Conversational "Draft" Whitepaper Part 1: Kicking Off Agile Coaching’s Conundrums and Identity Crisis

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.

Agile Coaching's Epic Faux Pars & Dubious Examples | Current Standards & Challenges | What Its Not | Agile Coaching Ethics Initiative | HR, Talent & Recruiting's Role in Better

Everybody is an “Agile Coach” …yet Few Actually Are!

Scrum Claims Scrum Masters are Coaches, and SAFe claims RTEs and STE are Coaches as well as SPCs.

Managers, Technologists, HR folks, all join in too, some fess up, saying they don’t get it, others just pretend to, moonlighting.

Even the forthcoming State of Agile Coaching report will more than likely back it, as the only thing limiting who answers it, is that is found on the Scrum Alliance and BAI websites, so its open to firefighters, police, schoolteachers and anyone else who uses a personal Kanban board, as they are Agile Coaching Experts too under current definitions of whose a Coach.

Some how we drifted from this great infographic:

into Scrum Master as Coach - probably because there is a slant towards process being the easiest part under Areas of Agile Coaching,

Paying up to 7 grand for a week’s course, or some phone calls over 10 months, 2Gs for the pass and go privilege of the Scrum Alliance and to pay again and again and again to re-certify or Top Up with so called PDUs, or CECs doesn’t make you one either.

Even I am in a conundrum after 20 years at this Agile game;

• Do you go all in as just an “Agile Coach” and specialise?
• How can I specialise if there is no intentional shared and common definition of Agile Coaching
• Do you keep it as another string to your multi-disciplinary Agile Pii shaped bow?
• Do you pay and join what’s seemingly becoming the Agile Coaching Cliche/Club?
• Why should you only be able to enter the Clubs from climbing the payments ladder and not actual experience via fake and forced pre-requisites?
• Do you avoid the Clubs and stay true to cause in Agile Coaching circles/CoP?
• Do you take less than the going rate for an Agile Coach, circa 80 -120K GBP?
• Do you get the badge to pass and go ATS and get Hiring Folks approvals even though they often know no better?

It seems Agile Coaching is in need of modernisation.

I hear the UnAgilists – the ones to claim everything in Agile is over prescribed, heavy handed, not flexible or adaptable enough - say,

“we don’t need another process model or coaching tool as its Individuals and Interactions over Tool and Processes”

but they don’t understand the Manifesto, it’s not excluding things, it’s what is more valued and if Agile was more complete, we wouldn’t need all the other complimentary domain practices and disciplines to make it work or Agile Coaches, Consultants etc.

The key takeaway here is that Coaching is all about Individuals and Interactions but the experience of it, is somewhat different!

This is the experience/result of dogmatic Scrum Mastering, RTE and STE’ing, overzealously applying the Scrum and SAFe Theory to the point, its unhelpful – this is the anti-thesis of Agile Coaching.

No form of Agile Coaching works without being anchored in a Lean, Agile or Business Agility Model, that’s true for Business, Leadership and Executive Professional Coaching too.

If there is nothing to Coach against, you have no Coaching Stance and no Reference of What Good Agility looks and feels like vs Bad vs Ugly for the Coachee to Unlearn, Inspect, Adapt and Grow against.

I am open minded, open to new ideas and better ways of doing things – after all, every day is a school day!

But, I’ll be brutally open and honest and call it out, Scrum Mastering, Release and Solution Train Engineering and SPC/Ting is not Agile Coaching.

This is what I am framing as the identity crisis and conundrum surrounding Agile Coaching and Succeeding with Agile, Business Agility and Enterprise Transformation.

So just what is Agile Coaching, what is its purpose, what are its goals and how is it different to Management, Leadership, Scrum Mastering, and other Agile and Traditional Roles.

That’s a great question as we try to uplift it and professionalise it to be more valued, appreciated, separated, and better understood in the Enterprise Transformation space. I will focus Part 2 on this and how we can modernise Agile Coaching for the era of Agility.

So here in Part 1, I will cast a critical eye over “actual the State of Agile Coaching” ahead of the Scrum Alliances and BIAs survey, from my own and those who I know in the craft and looking across Linkedin, Medium, TechTarget and many other spaces were Agile and Agility is talked about, and its clear Houston, we have problems!

