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Agile Coaching

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Written by CMC Media Staff   
Tuesday, 10 August 2010 01:00
Agile Coaching -  August  2010

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Have you recently joined an Agile team or been part of one for some time and aren't fully clear on the roles and responsibilities – like Agile Coach?

The collaborative nature of being agile and lean presents an interesting paradigm shift where roles and responsibilities somewhat blur and teams ideally self-organize and self-direct. The agile coach, among other roles, respectfully knows the importance of not offending or alienating folks in exiting organizational roles such as Quality Analysts, Project Managers, Business Analysts, Testers, etc.; roles not specifically defined in Scrum. As time goes on, the agile coach helps team members reflect on and refine their roles to meet the goal and needs of the team and organization.

The topic for this month’s edition is: Agile Coaching. The articles contained within you should find insightful, thought provoking, creative and worth your while to read.

In my article What is an Agile Coach, I introduce an agile coach is a go-giver not a go-getter and guided by an internal gyroscope that is set to SMART.
  • Servant-Leader and System Thinker
  • Modest and Motivated
  • Attentive and Attuned
  • Respectful and Resilient
  • Trustworthy
Portia Tung, in her article "The Power of Play: How Educational Games Accelerate Learning and Bring About Enduring Change," cleverly and insightfully shares with us the breakthrough of “the power of play” that will fuel your courage and desire to achieve even more and that you’ll never tire of striving to become better every day.

Dr. Pan-Wei Ng and Mark Magee, in their article "You Have To Be Agile To Coach Agile," discuss how to work with people, how to can manage coaching progress and setting objectives and expectations.

Lyssa Adkins, in her article "Agile Coach Performance Management: Measure Yourself as a Coach, Not as a Manager," shares with us a chapter from her recently released book Coaching Agile Teams.

Alan Atlas and Mark Kilby, in their article "Agile Coaching for Your Agile Company," discuss why coaching and training are indispensable to agile transformations.

Laurie Sheppard, master certified Life and Career Coach, in her article "Coaching Fundamentals," discusses:
  • What is the Purpose of Coaching
  • What Exactly Is Coaching
  • What Makes a Good Coach
  • How Is Coaching Made Easy
  • What Makes Coaching Difficult

Nirav Assar, in his article "The Agile Tipping Point," insightfully answers the questions:
  1. Is being knowledgeable about Agile, having lots of experience, and being persuasive the keys to success?
  2. Are there other more effective ways to make an idea spread?
Martin Kearns, in his article "Coaching is Key for Scrum Success," shares part one of a two part article about how an organization can maximize the benefits of Scrum while minimizing its learning curves and stumbling blocks by effective coaching.
Featured articles...

Agile Journal
What is an Agile Coach?
by Russell Pannone
“An agile coach is three parts go-giver[1] and one part go-getter”.

As a go-giver the agile coach focuses on putting others’ interests first and continually adding value by serving an individual’s, teams’ and organization’s needs and helping them effectively and pragmatically deal with both their day-to-day and long-term challenges.

An agile coach is guided by an internal gyroscope that is set to SMART.

Read More >>

Agile Journal
The Power of Play: How Educational Games Accelerate Learning and Bring About Enduring Change
by Portia Tung
As children, we learn through play. Because play is so much fun, it creates a virtuous circle where we play and learn. As adults, with the help of educational or “learning” games, the lucky ones among us find ourselves playing to learn once again. Judging by the popularity of learning games, we can still learn a lot through play. For some, it may even be the best way to learn.
Read More >>


Agile Journal
You Have To Be Agile To Coach Agile
by Pan-Wei Ng and Mark Magee

If software development is about wiring code, then coaching is about re-wiring the neurons in each practitioners head and re-wiring their relationships. Yes, coaching is about changing people. You cannot expect a one-size fit all solution, so you need to adapt the recommended practices and approach.  This paper discusses how to work with people, how to manage the coaching progress and setting objectives and expectations. This paper also talks about coaching not being just about helping the team learn, but also for you to learn and grow. You have to be agile to coach agile.

Read More >>

More articles...
Agile Journal
 Agile Coach Performance Management: Measure Yourself as a Coach, Not as a Manager
by Lyssa Adkins

Drive toward results. Direct the work of others. These are some phrases you might see in a managerial job posting or in a company’s performance review criteria. Before becoming an agile coach, I even took a job that included this phrase: “Herd the cats.”

The desire to control comes through loud and clear in the way most people’s worth is measured by their company’s performance management process. When it comes to performance review time, these controlling phrases crop up anew. Many successful agile coaches have been dismayed to learn that, despite the amazing results their teams produced and despite the new clarity and purpose that pervades the workplace, measuring their contributions still includes phrases such as “Herd the cats.”
Read More >>

Agile Journal
 Agile Coaching for Your Agile Company
by Alan Atlas and Mark Kilby
Coaching and training are indispensable to Agile transformations. This can be difficult for some organizations to accept.  Agile frameworks are simple to understand, but there are many nuances to handling the complexities involved in an Agile transformation.  While it is often helpful to tap into outside resources (books, websites, courses or consultants), the organization will need someone who understands the subtleties of Agile transformations and the context of the organization to make the transition as successful as possible.  We refer to this role as the “internal Agile coach” and we often encourage clients to identify one or more such individuals as the organization's need for Agile knowledge and understanding grows. Being an Agile coach requires a wide range of human qualities, skills and experience, and selecting one for the company should be done carefully.  In this article, we discuss when you need an Agile coach, what an Agile coach does, and a few tips on how you might create your own internal Agile coach.
Read More >>

Agile Journal
 Coaching Fundamentals
by Laurie Sheppard
What is the Purpose of Coaching?
In our work environments and personal lives we’re always looking to make clear, thoughtful choices, speak them clearly, and execute them in effective ways.  We want to optimize our time and energies to create valuable outcomes.  All this can happen spontaneously and without a plan, but with foresight to think and plan before taking actions, especially for larger goals, there’s a higher probability for getting quicker and more reliable results.
Read More >>

Agile Journal
 The Agile Tipping Point
by Nirav Assar
Agile consultants often take on the responsibility of helping an organization adopt Agile Methodologies.  This is a challenging task to say the least.  Introducing new ideas into an organization requires social intelligence, advanced communication skills, and persuasiveness, not to mention a sound grasp on Agile principles and practices.   In many large organizations, the Agile consultant must also contest the deeply embedded mentality of traditional waterfall.  The software industry changes constantly, but people's habits and minds aren't always amenable to change.
Read More >>

Agile Journal
 Coaching is Key for Scrum Success – Part One of Two
by Scrum Alliance
Organizations eager to solve the problems they see in their projects or processes often decide to adopt Scrum in the belief that it will immediate solve all those problems. Although Scrum can and often does resolve some problems immediately, it also has the potential to expose or exacerbate other existing problems and can even appear to create a few problems of its own.

In some cases, this can be seen to be a “failure” of Scrum, even when implemented by an organization that was initially enthusiastic and determined. This perceived failure can cost the organization considerable time and money if the Scrum team continues along the same path they are on, despite the unresolved problems. These costs, as well as frustrations and even pressures from inside or outside the Scrum team can cause Scrum to be abandoned without ever demonstrating its full potential.
Read More >>


Last Updated on Wednesday, 08 September 2010 09:47
 
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