The CoachAccountable Blog

I love using CoachAccountable for managing my coaching relationships.  But I have an unfair advantage in understanding why: I have access to coaching relationships in the system that are well under way.  I see it containing data that reveals trends, hosting a comprehensive history of notes, a overall serving as a running illustration of progress.

CoachAccountable looks good as a repository of records and progress because of this, in a way that blank slate graphics stating “Click here to add your first…” simply can’t.

Today that changes.  Coaches who sign up for an account now have their account pre-loaded with data from a 4-month long running coaching relationship, giving them a real sense of how the system serves to track and document progress over time well before they otherwise could with their own clients.

The history of notes, metrics, actions and more are all ripe for perusal.  The data for the Demo Client is you might say “air brushed”: essentially a real coaching relationship (astute readers will recognize Tim) but with most personally identifying bits either removed or changed.

If you’re curious about using coaching software now’s an even better time than before to give it a whirl.  With a full coaching relationship at your fingertips in your free trial account it’s even easier to explore and appreciate how useful it can be.

The other day I illustrated why Metrics are awesome and how they serve coaching relationships.  Today I’m going to sketch out the ways in which CoachAccountable Sessions are great.

A nearly-blank slate! You can use a blank if you want to, though.

At the most basic level, sessions aren’t that special: a way to take notes in an editor with formatting options much like any word processor.  Even with your collection of customizable templates that serve as starting points for your note taking (the above is exactly what I use for regular weekly sessions), we’re not yet talking anything that MS Word can’t do once you’ve hammered out a few template files.

For me the magic starts about 5 minutes before a coaching call.  I log in to CoachAccountable and click on the client with whom I’m about to have a session, and this is what greets me in the Overview:

This tab tells me what she’s been up to….

And this is my color-coded guide for upcoming (and past) shenanigans.

Brilliant.  At a glance (and with the aid of spiffy color coding), I can quickly glean how exactly my client is doing.  Metrics are color coded according to how the figure stacks up against the goal trend line: green and we’re good, light green we’re good but at this rate we’re slipping, yellow we’re under the mark but getting closer, red, well you can guess.  Actions show red when late, yellow when nearly late, and green when on time.  I see Bran wrote a new journal entry, and if there were any newly shared files or completed worksheets, well, those would show up here too.

So that’s my pre-game: it’s quick, it gets me oriented with what exactly my client is dealing with, and informs me of where she’s succeeding, where she’s not.  This will all save us precious minutes on our coaching call, which of course generally feels like it goes by too fast.  Beautifully, this also softens the pain of a progress report in an off week: we can jump straight to dealing with what’s so.  Excuses or hemming & hawing to save face are completely skipped over.

Right then, on to the actual coaching call.  I know it is time because I set CoachAccountable to send me a text alert exactly one minute before my appointments.  I like one minute because it lets me wrap up my review of my client’s progress since our last call, and gets me calling my client right on time, which is a fine touch of professionalism.   (I used to allow my clients to be responsible for calling me, but late starts were too regular, so I take it upon myself to call.  With CoachAccountable appointment reminders I never miss ’em.)

When the call starts I click the “+Session Notes” button, choose my usual template for weekly calls and hit “Begin”.

Then I put down CoachAccountable for most of the hour: I find typing to be a distraction from focused coaching, and have little problem recalling the big points (for inclusion in the session notes) until after the call.  For reasons that will be clear below, my clients know to be logged in themselves to CoachAccountable when possible.

It’s not my purpose here to riff on the actual substance of coaching, for that is a matter of an individual’s style and training and not to be dictated by software.  But I will offer of a few things that I do do during my coaching calls as they pertain to CoachAccountable.

“Great, put that in as an action.” is one of my new favorite things to utter during calls.  Almost invariably my clients and I will hit upon several useful actions that they can focus on in the coming week, and I let them make their own action plan by entering a set of actions.  “Don’t forget to set a few reminders for that.” is another choice phrase, one which I reserve for the kinds of actions that a particular client may be apt to procrastinate on (this is another bit of useful awareness that the color-coded record of actions is good for!).