Agile Coaching is a relatively new thing to many.

I remember developing Accredited Leadership Coaching Qualifications back in 2009 and having access to a pre-publishing edition of what is now a seminal book on the subject – “Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins”

Agile Coaching is therefore old, it’s got a bit of history and a 20 year back story to it and its also continually emerging and evolving at the same time, or is it?

I am seeing, hearing, observing, and experiencing some worrying and dubious practice trends and patterns out there from the so called Agile Coaching Experts which has been my trigger for this article on top of my feedback to the Agile Coaching Ethics Initiative and Manifesto

Like Agile, it means many things to many people and I think it is losing its sense of purpose, identity, and direction as the lines get more blurred to suite the many agendas and causes for what it’s not, rather than for what it is.

The Agile Coaching Competency Framework has long been the benchmark of good, but that too needs modernising as it mainly team level coaching focused and we are in the age of Business or Enterprise Agility now, not Agile, not Scrum.

Three main sources are driving the conundrums and issues:

• Consultancies - who are prepared to call anyone an Agile Coach if they work on an Agile engagement/assignment and monetise anything around Agile
• Recruitment - who know no better as piggy in the middle and need to shift from Traditional HR to Agile HR to support the Agility Agenda and see it for what it is, not remote working !
• Peak Bodies/Alliances - who know better, but will play at most things to ensure they can monetise training on mass as thier main income to the detriment of the very people they are supposed to protect and represent

Even back in 2009, Lyssa's book had a key word on its cover totally ignored – for Scrum Masters and Project Managers in Transition. It included Agile Coaches, but it was more of reference book for them rather than the guide it was on how do it, and do it differently from Scrum Mastering and Project Management.

I’ve written this 3 Part Conversational White Paper with a critical, evaluative eye and some generalisms to make the point, to help provide clarity and a position on the topic based on collective experience of what works and doesn’t work, and the onions – the burning issues making genuine Agile Coaches cry.

It should be read in conjunction with Part 2: Modernising our Craft for the New Normal- Business Agility Coaching 4.0

– outlining what good looks like for the next generation of Agile Coaching.

I also write this as much for Hiring Managers, HR Professionals, Talent Managers, Recruiters and L&D folks to, to help them separate the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to be performant in the roles, types, and levels of Agile Coaching.

Lastly, I have written it’s to help self-regulate, uplift, and professionalise “Agile Coaching”, separating it from Scrum Mastering, Release and Solution Training Engineering, Line Management and other things that are not Agile Coaching and that are harm the growth and development of it.

So, to help my practice area thrive, you as businesses Unlock Agility and you hiring folk to understand what the heck Agile Coaching is not and what it should be, let’s have a digital conversation about Agile Coaching's Conundrums and Issues and follow it up in Part 2 - with what Good Looks Like as a comparator to Parts 1’s the Bad and the Ugly.

The Conundrums and Epic Faux Pars

Let’s start with the first of the Conundrums and Epic Faux Pars by telling a short story, Phoenix Project/Unicorn Project/The Rollout style…

A story about How Simple Becomes Complicated.

It’s the story of a 10-year transformation journey, that’s had 10’s of million invested into it and a global network of Agile Coaches supporting it.

The quest for better was kicked off over a decade ago, by some smart bears struggling with COBOL, the layers of beauracracy and processes surrounding Financial Service Regulation, Risk, Audit, Compliance, Technology, Software Delivery and Traditional Project, Programme and Portfolio Management, on top of the toxic operational and management environment.

This group or sleuth of smart bears wanted to do things differently. Do it better. Improve the Ways of Working.

The SDLC was slow and cumbersome enough, without the added barriers and complications.

They needed stability, but also the capacity and capability to speed up the pace of change/the change delivery rate, release and deployment strategy on move from a world of ticketed dependency and please, sir can I…

Knowing what they needed, what the bottlenecks and wastes where, they collaborated, trying to refine a second version of what was dubbed an inhouse methodology, specifically tailored and bespoke to the way things had to be done here. They kept telling people, this isn’t the way to do it, there are better off the shelf options from Lean and Agile that can help us adapt.

