---
title: "Session mechanics"
url: https://techleadcoaching.com/guides/coaches/mechanics
description: "Length, cadence, notes and follow-up, and why each is set the way it is."
---

# Session mechanics

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/guides/coaches · 18 March 2019

The mechanics are dull and they carry a surprising amount of the value. Sessions that fail rarely fail on technique; they fail because they were rescheduled twice, ran without notes, and lost the thread.

*Working defaults for a coaching series*

| Mechanic | Default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Thirty to sixty minutes | Long enough to reach reality and options, short enough to hold attention and to defend in a calendar. |
| Cadence | Once a month | Leaves a real interval for the way forward to be tried at work before it is reviewed. |
| Setting | One to one, no observers | The presence of anyone from the same organisation changes what can be said. |
| Notes | Kept by the lead, not the coach | The commitments belong to the person acting on them. |
| Opening | Review the previous way forward | Makes the series continuous rather than a set of unrelated hours. |
| Closing | One action, one signal | An action without a signal cannot be reviewed next month. |

## Rescheduling

Move a session rather than cancel it, and move it once. A series that has been postponed twice has effectively ended, and it is more honest to say so and restart deliberately than to let it fade.

## Ending a series

Series should end on purpose. Agree in advance roughly how many sessions you are both committing to, review at that point, and be willing to conclude that the useful work is done.

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