Towards the end of the call I’m apt to hit the refresh button on the Actions tab and glimpse at what my client has set up for themselves, including due dates.

Metric annotations are another thing I’ll often call for during our call.  Generally, all the Metric stats are entered by the time I get on the phone with my clients.  But we might discover a few nuggets of insight about those stats as we talk.  So I might add (or ask my client to add) some annotations on some of the data points to really build the story around the raw numbers, things like why there was no movement for a week, or why there’s been a large burst in the last two weeks that hasn’t been there the last two months.  Realizations like these are gold for eliminating pitfalls and doubling down on successes, so during our call we record them.

Less often but occasionally I might assign a worksheet as homework, fitting to our discussion and/or plan moving forward.  I might also tell my client to make an action of the form “Write a journal entry about…”.  Having clients journal within CoachAccountable on relevant topics is useful to both of us: entries go in the tangible record of work done in the coaching relationship that both parties can see and look back upon at any time.

Towards the end of our call I like to review that the actions (and possibly metrics) that have been created in CoachAccountable constitute a good game for my client in the week to come: not too much, not too little, and with realistic deadlines.

Then the call ends.  At this point my practice is to type up the session notes right then and there, while still fresh in my mind.

When I hit mark complete, CoachAccountable presents me with a fine idea:

I click yes to make the session notes an even more accurate depiction of what went down during our call.  Then another good idea is presented for my convenience:

My clients find getting these useful: a succinct account of what we just went over, delivered right to their inbox within minutes of our call.  I think it serves nicely to remind them of the key points, and get them better focused on a good week.  With a tick of the check box I can CC myself, and I can add a personal note about the session as a whole that will go direct to my client.  Adding the note as a Stream comment puts it into place as part of the dialog between client and coach in the running records of all things organized by CoachAccountable.

The session is then filed in the chronicle of notes, there to be reviewed, emailed, or printed at anytime by me or my client:

And that’s what it’s like to use CoachAccountable for managing sessions and session notes.  To recap the perks:

1. Prepping for sessions is a snap.
2. Knowing how things are going beforehand saves valuable session time.
3. Automated reminders help ensure you start on time.
4. A clear plan  of action can be created and shared in real time, and reminders can keep that plan on track between sessions.
5. Notes can be readily emailed or printed, and are there for later reference.

Look nice?  It is.  You can try it with your own clients on your very next coaching call with a free 30 day trial.

During the summer I’ve gone on a little about how I’m loving CoachAccountable for my coaching.  Now that it’s released and in the wild, the time is right to do some storytelling on why.

Today I’m going to talk about Metrics, CoachAccountable’s way of managing goals and progress in terms of real numbers.  Here’s an example of what a Metric that’s well in progress looks like:

Mousing over any particular point reveals annotations and where things stand relative to the target trend line.

At the most basic level, Metrics are but graphs of numbers plotted over a span of dates, nothing you couldn’t do in Excel.  But coupled with reminders, target trend lines, and annotations, Metrics are so much more for guiding awareness, making goals real, and motivating progress.

Here’s how this shakes out in practice in a real coaching relationship.

In 45 seconds you or your client create a Metric.  Doing so looks like this:

At a glance this may look like a lot, but read it through and you’ll see that all you’re doing is declaring what you’re going to track, when you’re going to track it, and what’s your target, if you have one.  Regular reminders can be optionally set with a few clicks, and you’re done.

“What gets measured gets managed” is a famous quote by Peter Drucker, and because you’re reading this I’m going to assume you already know this and believe in its wisdom (if not, google it for some good reads).  As a coach one challenge in coaching our people is to get them to follow through with the plans we’ve made during the 6 days that fall between sessions (or whatever interval you coach at).  Measuring progress is one potential point of follow through failure, and minimizing that failure is a real win.

This is where CoachAccountable starts to beat out Excel.  Reminders delivered by text or email right on schedule enable your clients to reply right then and there with the stat of their progress: no system to log into, no need to fire up Excel, not even need to be at a computer if they’re using text reminders or have email on their phone.