They were ignored by the Agile Coaches and Consultants, who had the reputational score of: Not at all Likely, 0 – 6, in the detractors space using NPS/Rating and Review speak.

Months and Years later, another bespoke and tailored inhouse approach was released, incorporating Agile, except it wasn’t all that Agile – best described as Water – Scrum- Fall attempting to please all camps but not providing the behaviour changes or benefits case of any.

The storm was brewing, aging processes, legacy hardware, and software, dwindling talent, Web 2.0 and eCommerce were booming, the demand for electronic payments and real time services was increasing, and mobile banking was trending, taking over from clunky online banking efforts.

Inside the Oil Tankers Ivory Towers, everything was just hunky dory, keep calm and carry-on banking, the seats were comfy, the perks great and the pay checks and bonuses even better, in fact companies came to them to help sell their cars, boats and other luxury goods around comp time.

After years of a laisse fair attitudes, the Digital speed boats had finally broke out, customers had other choices for their card services, retail, commercial, private and investment banking, wealth, and asset management and even the regulators joined in to the disruption, seeking more and better from banks.

Internal and external regulatory, trading, and operational audit and compliance reports were failed, advisory notices and warnings issued about the same stuff as before.

Other brands were launched with retail partners who had more money than they knew what to do with, so the half-way house - supermarket social or retail banking emerged, reacting to counter the new market forces.

How Simple Becomes Complicated needed to accelerate its transformation to remain relevant and looked to its Agile Coaches and Consultants for more.

New brands weren’t enough, more internal, and external audit and compliance reports were failed, advisory notices followed, and warnings turned to fines. Predictable trends and patterns were evident. Regulators where now taking a tougher stance and demanding better answers to seemingly the same problems and issues.

The confidence and reputation of the Agile Coaches and Consultants from staff, managers and leaders hit an all-time low from their Seagull, Opinionated, Hub and Expert Coaching Failure modes. They swoop in, poop everywhere, make everything revolve around them as a SPOC, can’t see the wood from the trees and they have lost objectivity, saying that Agile is overly prescriptive, succumbing to politics and the non-agile culture of the org.

An Agile Process Framework was introduced, compounding the problems and issues. Teams were further confused, now they had to choose Kanban or Scrum, using a complicated MS excel decisioning sheet, that they didn’t even know what half the stuff meant or was in it, nor did the Agile Coaches, so everyone fudged it, and fudged the results.

Most of them choose Kanban, it had no roles, no estimation, no leader, no this or that, it seemed like an easy way to appease the management to say that Disciplined Adoption was going great, but it was little more than a 3 bucket to bin system with no limits, no control of the flow, and limited value, just a service desk, next..

They could also choose from 2 SDLC options, one was more complicated that the other, but they seemed no different, one just had more steps and sub processes than the other. The 3-bucket board won out still.

Following the banking trends, Innovation Hubs or Accelerator Labs were launched to fuel corporate innovation efforts. Most of the Start Ups used an adapted form of Scrumban, some SRE and Lean Start Up to test their ideas. The Coaches and Consultants couldn’t understand these processes, it was a free for all and Management was informed, and Management started to strangle the Innovation process and Start Up culture too.

A new digital department/function was added, as part of edge case Transformation, and Essential, Programme and Large Solution SAFe was followed, with good results, teams understood it, they had almost formed ARTs and got coordination going on quasi features, components and enablers and almost had value streams nailed. A new Enterprise Coach saw the potential in this to be the leading coalition, edge case that was copied and pasted and scaled as an exemplar of sucess to be amplified.

Management, knowing no better, became dogmatic about applying the additional processes or the Agile Controls Library and Framework, to which folks int he business had no support or training on as those behind had half baked it. They had to use DDD or Domain Driven Design, an Architecture approach which had little to no relevance to the majority, Control Stories and Follow the Functional Instruction Manuals which helpfully said follow the delivery process, but which one!

They were supposed to access and use one of 10 dozen different on prem JIRA instances for traceability, change control and audit, all were configured differently at the local JIRA Admins discretion and they had to submit ticket to dogmatic Admins and CABs to make simple changes, spending weeks just to identify who the Admins where in countries and ask for training and guidance they could not do, not the Coaches and Consultants.

