Alliance Coaching

When an alliance needs a coach

A signed agreement gives the project a commercial framework. The people working within it still need to build the relationships and capabilities that make collaboration possible.

That work starts before difficulties emerge. It also matters when a capable team finds itself repeating patterns that are affecting delivery:

• Decisions return to the same forums without resolution.
• Partners protect their own positions and become reluctant to share information.
• Leaders avoid difficult conversations, leaving tensions to grow.
• Commitments are agreed in meetings but ownership weakens afterwards.
• Changes in personnel or project phase disrupt established ways of working.

An alliance coach helps the team recognise these patterns, understand what is sustaining them and work on the conditions that need to change.

Our broader collaborative delivery services support teams through formation, procurement, delivery and relationship reset.

What does an alliance coach actually do?

A team coach works with the team as a living system. The focus includes the relationships between people, the pressures around them and the structures that influence their behaviour.

For an alliance, this can involve the Alliance Leadership Team, Alliance Management Team, project leadership groups and the interfaces between the client, delivery partners and their parent organisations.

The work may include:

• Observing how the team works and helping it recognise patterns that are difficult to see from within.
• Exploring differences in expectations, priorities and assumptions before they become entrenched.
• Supporting constructive challenge and conversations about conflict, trust and accountability.
• Developing clearer decision pathways, working relationships and leadership practices.
• Using feedback and diagnostics to identify where attention is needed and review what is changing.

The scope should respond to the project. A team that is forming needs different support from an established alliance facing a leadership transition or a breakdown in trust.

Coaching, facilitation and advice

A facilitator helps a group work through a conversation. An advisor contributes expertise and recommendations. Team coaching develops the team’s capacity to understand its own dynamics and improve how it performs over time.

Team-building activities create shared experiences and relationships. Individual or executive coaching focuses on a person’s development. Team coaching works on the team’s collective capability, including how its members influence one another.

Each can be useful. Choosing the right intervention requires clarity about the problem and the capability the team needs to build.

Capability and authority

The coach needs the capability to work with complex team dynamics and an agreed mandate to respond when those dynamics affect performance.

A schedule of workshops cannot anticipate every moment when support will be useful.

Leaders need to be clear about the coach’s access to the team, the outcomes being pursued and how emerging concerns can be raised and addressed.

We explore this distinction in our article, The Industry Matured. The Team Coach Role Didn't.

Support across the alliance lifecycle

The relationships that shape delivery begin developing before contract award. They continue to change as people join, responsibilities shift and the project moves into new phases.

Before procurement and during selection

Client teams need to understand the behaviours and capabilities their delivery model will require. Bid teams need to develop genuine ways of working together and prepare for interactive procurement. Behavioural evaluation should consider the environment in which the selected team will operate, including the client’s own readiness.

Formation and mobilisation

Early work establishes shared purpose, role clarity and expectations about decisions and accountability. This is the opportunity to carry procurement insights into delivery and connect agreed behaviours with the project’s governance and operating rhythms.

During delivery

The focus moves to how the team performs in its everyday work. That includes the quality of conversations, responses to pressure, relationships across organisational boundaries and follow-through on commitments.

At transitions or when relationships need a reset

New leaders, changing priorities and difficult project conditions can unsettle established relationships. Coaching can help teams revisit expectations, address unresolved tensions and adjust their ways of working.

The starting point and emphasis should reflect the alliance’s circumstances. These phases describe where support can be useful, rather than a fixed package every project must follow.

The client is part of the work

The client team helps create the conditions in which an alliance performs. Its decisions, information sharing, governance practices and responses to problems influence what is possible for delivery partners.

An active client participates in solving problems, makes timely decisions and invests in the capability required to lead collaboratively. That responsibility continues after the procurement process ends.

Development therefore needs to consider the client side as well as the delivery team. Where are expectations aligned? Where do organisational priorities create tension? What support do incoming leaders need to maintain the project’s ways of working?

Measure what helps the project perform

A positive workshop or a high engagement score provides only part of the picture. Leaders also need to understand the conditions influencing delivery.

Useful areas of attention include:

• Trust between partners and the willingness to raise difficult issues.
• Clarity of decisions, responsibilities and commitments.
• Constructive challenge and psychological safety.
• Relationships across client, delivery and stakeholder interfaces.
• The team’s ability to recognise problems and act on feedback.

Agree what matters for the project, establish a starting point and revisit it as the work develops. Connect those observations with the alliance’s objectives and delivery context, while recognising that project outcomes have many contributing factors.

Measurement is useful when it leads to informed conversations and action.

The leadership team needs to understand and own the response, with the Project Director remaining accountable for outcomes.

ODAPTIC’s survey and diagnostic tools, including the Partnership Index and High-Performance Index, can inform that work where appropriate. The choice of measures should follow the project’s needs and the agreed scope.

Alliance experience with a behavioural perspective

Jessica Niebling brings more than 20 years of experience in Alliance and Collaborative Contracting, alongside a background in People and Culture. Her work combines behavioural science, systems thinking and practical delivery insight.

Our team works with the leadership, culture and relationships that influence complex delivery environments. We adapt our approach to the team’s context and help people have the conversations needed to work through difficult issues.

Meet the ODAPTIC team.

For the leadership conditions that support this work, read What is Great Project Leadership in an Alliance or Collaborative Context?.

Choosing and engaging an alliance coach

A useful starting conversation should establish:

• The project’s objectives, delivery model and current circumstances.
• Which teams and organisational interfaces need attention.
• Evidence of relevant experience, team-coaching qualifications and accreditation, and the ethical and supervision arrangements governing the practitioner’s work.
• The intended outcomes, access and authority required for the work.
• How confidentiality, feedback and progress will be handled.

Be clear about the problem you are trying to solve. A well-defined purpose gives the engagement direction while leaving room to respond as the team learns and conditions change.

If your challenge extends across a longer-term relationship between organisations, our article on strategic partnership coaching explains the distinction between team performance and partnership performance.