The second bonus of this?  Awareness.  They’re in the middle of their week since your last coaching call, and days before the next one.  But the system is reminding them that “Hey: this is something that’s important to you.  How’s it going?”  The prompt to reply with a figure is powerfully orienting.  “Ah.  Someone cares about this.  I care about this.”  Follow through and performance in the matter is again so much more than just a good idea crafted with a coach days ago.

It gets better.

With time and the entry of data points, a graph is built, and superimposed on it is the target trend line, a graphical representation of how intention is stacking up against real performance.  If you’re on the wrong side of your target, the graph shows red.  On the right side, green.  Quickly it is clear when there is stagnation, and when there are bursts of productivity.  Look again at the graph above: you better believe my client was getting a little uncomfortable in mid-January and that the very visual representation of reality was goading him to redouble his efforts and get back to green.

It gets better.

On any data point your clients can make annotations, a simple note detailing what’s going on now relevant to the data point (easily entered by text or email, of course).  I encourage my clients to add a note as often as possible, a little reminder of what’s working when things are going well and what’s happening when things aren’t.  Over time a story builds that’s more than just numbers: trends reveal themselves, common pitfalls reveal themselves, things that really work reveal themselves.  In my client’s graph above we saw the two flat periods when he was spending too much time offline with his fiancee, and that when she was away for a few days his business really hummed.  He was able to have a super straight conversation with her about separation of work and play (he has a home office), and she, dear that she is and committed to his success, was fantastic about working out arrangements and structures to serve that end.

It even gets just a little bit better.

As you might have already guessed, your client tracking his or her progress in this manner gives you an instant and up-to-date view of how things are going.  Read the graph and its annotations and you’re right there in their world, able to proffer up insightful guidance and analysis, focusing laser-like on what’s working and what’s not.  You look like a genius to your clients, offering up just what they need from your elevated awareness of their progress.  You skip a lot of the progress report that eats up valuable time on your calls, and skip any hemming and hawing your client might do to save face in an off week.  You have a leg up in your job of giving your client value, and they are grateful for it.

And that, in total, is why Metrics are awesome.  If you haven’t used them in your coaching yet, give them a try with a free 30 day trial of CoachAccountable.

One of the huge wins of coaching software is to keep a running record of actions and performance metrics.  It makes it easy for you to know at a glance how your client is doing (way better than burning through precious coaching session minutes getting the progress update), allows you to give insightful support based on what is and isn’t working, and gives both you and your client a tangible sense of progress and accomplishment as records accumulate.

The key to realizing these benefits is to make it super easy for a client to keep these records up to date.  Having them log in each day to record what’s new is a lot to ask, trust me.  Over the summer I built a way for my clients to update the system by responding to text reminders, for both actions and metrics.  “Just enter your cell and set up text reminders” I told them, and this worked/works swimmingly for me and my peeps.

But for logistical and technological reasons, CoachAccountable supports SMS interactions only for US cell numbers.  No problem, I figured I’d have some time to handle international users later.  But it turns out that, when I launched last week, one of the first day sign ups happens to be from a fellow based in China.

Looks like the internationalization capacities of CoachAccountable are being tested sooner than later.

So there is to make on-the-fly client data entry available to all, and today I’m releasing a feature that does just that.  Now email reminders can be used for updating things just as easily as text messaging can be.  If you set a reminder email for an action, simply replying to the email with “done” is all it takes to mark it complete in CoachAccountable.  If you have a daily email reminder for tracking your minutes of exercise, just replying “30 a run around the lake” will add that number for today along with your annotation.

So reminders are twice as nice: they keep your client aware of what they’re working on, and allow them to enter and track their progress in seconds.

Writing the reply email looks like this:

And then a minute later the client page shows this:

After 5 months of development and a nearly 3-year hiatus, CoachAccountable is now relaunched in its second incarnation: a near complete remix and rethinking of the original.  As I mentioned earlier version 1 really didn’t deliver in terms of making coaching relationships more effective, but 2.0 has really shone at the task during its incubation with real coaching relationships.

