Conversational “Draft” Whitepaper Part 2s Part 2 or Part 3! No More Scrum Master as Coach

Golden Nuggets, Honest, Unbiased Thinking, Opinion, Entertaining Long Reads and Mini Guides of Practical, Pragmatic and Shared Know How from me as an Agile Practitioner to help you Accelerate your Journey towards Enterprise Agility.

Coaching in Practice | Op Models | Business Models | Modern Agile Coaching Strategies

Part 2 Continued:

Recognising How the Craft of “Agility Coaching” is Practiced

Regardless of the Type and Levels of Agile Coaching, its all anchored around the Agile Manifesto, Thinking, Culture, Methods, Frameworks and Models of Agility.

Here is the identify crisis bit.

We are not hippies and fairies as the hard and fast manager types portray/view us.

We are not traders in black magic, potions, and witchcraft from some cult.

We do try to practice our craft at timely, contextually relevant, and responsive moments.

Masters, Engineers and Managers don’t like us in the way or interfering with their man hours, resources, capacity targets and schedules.

So we have adapted our models and strategies around our senses, judgement and self-mastery to know when to lean it or out and to move from Facilitator, Teacher, Trainer, Mentor/Advisor around our clients “maturity” or Shu Ha Ri

This makes us very dynamic and largely unpredictable, different to the Scrum Master following a set repeatable pattern and something manager types struggle with as we respond.

We do this to avoid a staged and/or linear CMM style approach which is – anti agile, and not responsive to coachee needs as it doesn’t align to Systems Thinking – optimising the whole and not parts, however this is a challenge as managers naturally want to measure stuff, hence why CMM came about, so useful in some sense to show what we are aiming for, but also a rod for our own backs.

So what sets us apart, is our ability to wear multiple hats and shift between them to grow people and business performance as a Master of the 9 -12 Pillars or Domains of Business Agility.

To do this, lets look at the present Levels and Types of Agile Coaching ( career progression paths) the Operating and Business Models I think are currently at work and in need of modernisation by Do More, Doing Less, Keeping the Same or Stopping to have a robust reference for good practice to emerge and evolve onwards and upwards from:

Levels:

Process Facilitation - Stopping

This is what Scrum Masters, Kanban Masters, RTEs and STEs do with inflight or team/trains up and running.

The value aligned teams then get handed over to the SCMs, RTEs and STEs to steward the Teams and Trains.

They assuring the people, team or train following Scrum, Kanban and SAFe process method.

Ideally in a well-executed Transformation Coaching Sub - Strategy, teaching, training, self-directed learning, training courses or boot camps would have been attended before this can occur.

This is the pre-requisite often missing, the mobilising and training of people, which makes it hard for the SCM, RTE and STEs to do their actual job as they get side tracked into Teaching and Training – skills they have little to no mastery of.

SCMs/STEs/RTEs can an ideally should help in the mobilisation so they start building up a rapport/relationship.

To Master and Engineer, they support Business, Solution and Product Owners to prepare backlogs from the Product Visions, Canvases and Roadmaps, adding Epics, Enablers, Features, Components – all forms of User Stories to work flow boards so items can be pulled by individuals using Kanban or pushed to Scrum team members to coordinate the work through release maps, prioritisation, card types, sprint planning, demos, reviews, daily stand ups, iterations and increments etc.

As a Coach, we need to Stop Doing this as much for in our assignments or roles. This is how we get undervalued and organisations don’t get properly funded, designed, and structured for Organisational Agility.

This is where a System of Coaching needs to be developed and the Coach, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Managers, Platform, Feature owners, SPCs etc become symbiotic and take up their bits at the right time to assist the overall System lead by the Coach as Strategist and Tactician.

This also helps with Flow and Value Management, instilling discipline from taking User Stories from the Portfolio, Solution and Product Management Levels, being servant to them, and not creating stuff by themselves, a signal of undisciplined teams, and different to collaboration and co-creation.

Agile Team Coaching – Doing More

Agile Coaching is when a Coach works on developing several teams and the process facilitators stewarding them.

The person as a SME in Lean Agile and Complimentary Practices and Domains should be focusing on uplifting the technical practices, domain knowledge and culture using mostly professional coaching, assessment, teaching, and training during process facilitation, at retrospectives, I&A events and PI Planning Day 1 to embed it into the next iterations and increments by working closely, collaboratively and most importantly, invited by the team.

