available on an ad-hoc basis to answer team members' questions and provide direction for them.
Just as the worlds of sports and the arts have long known the value of coaches, software development organizations are now learning the same thing. They are discovering that a software engineer coach provides the perspective and drive to challenge their teams to excellent performance and continual professional improvement. While your engineering teams focus (as they should) on developing software, their coach maintains his focus on developing those teams.
The coach constantly challenges each team member to understand his or her performance, to learn from mistakes, to build important skills, and to push the limits. The coach helps the team to set aggressive but achievable improvement goals, take concrete steps toward achieving them, and measure progress against those goals.
All programmers who aspire to being software engineers need the expert guidance of a Software Engineer Coach. Whether the person has completed Personal Software ProcessSM (PSP) training or has not yet done so, having a professional coach can mean the difference between a medeocre career and a stellar one. Watts Humphrey, near the end of the PSP book said it well:
We have not yet developed a coaching ethic in software development. It could certainly help if we did. Sports and the performing arts have learned the value of coaching. Coaches help professionals to maximize their talents. ...It seems unlikely that truly superior software development performance will be achieved without the help of skilled coaches. The software coach will have three objectives:
- Motivate superior performance.
- Insist on a dedication to excellence.
- Support and guide individual development.
ASK Process helps software development teams in just those ways. By challenging them to learn the best techniques and then to build their professional skills, we encourage each software team member to constantly grow and work at his or her peak performance.