There’s much more to say about the path thus far, but for now I’ll let the software speak for itself.

www.coachaccountable.com

In 60 seconds you can set yourself up with a free 30-day, no credit card required.  Give it a whirl.

Development on CoachAccountable 2.0 has been treat these last 5 months.  These last few weeks the system has seen a lot of polish as everything gets ready for public presentation.  Here are a few screenshots that give a sense for how things are coming together.

Client actions.  Being able to set reminders via text is a serious with for timely follow through.

Client Metrics.  Super easy-to-use system for having clients track quantitative progress.

The Client Stream.  A running display of all elements of a coaching relationship in CoachAccountable, which coach and client can comment freely on keep focus on what’s important.

Assigning a worksheet.  Your own templates, easy to edit on the fly, and with a due date and reminders for your client.

And here’s the system with and without custom branding activated, one of my favorite bits of technical magic that allows coaches to make the system all their own.

CoachAccountable relaunches to the public this week.  Stay tuned.

As I mentioned earlier, I was looking forward to sharing some of the feedback of the CoachAccountable 2.0 beta testers.  Last time around (meaning CA1.0), we were eager to give beta tester accounts to just about anyone who expressed the slightest interest.  Participation among the recipients was scattered to say the least, as stickiness and follow-through with usage and feedback were scarce.

This time around I only invited a select few, people whom I knew from at least a few conversations and who showed above-average interest the potential of coaching software.  This was quite deliberate to minimize distraction from the real task at hand: getting the software ready for a public launch, which is of course where the real feedback comes.

Alas, will such a small sample size any noise on the signal becomes disproportionately large.  In this case the signal I’m after is the kind of feedback that can only arise from in-depth use, and it’s been greatly impeded by busy schedules among my small group (indeed, it’s a tall order to ask any coach to explore adopting a whole new set of tools, especially with things still-in-flux).

So I don’t have perspectives and insights from others about applying CoachAccountable to coaching relationships for an extended period of time.  I do, however, have a few first impressions to share:

I do plan on using it and am very excited about the program. I absolutely love it and it’s capabilities! :-)

And

Love the metrics.  This is a really nice way to track the progress of my coachees.

And then my favorite:

Holy FUCK this is beautiful.   You MUST send an evaluation invite to …  . She’s going to be VERY interested in this, I guarantee.

So there are some good things being seen in the eyes of people who are not me.

Now there is but to get the software out the door and let the whole interested world give it a crack.  I’ve been doing a bit of world travel lately, but soon I’ll be settled in Cusco and with that bit of normalcy progress will resume.  Expect a launch by the end of August, and drop me a line if you’d like to be notified of when you can sign up for your own account.

I’m happy to announce that today the new version of CoachAccountable moves from beyond the confines of me and my coachees, and into the hands of others.  The software has been proving itself well in practice (indeed, the aforementioned condition that I love it has been met), and it is polished and complete now to the point where I’m eager to know how it fares to help the coaching done by other coaches.

To my beta testers I make the following three requests in exchange for a free, full access account for the next three months.  In my words to them they are as follows:

A thought popped into my head earlier today.

It wasn’t my marketing brain that was engaged at the time, though you’d swear it was.  The thought was, quite simply, “Wow, how did I ever do coaching before CoachAccountable?”

Let me explain just a little, lest this sound like a vapid and shameless pandering of my baby.

I had just gotten done with a coaching call with Tim.  Here’s what the role of CoachAccountable looked like for that hour:

1. I prepped myself for five minutes prior to the call by reading the session notes from the last week, glancing at the action items we’d created (observing items that were done, not done, and done late), and glancing at his metrics (observing some numbers that were flat and a growing gap on the graph between target and actual).
2. On our call we jumped right in to what was going on, able to skip over much of the need for (and time drain of) a progress report.
3. As we crafted a game plan I said several times words to the effect of “Great, put that in as an action.”
4. When our call was over I hit the refresh button to see what exactly Tim had entered for himself to accomplish for the week, plus the self-declared due dates for each.
5. With automatic reminders set for each action I could rest well knowing he had a leg up on whole “remembering to follow through” situation.
6. I took 5 minutes to type up the main nuggets from our session into my typical template for session notes (overview, key insights, next actions).

