Summary
Manager’s Coach gives college leaders and managers practical guidance on the problems they deal with every day: people, learners, inspection, funding, budgets and communication. It draws on your college’s own policies and FE Associates’ sector documents, and shows you the source behind every answer. This guide takes you from your first prompt to a worked-through plan for a real problem.
Before you start
- A real situation, described specifically. This matters most. “How do I manage a difficult conversation with a staff member about their performance?” gets you guidance you can use. “Performance management” gets you a general overview. Say what has happened, who is involved and what you need.
- The facts of the case, for drafting. For a letter, an email or a session plan, paste in or upload the details it needs. It cannot see anything else about the case.
How it works
These are deliberate. Knowing them up front saves second-guessing.
It only uses your college’s documents and FE Associates’ material. It does not search the web. If you ask about something those documents do not cover, you get a thin answer or none. The fix is to add the missing document to your library, not to rephrase the prompt. It also means “the latest funding rules” are the latest held in your library, not the latest published online.
Every answer lists its sources. You do not need to ask. Select sourced references at the bottom left of any answer to see the documents behind it. Check the guidance against the original policy before you act on it.
Design Thinking asks before it answers. Select the Design Thinking button and you get a question, not an answer. It needs to know your problem first. Reply, and it works through the method one stage at a time. It will not skip ahead to the report, because each stage builds on what you agreed in the one before.
Try it now
- Open Manager’s Coach.
- Type into the chat box, or use speech to text: “How do I manage a difficult conversation with a staff member about their performance?”
- Press Enter.
- Select sourced references under the answer.
You should get practical guidance on handling the conversation, drawn from your college’s own procedures.
You will know it worked when the sourced references name your college’s own policy, not only general guidance.
Two ways to work
Asking in the chat
- Use it when: you have a question about leadership, learners, inspection, funding, operations, communication or your own development.
- You get: guidance or a first draft, grounded in your college’s documents, with sourced references.
- Note: there are no buttons for the requests below. Ask for them in plain language.
- Rehearse a difficult conversation. “Role-play a conversation with a member of staff about their performance, so I can practise what to say.”
- Draft a communication. Emails to staff or parents, and letters to learners, staff or governors, in line with your college’s procedures.
- Plan a CPD session. “Please design a session plan for [topic] that I can deliver to staff.” Treat the result as a starting point.
- Create an assessment. Multiple-choice or scenario-based questions drawn only from your college’s content and FE Associates’ material.
Design Thinking
- Use it when: you have a specific problem to solve and want a structured method, not a single answer.
- You get: a guided process through five stages (Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test), then a report covering the problem statement, key insights about the people affected, a “How might we…” question, the chosen idea, how to prototype it, and a test plan with measures of success.
- Note: it opens with a question and waits for your answer. This is the only part of Manager’s Coach that works this way.
Walkthrough: solving a problem with Design Thinking
- Select Design Thinking and describe the problem. For example, falling attendance on one programme. The clearer the problem, the sharper every stage that follows.
- Share what you have. Upload or paste attendance summaries, survey results or meeting notes. It reviews them before moving on, so the stages start from evidence.
- Answer the questions at each stage. It asks focused questions, then summarises what you have agreed. Correct the summary if it is wrong, because the next stage builds on it.
- Choose an idea. In the Ideate stage you generate options and pick one. The prototype and test plan are built around your choice.
- Take the report away. The final report brings the six elements together in one place.
Getting better results
- Describe the situation, not the topic. Who, what has happened, and what you need by when.
- Say what your role is when it matters. The guidance is the same whoever asks, so tell it your remit if that changes the answer.
- Read the sourced references, not just the guidance. The quickest quality check is whether it used the policy you would have used.
- Edit the drafts. Letters, emails and session plans are first drafts.
- Keep prompts that work. Every conversation is saved in your chat history, where you can reopen, rename or delete it. Share prompts that work well with colleagues.
- When an answer misses a policy, tell us which one it should have used. That tells us whether the gap is in your library or in the assistant, and it is the most useful feedback you can give.
What it will not do
- Search the web, or open your student records, finance or HR systems. It works from your college’s library, FE Associates’ documents and anything you upload.
- Make decisions for you. It gives guidance and drafts. You remain responsible for investigations, disciplinaries and restructures.
- Send anything. It produces text. You decide what goes out and when.
Your data
- KnowledgeFlow runs in your organisation’s own Azure account. Data does not leave it.
- Prompts and responses are stored in line with your organisation’s data retention policy.
- Uploaded files are accessible only to you, in your browser.
- No user data is used to train the underlying AI models.
Common questions
- I pressed Design Thinking and it asked me a question. Is it stuck? No. It needs your problem before it can start. Answer, and it carries on from your reply.
- Why didn’t it know about the new funding rules? It only uses documents in your college’s library. If the latest version is not there, ask whoever manages your library to add it.
- Does it know I’m a senior manager? No. The guidance is the same at every level. Include your role and remit in the prompt if they matter.
- Where do I find a conversation from last week? In your chat history. Open it to carry on where you left off.
- Can I upload our own documents to a conversation? Yes. Files you upload are visible only to you, in that conversation. They are not added to your college’s library, so upload them again if you start a new conversation.
Next steps
Take a situation you are dealing with now, ask Manager’s Coach about it, and check the sourced references against your college’s policy. Send us anything it missed.