So with Agile Coaches, JIRA Admin, Consultants and now SPC Support as useless as…. They went about it their own way, creating greater disparity, with less control and more hacked “methods”.

More internal and external audit and compliance reports failed on the same stuff as before, this time it was fines.

The COO and Group CEO had enough, their Big Transformation Framework added to bring into alignment all the gaps and holes in global banking and markets, the lack of discipline and multiple disparate standards, practices had to change to tame the chaos and lack of discipline.

It was relaunched, but expert middle management layers resisted, opposed to anything that risked their comfort zones, pay checks and bonuses, distributed functions, and lines of business in markets refused to play ball, saying it was forced on them, they had no training, support or engagement and lost faith in the constant change.

Programme after Programme Initiative was funded, there were more vendors and partners than you could poke sticks at or remember who was doing what, things failed, stopped, then got reshuffled and restarted only to make no progress, but lots of reports on sprint velocity, open and closed tickets were applauded.

The answers where in simplification, rationalisations and a single shared, commonly understood, adopted, highly configurable, adaptable and flexible Lean Agile Scaling Framework. One approach, bank wide, with some trade-offs, but meeting 97% of all current and foreseeable future use cases.

The Roadmap was laid out, building on the HDS success patterns, in essence agreed, but hit the politics wall, layers of resistance and the coalition of UnAgilists. It’s not my idea, we don’t do SAFe, we don’t do Lean, we don’t do Scrum, it’s to prescriptive, it doesn’t work here, it creates more problems than it solves.

Well, they probably had just about all the problems and ideal use cases for it, but…

The culture was still abominable, toxic, and good Lean, Agile and DevOps talent was thin on the ground, and others were leaving and the bank was far from the ambitions of increased Agility.

If a highly successful Framework was not acceptable, perhaps a Business Agility Model was. The new Enterprise Coach mad the pivot, thinking it would be more plateable. Nope – You’re just making this thing up.

Agile Coaching as a Service was modelled, rolled out, to reverse the trends, get people interested, willing and wanting to participate, engaging with changes, to make their working life’s easier, more productive, more valued. We started to pull people to us.

Except the new girl on the block didn’t get the picture. She didn’t care and was told to roll out Scrum@Scale or Nexus, we asked which, she didn’t know the difference – it was scaled scrum she said and so just created 10000 new communication lines. Revelling in her expertise, the new principal consultant was more clueless and more interested in getting his lunch and regular snacks than anything he new about Agility, and DevOps was foreign concept all together, but he was an expert. We listened to the Spy and the Butterfly, but no pearls of wisdom came as we had to conform to the Agile consultancy’s hierarchal command and control model and that of the clients.

More Months and Years later, the Clouds been adopted for some services, a lot of legacy processing still runs on COBOL mainframes.

Has the score card moved on, had the bigger picture emerged, nope, in 2021, nothing has moved on, the culture is a million miles away from Being or Doing Lean, Agile, DevOps, its still a delta pyramid of beauracracy, average quality products and services covered by a Spotify Matrix and SWAT Teams reacting and plugging gaps, one event after the other.

They continue with media coverage, spouting we are DevOps, we have adopted the Cloud, we are Doing Agile, we are the leaders…

Shame, you could have been, except ING, Barclays, JP, and many others just flew past you.

This story hasn’t ended, it keeps going, they still haven’t grasped the basics of Lean, Agile or DevOps, their leadership culture isn’t Lean or Agile, much of their other technology use cases are at immature states, yet they still have the largest investment into the IT portfolio than any other bank globally, have more developers on tap than Google as well as Agile Coaches.

Don’t figure does it, this isn't the result of Good Agile Coaching or Consultancy

This story is not an isolated illustration, I have seen it in other Banks were LeSS was the Faux Par.

Scrum Masters were leading the Coaching and Training like it was Scrum, S@S and having multiple Kanban and scrum boards for each team and because of a previous success with Customer Journey Management, all processes had to follow a LeSSified Design Thinking method.