Agile Coaches should be using feedback tools like AgilityHealth Team Radars, Comparative Agility or other repeatable, qualitative and quantitative longitudinal measures of trends and performance to maintain objectivity to prove observations and experiences above and beyond what Scrum Masters should collect at Retrospectives from Temp Checks, Fist Of Fives, Glad/Mad/Sads, Sailboats etc etc

Enterprise Agile Coaching – Doing Loads More!

To future proof us – this is where we are most relevant to Businesses.

EACs work largely with the Execs, Boards, C-Suite and Transformation Groups, like a LACE or Agile CoE for example.

This person focuses on developing the organisation′s capacity to use Agility as a strategic business asset, including culture change, leadership development, and work at all organization levels and across all functions, departments, lines of business etc.

Their role is much broader and deeper than the Agile Team Coach.

EACs examine all the domains of enterprise, business and organisational agility – that’s 9 -12 domains – in a Systems Thinking approach to move people, teams, businesses and the entire enterprise from Shu, to Ha to Ri, or from crawling, walking, running to sprinting and marathoning, which ever metaphor you like, the Conductor of the Orchestra.

EACs look at adoption strategies, architecture, organisational design, technical practices, culture, and politics and use Agile Team Coaches and Process Facilitators as their arms and legs to enable the domains across parts of the business/enterprise and are the Strategists and Tactician’s or Transformation Master – did I just coin a new Agile role and term!

Types

One to One – Do More

Usually done by an Agile Coach or EAC who has the depth and breadth to Coach or Mentor only.

This usually occurs to support a person new to an Agile role post training/certification/accreditation.

Its typically more Mentoring/Advising than Coaching as your passing your expereince, knowledge, understanding, application down/over helping to embed newly acquired skills and break bad habits through storytelling, reflective questioning, and examples.

It happens via 30 - 60mins pre booked time slots and after the Coach Observing, Listening, Acquiring Feedback on the individual in relation to their Agile role only.

Its is not Therapy or Counselling.

Technical - Do More

Usually done by a Specialist Agile Coach who is focused on a competency area or specific group of skills e.g. Site Reliability Engineering, Continuous Delivery, New Product Development.

Usually occurs in small groups of less than 10 from multiple teams then participants are sought to fill the places/spaces

Sessions are usually scheduled and run as as Dojo’s, Labs, Hacks, Mob Programming Activity around the same problem, same machines, technology, platform, or product.

Highly likely start off as a Show and Tell Me Coaching and then turn into action learning, experiential learning when the Coach moves ot the back of the room and starts to nudge, shape and influence people to ensure deep learning occurs for real world application.

Such Technical Coaching is extremely likely to occur around topics like; securing a code base in a Git Repo, setting up automated test cases and running them in Cucumber or Gherkin for Test and Behaviour Driven Development, Refactoring Code, building 12 Factor Apps, Ethical Hacking to setting up a Portfolio Kanban in JIRA Align.

Group – Keep Same

Usually done by an Agile Coach or EAC.

Extremely like to focus on the outcomes of Observed Behaviours, Trends, Patterns, Technical Practices or Measurement.

Typically done to small – to large groups as an awareness raising, evangelism, rainy or sunny-day storytelling, course correcting education activity from multiple teams and programmes.

Sessions are usually incorporated into wider activities like PI Planning, Innovation and Adaption Events, Retrospectives, Offsites, Big Room Conferences or Town Halls.

Goal and Use Case is usually to improve overall innovation practices, culture or people dynamics so teams and programme can better self-manage, regulate, govern and use cross functional and multi - disciplinary assets/skills/talent.

System – Do Loads More

This is the highest level, most transformative level and type of Agile Coaching.

Typically done by a highly experienced Enterprise Agility Coach to diagnose, troubleshoot, optimise, and change the overall System of Work.

The Goal or North Star is Business Agility – not Scrum, not Lean, the Big, Big Picture

Extremely likely to focus on Vision, Strategy, Tactics, Org Design and Structure, Transformation Roadmap, Managers and Leaders roles in Transformation, OKR settings, Managing the Transformation Backlog, Capability Streams, Enablers and Architecture, Business and Operating Models, Policies, Process and Culture to getting HR, Legal, Procurement and other usually non -agile functions Agile.

This is not the type or level of Coaching to be led by Scrum Masters, STEs, RTEs, SPCTs. Red Flags.

Operating Models:

The Allowed Permission Model – Stop Doing

A lot of Agile Coaching has had to occur “out of hours” or “off the clock” because it not baked into Sprints, Iterations, and Increments, as opposed to the Lean Kaizen concept of Continuous Improvement under the PDCA cycle, Katas or ISO 900 etc.

