In episode 115 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Nataliia Burmei and Simon Tomes are joined by Clare Norman and Gary Hawkes for a conversation full of “fizzy minds” and quality problems. The group start by reflecting on end-of-year pressures, learning goals for 2026 and the launch of the new Thanks button in the MoTverse before turning toward the main topic: quality coaching and how people understand it in their day-to-day work.

The discussion centres on situational quality coaching and the idea that there is no cookie-cutter coaching template. Clare talks about working with teams based on their ability and motivation, and how bridge building across roles helps people care about quality when competing priorities make it hard. Gary shares stories from his organisation, where shrinking teams have made shared ownership essential. He describes whole-team exploratory sessions, giving product managers prompts to think about quality and helping developers “zoom out” instead of getting stuck in the weeds of Jira tickets.

Across the episode, the group return to a simple message: you don’t need “quality coach” in your job title to coach. As soon as you step out of your bubble, ask better questions, help teams see the bigger picture or create space for quality conversations, you are already doing the work. It’s about encouraging learning, care and collaboration so teams can tackle their quality problems together.

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