LeSS, doesn’t do it that way, it reverses the complexity of the organisation to scale, using one common and shared board, two sprint planning sessions – one to set the sprint goal, the other for the team planning, linked product back log items aka dependencies, and LeSS HUGE for bigger solutions up to 8 teams, and still uses the one board to coordinate all the teams but with swim lanes. The point being, the Scrum Masters were at it again, Coaching/Training LeSS like it was SPS, S@S or Nexus but missing the EATS, Meta Scrums and SoSoSM’s and making a bespoke hack out of it that when it was challenged, was fired down.

Good Business doesn’t Make a Good Industry or Sector

Garbage in garbage out, shit in shit out, same same, we are tired of the old games.

Why the rainy day story above has happened more than once in in part due to poor Standards Setting from our Institute - or lack of one.

Across Lean, Agile and DevOps, Traditional Management and Project Management, we share a common factor – Quality Control, Built in Quality, QC, QA, TQM, however you want to couch it.

Sadly, I can’t say the same applies here.

Once upon a time we had the ACI – the Agile Coaching Institute founded by Lyssa Adkins in 2009 to coincide with her book release and works with Michael Spayd e.g. Coaching the Agile Enterprise, IATF etc.

It was a hub of thought leadership and gave birth to Agile Coach Training and Development.

It was properly inspiring. It was aimed at making us better at our craft.

We have now lost this.

Good business doesn’t always make for a good strong industry sector.

It’s been swallowed up by Accenture’s and spat out into SolutionsIQ, one of many Accenture Company's.

We’ve now lost the Peak Body, the Institute part, for Consultancy and Training Delivery.

ACI was never about doing the doing – it was about setting the benchmark of what good looked like.

The ICA – International Consortium of Agile, a spin off from the ACI, was and still is about Training and Development and tries to be the Standards Setting Body for Agile Coaching, yet its failing us dismally.

Its outdated, out of alignment and pedals the very Conundrums and Issues I speak about across Parts 1 and 2 despite its honourable intent.

Its business is making money for Accenture by scaling out licenses to teach and train the so called standards that make you an Expert in Agile Coaching after a few days:

• TAF – or The Agile Facilitator
• CAT – or Coaching Agile Teams
• ACB – Agile Coaching Bootcamp

And by trading in the badge re- handout game as well.

The reaccreditation and PDU/CECs market is lucrative – and makes people believe and forces them into spending more money to say they are a Coach by mostly fleecing them of just more money.

Professional Development as you know it is over, we don’t need paid course after course anymore, if you've done SAFe 3, 4, you're well placed for SAFe 5.0, its much the same, just with a few tweaks and a bit of reading required, not a few grand more.

Partly I blame the people too, they want put the latest badges out there because that's cool to do on social media, well its not and 99% don't care for it and your post nominal swinging - it doesn't make you a Master Coach, just a sucker to HR , the ATS and people who know, know better.

Modern Learning is socially driven, it takes on a blended format, some formal, some informal, short, long, face to face, video, distance, peer to peer, group tutorials etc.

The approach is totally orientated to make money at the expense of driving forward a strong, valued, well represented industry sector - that's why we haven't finished with the conundrums and crisis yet.

Here some more conundrums, dire attempts dubiously dubbed as Agile Coaching:

Drawing on the rainy-day story above and others, lets tease out the conundrums using a critical eye and a view to doing things better.

Coaching without a North Star

All Agile Coaching is based on a Lean, Agile, Scaled Lean Agile or Business Agility Model.

It’s impossible to provide good Agile Coaching without anchoring people, teams, and organisations into an Off the Shelf or Your Way of Working Model/Blueprint.

The conundrum is that I see this all the time – labelled as Agnostic Agile. That’s not what this means.

With no mental model, reference as to what good, bad, and ugly looks like, the Coach and Coaches have no stance or relationship and the Coaches can’t Coach to a performance standard or benchmark.

Coaching without a Social Agreement, Contract or Alliance

To Coach people, people who make up teams, run and build organisations, they can’t be dictated to or have things just thrust upon or surprising them if you want to be successful.

You need to have an informal, formal, or at least permission from saying can I help, yes you can.