And when I hit save on those session notes, thereby wrapping up our coaching for the week in a tidy little package that would be easy to build upon the next, I had that thought.

“How did I ever do coaching before CoachAccountable?”

It was a juicy and delicious thought when I recognized it.  Of course coaching was never an impossible task without the aid of software, it’s just that CoachAccountable has evolved to the level where it feels like a luxury that would be a shame to go without.

For at least one human being’s style of coaching, the software works.  A very good sign when developing something new.

As I’ve alluded to in recent updates, the development of CoachAccountable 2.0 is being done with the benefit of live coaching relationships taking full advantage of the system.  This allows for practical use that really guides the process and ensures it remains on the right track.  These relationships are with a few friends who have graciously volunteered to be the guinea pigs for CoachAccountable 2.0.

I’d like to now introduce one of them, Tim.

Tim is the owner of BTDenver, a one-man shop that provides computer maintenance, setup, and support services for small businesses.  To put it in readily familiar terms: he’s essentially in the same business as the Best Buy Geek Squad.  But he’ll tell you there’s a real and important difference between a deeply savvy specialist (like he is) and commodity-grade technician proffered up by large service shops like the Geek Squad (in his words, “there are a lot of talented members working there, but the average one working on your problem is basically a high schooler following a flowchart”).

Tim is good at what he does.  He’s managed to sustain himself as a solo entrepreneur for over three years, has a boatload of client testimonials swearing he’s the bees knees, and has the expertise and conversational chops around all things technical to back it up.

Tim and I have been friends for about two years, and as fellow solo entrepreneurs we have a lot in common to talk about.  It was February that he told me he was wanting to up his business game.  Indeed, no matter how good you are at the service you actually sell people, in our position there’s also the “running a business” side of things which calls for a completely different set of skills.  I would begin coaching him informally a month later, and more regularly once the alpha version of CA2.0 was ready (the end of April).

As a way to have Tim introduce himself and share a little about our coaching relationship and using CoachAccountable, I gave him a few questions to answer.  Here’s what he said:

 In March business was good enough to pay my bills but wasn’t growing and fluctuated from dead to too much work on a week to week basis.  I was often frustrated by the situations that arose and either took my unpaid time or caused conflict.

My goal was to transform from a mediocre business that had good and bad days of both income and satisfaction into a rock star level that did more than just pay my bills and was emotionally rewarding much more often than not.

Three factors drew me to CoachAccountable: 1) John, as a coach, had accomplished what I wanted to in a very similar industry recently enough to have relevant insights, 2) CoachAccountable brought a smooth and engaging online interface that realized many of the tools I had wished for in my own attempts at improvement, and 3) being a guinea pig hit the perfect price point for where I was at.

The coaching structure is roughly the following cycle: talk about was is and isn’t working right now, create a plan with actions and metrics as appropriate, receive intermediate feedback if something isn’t working, evaluate and start over.  Some of the “create a plan” step is really just immediate feedback and ideas, the rest is more structured battle plans.

I can see movement toward the models that I want to be using.  My overall satisfaction is higher and I have productive ways of transforming frustrating experiences.  Revenue is already increased too.  I’m not where I want to be, and not even as far as I was hoping to be, but the progress is clear and invigorating.

CA is a great way of connecting the battle plan with daily life.  The online medium is accessible, and the intelligence of the application guides the minutia in a way that a coach couldn’t have time for.  There are limitations to what can be done that probably affect the approaches to problems, but nothing that I’ve been able to notice or regretted.

Without CA it would be much easier to procrastinate on tracking important actions and metrics and more time during coaching sessions would be spent talking about what did and did not happen from last week’s plan.

Even with CA, it’s easy to get caught up in a fire and stop paying attention to the coaching plan for a few days.  It still falls to your own accountability to keep checking in every day and stay focused on the goals.