So a lot of Coaching has occurred at:

·      Lunch and Learn/Brown Bag Sessions/Mind Gym Style events

·      8am All Hands Calls

·      6pm All Hands Calls

This happens because Traditional Management, and PMOs under value proper Learning and Development and don’t want it to disturb their 100% utilisation metrics.

The Surgery Model – Keep the Same

This is what I call the Surgery/Clinic or Drop In Model.

It feels naught, like outreach work and generally fails to engage people deep enough to embed or make change stick

This model operates by the Coach being accessible between certain pre-defined hours or a window.

Typical approach is the Coach sits in the Coffee Shop or Breakout Spaces between 2 - 4 pm, bring a cuppa and come on over, and hopefully join the queue if you’re in demand or ping me IM via Teams or Slack Coaching Channel.

This can work for some limited situations if you keep a Coaching Contact Sheet or Jb Sheet, and you can track your Coachees, eg have a provoking or opening conversation, let them dwell and reflect to hold them, then get them back for two or three mover deeper conversations to role play and reverse scenarios.

Internal Coaching Model – Do Less

Where Coaches are recruited to form a Coaching Centre of Excellence, Hub or Guild.

Often fails – see story in Part 1.

Coaches are usually champions or the best of whose spare or available and therefore are not Coaches with an Agile Coaching Stance, Mindset or Skill base.

Are often people who would rather work on code or the product

Are often ex Project Managers

Are inward career focused and don’t engage with wider Agile, Agile Coaching or other Communities to bring ideas and innovation externally inwards.

The Coaching Centre of Excellence, Hub or Guild often is badly lead and managed attached to a Traditional PMO and is measured by activity instead of outcomes.

External Coaching Model – Keep Same

High Cost, High Reward if you seek, select and retain the right Agile Coaching Talent.

Internal and External Mixed Coaching Model – Do Loads More

The hybrid, best of both worlds.

Internal Coaches often get lazy, caught up in politics, loose objectively and neutrality and find the teams and activities that most interest them and gravitate there instead of across the entire org.

External Coaches bring fresh eyes, outside perspectives and points of view, new and better ideas and tend to be much better at Go See, Observing, Listening and Sensing, seeing what internal Coaches just can’t.

External Coaches can be more frank, open, transparent and say and do things internal people can’t as they get caught in internal polices and practices that defeat Agile Coaching, its process and Transformation.

I am not one for senior or junior hierarchal stuff, but this model can give a good mix of types and levels eeg Agile, Technical, 1:1, Group and Enterprise Coaches with different focus areas for a Sub-System approach to Coaching in the wider Transformation Strategy.

Business Models:

Let’s look at how the types, levels and operating models are paid for:

T&M

Billed for the time spent doing Face to Face, Digital, 1;1, Group or Enterprise Coaching and the materials used in performing the work.

External Contractors or Freelancer, Consultants fall into this model.

Fixed Fee

A pre-set fixed fee agreed upfront for a certain amount of access to types and levels of professional services and materials usually by blocks of hours per month.

Salaried Internal Coaches fall into this model – annual salary ad expectation to provide ad be available 8 hrs per day, 5 days per week.

Digital 1: Online Voice Chat/ Video Conferencing

A fixed fee/price per session for Coach – Coachee contact time, by blocks of time or period of time inclusive of material costs.

Internal and External Coaches can all under this model.

Digital 2: Online Portals, Engagement Hubs, Channels, Guilds, ML Recommendations Engines – Subscription

A pre-set price per person per time period e.g. month, quarter, year to access services and materials.

Internal and External Coaches can all under this model.

Digital 3: Coaching as a Service – Consumption Based

A fee based on actual services and materials used. Requires the use of chargeable service catalogue/product offering/bill of materials/charge sheet.

Internal and External Coaches can all under this model.

Agile Coaching Strategies

Agile Coaches apply a craft.

We aren’t just talking for the sake of it to make conversation, although we love a cuppa and are social types!

Good Agile Coaching has followed one of the Professional Coaching Strategies because we have lacked our own until more recently with Niall McShane, a fellow Aussie, codifying Responsive Agile Coaching.

Each Agile Conversation we have has a goal, whether you see it or get it or not – but now you will!

Whichever we choose to apply, we always aim to ask permission, gain trust, build rapport, remain neutral, actively listen and observe, hold back our biases, reactive actions and or opinions, ask open, closed, clarifying, reflective and deepening questions and seek to see what you will or wont do after the conversation, after all its about action learning, testing and rapid learning cycles.

