SkarpNext steps: Diagnose Before Coaching
Three practical lessons for professional development.
The first lecture plays free — no account needed.
Course Content
3 modules · 17 min total
Coach, Teach, Direct, or Unblock? Choosing the Right Manager Response
Decide whether a team member needs a question-led coaching conversation, direct instruction, additional context, or removal of an organisational obstacle.
Listening for Missing Context, Missing Skill, and Missing Confidence
Decide whether a team member needs a question-led coaching conversation, direct instruction, additional context, or removal of an organisational obstacle.
From Solution Giving to Trade-Off Questions
Guide an engineer to evaluate requirements, risks, evidence, trade-offs, and reversibility without prescribing the technical answer.
Read the Textbook
Read every chapter for free, right here in your browser.
Start with the constraint When an engineer is stuck, do not assume they need coaching. A missed design decision can result from four different conditions: a capability gap, a knowledge or context gap, a time-critical delivery need, or an organisational obstacle.
Your job is to diagnose the condition before selecting the response. Coaching develops judgment; teaching transfers know-how; directing creates immediate alignment; unblocking changes conditions that the individual cannot reasonably solve.
Sweden work-environment context This is not only a management preference. In Sweden, systematic work-environment management must cover organisational and social conditions as part of daily operations. AFS 2023:1 has applied since January 1, 2025 and replaced AFS 2001:1.
Study Flashcards
Key concepts from this course as flashcard pairs.
Coach, Teach, Direct, or Unblock? Choosing the Right Manager Response
Coach
Use questions to develop judgment when the engineer has enough context, authority, and baseline capability.
Teach
Transfer a missing method, technical skill, domain model, or team practice.
Direct
Make an explicit decision when time, safety, incident response, or compliance risk requires it.
Unblock
Remove a dependency, authority gap, access problem, conflicting priority, or resource mismatch.