Week 4: YouMap Final Feedback & Wrap Up

Anne-Marcelle Kouame
5 min readJun 4, 2021

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For the past 3 weeks, I’ve completed two group coaching sessions — an initial overview of the Four Pillars of Career Fit + another one focused on teambuilding — then 6 initial one-on-one sessions. This week, I wrapped up 6 more individual sessions, wrapping the YouMap project things with feedback from participants and advisors at Praxis.

The Group’s YouMap Display

For the final coaching week, I had three main goals in mind:

  • Compile the individual session notes up on Notion
  • Create an exit survey and get feedback
  • Display group YouMap on Airtable

Compiling the meeting notes into a summary-landing-page on Notion

Back in week 2 when I did the first one-on-one sessions, I ended up collecting a dozen stories from each participant. I wanted to make it convenient for them to access those stories for interviews, without going through the emails. In my mind, I envisioned participants clicking an FAQ-style dropdown menu that would have the strengths in bold with the examples to go with them at the bottom. I also wanted a place to throw in podcast links, screenshots, and other resources for participants to access on the go. That’s when I thought about using Notion to create a summary-landing-page format, where I could integrate the individuals’ YouMap® report, their stories, and my coaching notes into one spot. Check out the results below:

Creating the exit survey

Prior to the first coaching session, I made an entry survey to ask participants: ``What do you hope to get out of this YouMap® self-discovery process?”

I got a variety of responses like, “self-awareness,” “confidence,” and “understanding my strengths and weaknesses.” Now, it’s time to measure my success base, which calls for an exit survey.

The funny thing is, while I was creating the entry survey, I was also envisioning what the exit survey could potentially look like. I googled a couple of customer satisfaction surveys but found the questions too generic. Then, I contacted the next best source, Kristin Sherry, the creator of YouMap®, to see if she had a YouMap® customer survey example, and she did! So, I used that as a template and came up with two central questions:

  • Overall, how well did the YouMap® workshop meet your expectations

This ties directly to the main question of the entry survey mentioned above.

  • Do you see YouMap® as a valuable tool for your development at Praxis? Why or why not?

Now, I intentionally kept this (final) question open-ended so that I could adapt to each participant and build follow-up questions based on their answers. For instance, I ended up asking these follow up questions:

  • If you could go back, would you want to have had YouMap at the beginning of your Praxis experience?
  • How did YouMap help you get to understand your peers?
  • Where do you see YouMap being implemented within the Praxis Program? Why?
  • Can you tell me more about how you see YouMap playing out in your job search?
  • How has the YouMap process motivated or helped you gain more confidence?

All those questions attempt to gauge participant’s satisfaction about YouMap and the extent to which they’d recommend it to the rest of the cohort and potentially brag about it to the decision-makers at Praxis.

Here is the final exit survey I had participants fill out:

Displaying the Group’s YouMaps on Airtable

Once I got their feedback, I listened to them. A common thread that I kept hearing from participants was that they would’ve liked to see more group activities. Deep down, I was like “me too!” So, I thought it would be cool for each participant to access their peers’ YouMap profile, for future group work and collaborations. Here is the group’s landing page I created using Airtable:

Fun fact: the Airtable YouMap display was actually an idea I had way back during the planning stages of the project. It eventually got put on the back burner, until the participants called out to it again. Having this display not only made it more convenient for participants to access each other’s data, but it also made it less intrusive!

What I learned so far…

A lot! 😆

No really, you won’t even begin to imagine — but I guess you could if you’ve read the previous updates 🙃.

But seriously, the biggest learning curve for me was summarizing my findings into various formats — short videos, gifs, and mini landing pages for 6 people — things got intense! I also realize that as the weeks went by, the content of my documentation got smaller and more succinct, which correlated to how the coaching sessions took less and less time — from the initial 2 hours group session to just 30-minute one-on-ones 🤯.

The best part though was learning from my peers. They’re amazing, insanely talented people, and it was a privilege to have been able to work with them. I mean…

  • Don was kind enough to create a 5mins video highlight from the first (2 hours!) group session, thanks to his creative and intellectual genius!
  • Caysen had that caring, compassionate, and healthy competition that allowed me to be vulnerable
  • Edwin never failed to deliver on his promises. First-person to be onboard with YouMap, enough for me to move forward with the process
  • Noah is a problem solver through and through! He brought that woo energy and curiosity to the room, so much so that the possibilities of Youmap became endless.
  • Parker was the epitome of determination, teamwork, and fun combined! His genuine reactions and “aha” moment throughout the whole process were truly affirming for me.
  • Ade had that high-achieving, balanced temperament that just gave me the confidence to keep going, even when thing got challenging
  • Finally, Liliana, who graciously partnered up with using her strengths: discipline, learner, achiever, restorative, and individualization!

Of course, there are always things I wish I could’ve done better. Yet, if I had to go, I would do it all over again, because it’s all part of the journey!

Next Steps:

Complete this project’s landing page, and it to my talent profile, and pitch the idea to Praxis!

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Anne-Marcelle Kouame
Anne-Marcelle Kouame

Written by Anne-Marcelle Kouame

YouMap® Certified Coach | Cultural Facilitator | Learning & Development | Diversity, Equity & Allyship | On a Mission to Connect the World through Storytelling

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