This is how Agile Coaches differ from Scrum Masters, RTEs,STEs, SPCTs, we are getting you to adapt, inspect, adopt and make long term behavioural changes that stick by applying the thinking and theories your taught from the methods, frameworks, models and domains of knowledge and complimentary practice, making you multi-dimensional or Pii Shaped and not Specialists, better suited to Organisational Agility aka Agile Org Design and Structures.

Let’s walk through the strategies so we can recognise good practices:

Professional Coaching Strategies in Agile Coaching Practise

OSCAR

Outcomes, Situations, Consequence’s, Actions and Review.

OSCAR is a long-term solution and outcomes focused model often used in personal coaching.

Its useful in Agile because it creates the impetus for change and we know that changing culture is a longer-term endeavour than adopting an agile method.

Using this model to get people thinking about preserving options and making choices and decisions is where I find it most useful, and getting them to review and reflect which is similar to doing sprint reviews and retrospectives to enable course correction or pivots towards achieving the OKRs.

As a Coach you don’t always spend 100% with those you’re coaching, so this models suits digital/virtual coaching sessions as well, as it not one to push for outputs each time you meet up.

It also works to support Process Facilitation. 

GROW

Goal, Reality, Options, Will.

Probably the most well known of the Professional Coaching and Mentoring strategies given its been adopted widely in leadership and management circles to “coach”, line managed employees and in all sorts of youth mentoring schemes.

It’s more of a problems solving strategy than anything else, so is useful when individuals or people know the current and future states, but don’t know how to get there.

Its starts by clarifying what the goal is and how will this be different from the current state.

OKRs and SMART Objectives work well in this model.

It then looks at the position you’re in now – the reality or As Is. I like using AgilityHealth Radars or Comparative Agility tools to create this baseline or Problem/Opportunity Statements or Canvases or Roadmaps.

The it moves on to deepening questions, what do you think you are going to do and why, where can you see places to improve, what options do you see, what alternative choices could you make and why.

It then wraps up with Actions to be taken – if you’re doing a Lean Adoption, Implementation or Transformation, then it also fits well against the Plan Do See Act cycle/technique for improvement – so you can replace it ot make it contextually relevant and appropriate to Lean and DevOps.

ACHIEVE

Assess current situation, Creative brainstorming, Hone goals, Initiate option generation, Evaluate options, Valid action programme design, Encourage momentum.

 I was taught this one when I worked at the Institute of Leadership and Management by a Master Coach when we wrote a bunch of new market leading Professional Coaching Qualifications.

I like this model if you’ve got siloed UX, Testing and Dev Teams as its akin to Design Thinking and Innovation type methods.

You can apply it and they are still in their domain comfort zones but your sneakily getting them to collaborate much closer, accelerating the siloed team into an Agile Team, speeding up the Group Dynamics process,(Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing).

I’ve tried it Setting Up, Launching and Coaching Trains, (ARTS/STs) in SAFe too and it works.

I find this model better in group situations as it encourages more open feedback amongst them and not between you and one other and it’s also good for Rapid Prototyping, Proof of Concept and MVP creation/use cases as its cyclical model, much like Agile Methods and encourages iterations, releases, and improvements.

STEPPA

Subject, Target Identification, Emotion, Perception, Plan, Pace, Action/Amend.

STEPPA for me is more of a cognitive/behavioural change model to help individuals overcome an issue.

This is a useful model when you get resistors to change, or the flipside, super pumped-up people who can also affect adoption and sustainability of change if they are too strongly opinionated and don’t brings others along to where they.

This is a tough model as it can get close to the boundaries of Counselling and Therapy around deep and meaningful conversations that become very personal and very sensitive. Be careful of our boundaries and ethics!

It’s a useful strategy when you need to get to the root causes, fears, frustrations, and pain points as it helps people become better data driven and EI decision makers, presenting multiple points of view, data, or reference points.

To make this one work, you have to be capable of getting into the detail, remaining impartial and ultimate trust is there for non-disclosure and you have the time and space for intensive One to One coaching and Mentoring.

CLEAR

Contracting, Listening, Exploring, Action and Review.

CLEAR is great for getting people and teams aligned to share goals and objectives and thinking for themselves instead of management, so it it encourages Agile principles of decentralised decision making.

It can be used to flip people from traditional L&M or PPM to Agile values, mindsets and behaviours to facilitate their personal change and adoption journey.

