Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal 3 | Page 29

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2019, Vol. 3
CoP in action
The CoPs were organised to take place every seven
weeks. In September, they launched and the aim of
the first session was to determine the content of the
CoPs and the logistics (when and where they would
take place, what would be involved, how they would
communicate outside of sessions). A number of
discussion topics were identified and it was agreed
that the CoPs would take place on a Wednesday
morning, with Hive being used to record key
discussions and actions from the sessions. To date,
each CoP has met three times since the launch.
The second CoP was much more structured than
the first, with one of three topics for discussion
available to choose from (measuring impact,
differentiation and planning) along with specific
guidance on how to have reflective conversations.
The conversation framework provided encouraged
coaches to consider the problems they face when
undertaking each topic, discuss strategies and ideas
to resolve the problems and then create an action
plan to deal with the problems.
The setup for the CoP has evolved over time with
the first CoP involving 12 discussion topics for
coaches to choose from (eg after-school clubs,
display boards, behaviour management). The
structure was loose in that the coaches were
provided with no guidance about how to go
about the discussions. Coaches split themselves
into different sized groups and worked their
way through the questions. Although there were
pockets of good discussion, conversations were
largely superficial and did not go into depth. This
was associated with the lack of guidance and the
inclusion of 12 topics to cover in the session. As
a result, these learnings were acknowledged and
applied to the second CoP.
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