Frameworks
Beyond GROW: Other Coaching Frameworks Worth Building Notes Around
GROW gets most of the attention because it's the framework taught in the majority of entry-level coaching certifications, but it's not the only structure worth knowing — and it's not always the best fit for the conversation in front of you. Here are a few alternatives, and when each one tends to work better than GROW.
OSKAR: better for solution-focused, short-cycle work
OSKAR (Outcome, Scaling, Know-how, Affirm, Review) comes out of solution-focused brief coaching. It's built for shorter engagements or check-ins where you want momentum more than deep exploration:
- Outcome: what does the client want, described concretely
- Scaling: "on a scale of 1–10, where are you now?"
- Know-how: what's already working, what resources exist
- Affirm: what strengths or progress deserve explicit acknowledgment
- Review: what changed since last time
As a note template, OSKAR is useful because the Scaling number gives you a quick, comparable data point across sessions — "6/10 in week 1, 8/10 in week 4" tells a story that a paragraph of notes doesn't capture as quickly.
CLEAR: better for sessions with an emotional or resistance component
CLEAR (Contract, Listen, Explore, Action, Review) was developed by Peter Hawkins and puts more emphasis on the opening contract-setting and closing review than GROW does. It suits sessions where the client arrives unsettled or where expectations for the session itself need to be renegotiated on the spot.
For notes, CLEAR's "Contract" stage is worth capturing explicitly — what did you and the client agree this session was for? That single line prevents a common failure mode: a session that wanders because neither party stated what they were trying to get out of it.
The FUEL model: better for workplace and performance coaching
FUEL (Frame, Understand, Explore, Lay out a plan) is common in manager-as-coach and internal coaching programs. It's structurally close to GROW but front-loads framing the topic, which matters more in organizational contexts where a session might otherwise drift into general venting rather than a specific, actionable topic.
No framework at all: better for exploratory or creative work
Not every valuable session fits a model. Sometimes the most useful hour is unstructured reflection, and forcing it into Goal/Reality/Options/Will produces a stilted note that doesn't reflect what actually happened. In these cases, fall back to the general-purpose template from coaching session note templates: summary, discussion points, decisions, action items, open questions, dates. It works regardless of what shaped the conversation.
The framework shapes the conversation. It doesn't have to shape the note. Whatever model you use in the room, your written record can still end with the same five things: a summary, what was decided, who's doing what, what's unresolved, and what's due when.
Choosing per client, not per coach
Many coaches use different frameworks with different clients rather than picking one and applying it everywhere. A new client working through a specific career decision might respond well to GROW. A long-term client doing ongoing leadership development might suit CLEAR's more relational structure better. That's fine — see setting up a note-taking system for a new coaching client for how to decide this in the first session or two, and the GROW model breakdown if you want the default to start from.
The one rule that holds regardless of framework: pick a structure for each client relationship and keep it consistent within that relationship. Switching structures mid-stream is what actually makes notes hard to review later, not the choice of framework itself.
A quick comparison
| Framework | Best for | Session length |
| GROW | Goal-oriented decisions | Full session |
| OSKAR | Momentum, short cycles | Short or full |
| CLEAR | Emotional or renegotiated sessions | Full session |
| FUEL | Workplace/performance coaching | Full session |
Mixing frameworks within a single relationship
It's also reasonable to default to one framework for most sessions with a client but deliberately switch for a specific one — using OSKAR's scaling question for a quick momentum check partway through an otherwise GROW-structured engagement, for instance. The note for that session can simply flag the shift ("used a scaling check-in this session instead of the usual structure") so future-you isn't confused by the different shape when reviewing the file later.
What matters more than the framework itself
None of these frameworks are mutually exclusive with good note hygiene. A session run under any of them still needs its outcome captured with a clear owner on each commitment (see why action items need owners) and any unresolved thread carried forward rather than dropped. The framework shapes how you get to that outcome in the room; the note-taking discipline is what makes the outcome usable afterward.
Trying a new framework without disrupting an ongoing relationship
If you want to try a different framework with an existing client, say so plainly rather than switching silently mid-engagement: "I'd like to try a slightly different structure for today's session, to see if it fits better for what you're working through right now." Clients generally respond well to this kind of transparency, and it gives you permission to switch back if the new structure doesn't land, without it feeling like an unexplained change in how you're working together.
Learning a framework well enough to use it loosely
The goal with any of these models isn't to recite the stages rigidly in order — real conversations loop back and skip around. Once a framework is genuinely familiar, it works more as a mental checklist you glance at occasionally than a script you follow step by step, and the notes you take afterward should reflect the conversation that actually happened, not a forced march through four or five stages regardless of where the client needed to spend time.
Whichever framework you coach with, the note-taking step looks the same at the end: summary, decisions, action items, open questions, dates. SessionScribe builds that structure from your transcript automatically, regardless of which model shaped the conversation.