I also like this model for those new to Agile roles, so if your coaching someone that’s learning to be a great Scrum or Kanban Master and want to be awesome, then this model is a good choice as its goal focused.

Its also a good one to teach teams as way of providing constructive, early and continuous feedback to other team members.

CIGAR, (Currently Reality, Ideal, Gaps, Actions, Reactions).

STEER, (Spot the opportunity, Tailor the Intervention, Explain the Task, Encourage and Review) and

COACH (Clarify the issues, Open up the resources, Agreed the preferred path or future, Create the journey, Head for Success)

are some other Professional Coaching strategies that can be successfully applied in the Agile context.

Modern Agile Specific Strategies

Agile Conversational Transformation 

Squirrel and Fredrick introduce the Agile Coach to Neuro Science.

I should add that one to the Complimentary Skills List! 

This strategy is built around the basis that Agile and Organisational Change and Transformation fails because:

•  valid information isn’t shared,
• they don’t have difficult conversations
• don’t build relationships

So through their work – the book, website, presentations and podcasts – they provide us with five key conversation types to build highly productive teams:

• Trust Conversations
• Fear Conversations
• Why Conversations
• Commitment Conversations
• Accountability Conversations

This is supper useful for Agile and Enterprise Agile Coaching.

In order to have these Agile Conversations – they have a strategy called the 4Rs:

• Record
• Reflect/Repeat
• Revise
• Roleplay /Role Reversal

This is a new benchmark for Agile Coaching. It takes a lot of what’s found in Professional Coaching models, but makes it specific to Agile, DevOps, Agile Adoption, Transitions and Transformation and I think it should be baked into all Agile Coaching courses as a standard option to practice in our craft.

Integral Agile Transformation Framework and Change Model

I want to put this one in as part of professionalising and growing up Agile Coaching practice as it will helps distinguish and separate us from Scrum Masters etc and helps develop our Coaching Stance as well Drive Agile Change and Transformation across the Enterprise.

You will be most familiar with its Integral Theory if you have been sub consciously teaching “we” and not “I” to establish Lean Agile Culture as opposed silos 1 or 2 Teams using Scrum or Kanban in an Org.

For the Coach – IATF’s goal is to make you take onboard more and more perspectives.

If you’re a genuine Agile Coach, this will help you with your Transformation Mastery competency to have more than one perspective on how to drive Agility other than just through Scrum, Scaled and Hacks of Scrum alone.

This is important as a professional development tool for new Coaches as well as Experienced ones.

It teaches beyond the mechanics of Agile process into how people think, learn, and adapt- the very things Agile Coaches do.

It uses Quadrants, Levels and Lines on a Radar – see above and helps shift from Adoption/Mechanics to Transition and Transformation to shift from process, to mindset, to behaviour, to culture and spread across the Enterprise system of Work and Structure/Architectures.

If your familiar with Kotter’s 7 Steps or XLR8 Change models, then you will seem some alignment made contextual to Agile Leadership, Agile Culture Development and Agile Transformation.

It will show you how just Scrum is not Agile or Agility and how you can make everyone a Transformational Leader – going beyond the concept of Servant Leadership.

Its starts with “Holons” and how these shape and link to organisational complexity and then how you can shaped and change them to deliver Agility.

The relationships and links to the Holons change the Organisational DNA – the key failure point missing when method based Agile transformations aka process facilitation focused and like how DevOps fails because its tools lead over a Cultural change to the Way of Working.

The Quadrants then lead to some of the Domains of Business Agility through taking that Systems Thinking approach to balancing and growing each area out.

It’s a hard read and takes a bit of digesting, going back and forward, but it makes a solid case for impacting leadership attitudes, values, thinking, patterns and practice and if you’re an Enterprise Agility Coach, this is going to be your focus area to get the right Organisational Architectures to facilitate teams of networked teams of teams – the holacracy and sociocracy – not the delta or matrixes.

Responsive Agile Coaching - Do Loads More

It certainly feels like Niall McShane has generally nailed it with the most openly shared and transparent way to tackle Agile Coaching at all levels and types.

His Responsive Agile Coaching strategy is anchored in Agile, has a stance, the right mindset and is properly transformative.

I believe this is the go to standard – the reference of which good modern Agile Coaching and Good Practice should be modelled on.

The responsive part nails 3 things:

• who we are coaching for
• why we coach and
• how we coach to embed Agility

Its nothing like the wooly SWAT model I talked about which is purely reactive or defensive.

