How do you coach and mentor new or struggling agile team members and help them grow their skills and mindset?

Begin by assessing the current skill level, knowledge, and experience of the team member. Understand their strengths, areas for improvement, and learning preferences. This assessment will help tailor the coaching and mentoring approach to their individual needs.

To assess a struggling team member's agile mindset, hold one-on-one chats to understand their challenges, observe their engagement in agile practices, and gather feedback from peers. Review their work for agile alignment, identify any skills gaps, and encourage reflection on their experiences. This helps identify issues and guide improvements.

To start improving your team's agile abilities, first, figure out where each member stands in terms of their knowledge, skills, and attitude. You can do this by asking questions, watching how they work, getting their input, or having them evaluate themselves. Once you understand their strengths and weaknesses, you'll know what areas to focus on for improvement.

Evaluate team members' agile competency through surveys, interviews, and feedback to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses, facilitating targeted improvement strategies based on identified gaps.

Understanding each team member uniquely is essential for effective coaching in agile teams. Employ diverse tools. surveys, interviews, observations, feedback, or self-assessments to gauge their agile knowledge, skills, and attitude. This approach not only provides a comprehensive view of strengths and weaknesses but also opens doors to transparency and trust. Fostering an environment where individuals feel understood builds bridges for feedback and collaboration. This personalized assessment sets the stage for targeted coaching, creating a supportive foundation for team members to enhance their skills and mindset collaboratively.

To set goals for a struggling team member, first understand their challenges. Set small, clear goals aligned with agile principles, prioritize key areas, and offer support like training or mentoring. Regularly check in to track progress and adjust as needed. First of all show empathy and the take it up further improvements by closely work with them.

Align individual goals using the SMART framework, tailored to roles and levels, ensuring clarity and measurable progress while linking them to broader team and organizational objectives for effective communication and tracking.

Fostering a culture of transparency, inspection, and adaptation is vital when setting measurable goals for agile teams. Introduce goals collaboratively, framing them as personal objectives rather than imposed targets. Through open communication and involvement, team members feel a sense of ownership and motivation. ensuring clarity and measurability, aligning individual goals with team and organizational objectives. Frequent communication and clear alignment allow for continuous adaptation, making the goals not just benchmarks but dynamic targets that the team collectively embraces. This approach instills a sense of purpose and commitment, driving intrinsic motivation and ensuring that the team actively champions their own set goals.

Establish objectives: Collaborate with the team member to define specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.

To support a struggling team member, start with constructive, specific feedback on their performance. Focus on behaviors and outcomes, and provide actionable advice for improvement. Offer encouragement and recognize their efforts to build confidence. Suggest practical resources like training, tools, or mentorship to address skill gaps. Set up regular check-ins to discuss progress, address any issues, and adjust support as needed to help them succeed

Encourage knowledge-sharing sessions and create opportunities for cross-functional collaboration. By promoting a culture of continuous learning and open communication, team members can leverage diverse perspectives, strengthening their skills and collectively enhancing the overall agility of the team.

Support and feedback are pivotal in nurturing agile teams; personalized approaches and varied techniques foster learning and growth while positive reinforcement and constructive feedback foster a balanced environment for development.

Offer consistent support and constructive feedback throughout the coaching process. Be available to answer questions, provide guidance, and address concerns. Regular check-ins and one-on-one meetings can be valuable for discussing progress, challenges, and strategies for improvement. Create a safe environment where team members feel comfortable seeking assistance and sharing their experiences.

Nurturing young agile teams involves providing supportive guidance without imposition. Recognize the team's needs and preferences, employing techniques like coaching, mentoring, and training. Encourage peer learning to foster a collaborative environment. Emphasize positive and constructive feedback, showcasing achievements, and addressing challenges. Motivate the team by highlighting successes over failures, emphasizing the transformative power of learning from setbacks. Cultivating a culture that sees failures as stepping stones to growth ensures the team remains motivated and resilient in their agile journey.

Encourage collaboration and reflection within the team through tools like stand-ups and retrospectives, fostering communication and continuous improvement for better outcomes and cohesion. Utilize interactive methods like exercises and games to stimulate learning and engagement, enhancing the effectiveness of reflection sessions and team dynamics.

Foster a culture of collaboration within the team by encouraging open communication, knowledge sharing, and teamwork. Facilitate collaborative activities such as pair programming, group retrospectives, and peer reviews to promote continuous learning and improvement. Encourage team members to reflect on their experiences, successes, and setbacks to gain insights and identify areas for growth.

In the formative stages of team development, fostering collaboration and reflection is crucial. Employing tools like daily stand-ups, retrospectives, and demos, promotes communication, transparency, and feedback. These events serve as key touchpoints through the team's stages, from forming to performing. Transparency in sharing progress and challenges during stand-ups and planning fosters team unity. Regular retrospectives encourage reflection and adaptation, addressing issues and fostering continuous improvement. Celebrating successes solidifies bonds and motivates the team through storming and norming stages, ultimately guiding them to the performing stage where collaboration and reflection become ingrained for sustained success.

Modeling the agile mindset means embodying customer focus, adaptability, collaboration, and continuous improvement, fostering a culture of empathy, respect, trust, and humility to inspire and guide your team effectively.

In nurturing growing agile teams, embodying the agile mindset as a servant leader is paramount. Serving as a living model, demonstrate agile values like customer focus, adaptability, quality, collaboration, and continuous improvement in actions and decisions. Exhibit empathy, respect, trust, and humility in interactions. Being an example of agility inspires the team, providing a tangible reference for the agile mindset. A servant leader fosters an environment where team members find inspiration, guidance, and a genuine representation of agile principles in practice, contributing to the team's growth and success.

Acknowledge team efforts in becoming agile through recognition, incentives, and fun activities, fostering a supportive culture and sharing successes for continued motivation and a positive environment.

This space invites sharing unconventional insights, like unexpected partnerships' impact, the transformative power of setbacks, and the influence of mentors, offering nuanced perspectives beyond predefined categories. It's a canvas to explore the untold stories that enrich our journeys.

With a decade in the internal audit realm, coaching and mentoring agile team members is my jam. It's always better to chat with the newbies and those feeling a bit lost, showing them the ropes with an audit lens. It's all about blending precision, adaptability, and a sprinkle of strategic thinking. We're not just ticking boxes; we're dancing through complexities, seeing challenges as opportunities to shine. And, communication being our secret sauce. But it's not just talking; it's a real-time chat, a constant flow of ideas.

Agile coaches can play a vital role in assisting team members in developing an agile mindset by guiding the project manager and team in utilizing fundamental agile tools such as Scrum and Kanban software. Through aligning teams or organizations with Agile values and concepts, Agile coaches empower them to enhance flexibility, transparency, and efficiency.

Need to consider building a culture in the company. The struggle that a new employee is experiencing is likely because of a lack of supporting culture.

In my experience, the first thing to do is to have an open conversation with each team member. Depending on the levels of trust and transparency between each team member and me, I will start differently. For example, we could speak about career goals and the appetite for personal development. Depending on the context, we will agree together if coaching, mentoring or training is the best way to go.