Responsive Agile Coaching starts with a light touch move and seeks permission, then it allows for process facilitation, “Show me” and “Tell me” approach which is still far different from the command and control directing style of the majority of Scrum Masters across the spectrum with immature to matures teams where the team should be self-piloting or on auto pilot applying conscious competence.

It then creates the pathways to Technical, Team/Group and Enterprise Coaching by what he calls Holding, and then at presence, “Lets them” by getting open minds, hearts, and the will to collaborate and co-create – unlearning and learning – then the transformative part, embedding it, and not by repetitive, dogmatics drill sergeant activity.

To practice it, you do need to master Professional Coaching strategies first.

Its not really a pick it up and run with it as a novice to expert once you’ve read it from cover to cover, and that’s not his intention or recommendations either as he has set up Coaching Groups/Circles to practice with peers, how to do it, properly open sourcing it – that gets extra kudos from me as he is truly showing his colours for the betterment of everyone and the domain and the discipline/craft of Agile Coaching.

To use this, you must have Mastery of the Lean Agile Practitioner Space first and be super knowledgeable and experienced in the application of multiple Lean, Agile, Scaled Methods, Frameworks and Models.

Again this is the real differentiator between Agile Coaching and Scrum Mastering, RTE and STEing as well as SPCTs, its not something you can just walk in a do, there is no slides, no pre-formed text or plays, it based on taking your experience and make it work b serving your Coachees needs, wants and demands.

There are weakness or limitations.

It still mainly written and focused on Team level Coaching as this is where he does most of his work.

It can be applied at the Enterprise level in relevance to the leaders and managers, but not so much towards all the Business Agility Domains without some tinkering – adaption.

There in lies an issue, novices need to Shu and Ha way before Raing it otherwise we end up with Hacks and I mean proper Hacks, in the bad sense and we loose it as a reference model or anchor when it becomes unrecognisable like instances of Lean, Agile and DevOps.

Chapter 3’s opening lines to whom is a coach – “anyone who aspires to deliver agile coaching, irrespective of job title, role, if you’re a leader or manager, agile practitioner or agile coach” – this is the reason we are not better at our game, its not something any general dogs’ body can moonlight in or just have a crack at.

The Agile Coaching Competency Framework has already laid down the roots to separate us out, and build upwards and onward and not morph us.

If this was edited out and revisions made for Business Agility, then we would have an outright winner – but this is good enough and we can always improve it with feedback.

Conclusion – No More Scrum Master as Coach

Part 2 has been looking at redefining what Good Coaching Looks like for the era of Agility, not Agile.

The Agile industry or Community is torn and confused over Agile Coaching driven mainly by the 3 forces or factors.

Thats were I started in Part 1 of this 3 Part Conversational Whitepaper and also why Niall wrote his book and shared with us his modern take on our craft that I hope becomes the new normal for “Agility Coaching”.

I don’t take the Best Practice Approach.

Who says its best?

I take the Lean Agile approach of Good is Good Enough to Do and Continually Improve, Being and Doing Agile.

By deliberately and intentionally Defining the Agile Coaching Stance, Mindset, Principles, Practices, Strategies, Skills etc I hope we can better help Hiring Managers, Recruiters, Organisations, and ourselves to Do Better, find what they really need to make Agile Transformation a success.

Good Agile Coaching remain much like Lyssa put it 10 years ago that we only see pockets off instead of widespread practice craft:

As Magicians – who ask the right questions to reveal what couldn’t be seen by others

As Childs – embellished with curiosity to keep asking why and how it will fit in to value add

As Ears – who listens and hears everything, but let’s some things slide to give room to grow by choosing what to respond as part of the bigger picture game plan

As Hecklers – who keeps things fun, but on track by balancing chaos with learning, growth and development to avoid BAU complacency

As Wise Fools – who ask dumb, silly, stupid questions to break the ice, build and maintain trust, safety, openness, and respect

As Creeping Vines – you makes small well executed tactical and strategic moves all the time, linked and aligned to the bigger picture

As Dreamers – who bravely gives voice to open minds, hearts and will for change and transformation

And as Megaphones – who give voice to the others not heard.

Lastly, hopefully I have made it clear than Agile Coaches aren’t Scrum Masters, Release or Solution Train Engineers, SAFe Trainers( SPCTs), Line Managers etc.

We are different, we do things differently and we do it different for different reasons.

Our goals is to deliver Business or Enterprise Agility – that’s what Agility Coaching is all about.