The conundrum is this is what is called dogmatic Scrum Mastering, RTE or STEing from the Nag and Seagull, swooping and pooping and being the Scrum Police.

The conundrum is that the permission cannot get mandated by hierarchy either which is all too much the case – get in there, sort them out, starting now, in which case you should first observe and listen by Go Seeing only.

Coaching occurs over several invited and participatory sessions and only intermittently as part of process facilitation when the Scrum/Kanban Masters get it so wrong, we decide to lean in, to course correct and keep everyone aligned to Kanban and Scrum Theory and Practice as we then use part of the Retro or I&A or PI Planning Day 1 to make changes – more in Part 2 about Responsive Agile Coaching.

Coaching without a Team Charter

When a new Team, Scrum of Scrum, ART, or Solution Train is formed, there is a high chance of most people not knowing each other that well, even higher if they are from another market/country where a delivery centre is used within the delivery approach or business model, agile methods/frameworks are operating models.

Scrum Masters, POs, Delivery types will kick off and focus 70% of the deliverables just like in old school Project Kick Off Meetings.

The conundrum is the psychological safety, (trust, acceptance, respect, lack of fear, rapport, relationships) are blown from day dot.

Good Agile Coaches don’t do this and use the advanced Tuckman Model, forming, norming, always keeping the team storming to encourage, set and expect high performance to maintain the psychological safety to create a continuous learning culture.

The Forming part is where creating the group/team charter comes in, it glues the team together around Agile norms – your method of choice, Agile Thinking and Culture e.g., Agile Ways of Working.

Avoid the mechanistic or transactional approach, Coaching is not about this, its People first to enable.

Coaching without any Value Stream OKRs or Product Portfolio Vision

Closely linked to no North Star, no Contract or Charter, its pretty hard to grow, measure and sustain improvements if you’ve got no yard stick or vision to aim for.

Scrum Masters a Coaches forget this, I see it all the time and I call it the SWAT Captain Coaching Model.

The conundrum is again, that Agile Coaches focus on People, Process, and Technology in shaping change, not just the process and by not Coaching people to Value Streams OKRs, you’re not coaching the business towards agility or better performance, to achieve the roadmap or sprint goals, just to the basic process.

Coaches also spend a lot of time on envisioning and reflection, and this allows teams to course correct themselves against a vision, against OKRs to assure they are optimising and adding value.

Again, going beyond the mechanistic or transactional approach.

Coaching without Cross Cultural Awareness

What does it mean if I shake my head from left to right or up and down, am I saying yes, no, I don’t understand, but I don’t want to offend…

Inter and Intra personal relationships are not as simple as just pulling or pushing work.

In some cultures, they won’t do this, they expect to be told as this is part of their day to day and working norms.

The conundrum is that in Distributed Agile with Virtual and Remote working, a lot of “Agile Coaches” don’t check for understanding or feedback because they are trying to just get through the process facilitation part/daily stand up/scrum etc to deliver or create activity. The command and control the Stand Ups or Daily Scrums instead of facilitating, and this can be caused by a lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Commanding and Controlling is not Agile Team Coaching, as our goal is to optimise the systems of work/agile ways of working and this means using and providing content, examples etc in multiple languages to reinforce and embed practices and not just make activity happen and to localise and contextualise how Kanban or Scrum might work in a Train with 6 teams or Solution Train with 12.

Doing the Wrong Type of Coaching

We, will explore this more later in the good practice section, but Scrum Masters often do the wrong type of Coaching at the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong way and not with the right hats on or expertise.

Scrum Masters have a reputation for being dogmatic, drill sergeants, this is part of the role to protect the teams adherence to Scrum and from HiPPOs etc however, it often goes too far or too little of it happens.

Walking the line is a skill of the SCM.

The conundrum is the Scrum Master ends up as the SME - leading, planning, advising, training, and Coaching the organization in its Agile Adoption, Transition and Transformation; however, their expertise and boundaries lies in One Team – One Product Scrum.

Scrum training and bodies over step the mark on both the boundaries, strengths, and limitations and this is a real problem at the root cause of a lot of Agile Coaching’s Identity Crisis and Problems.

The FTE Coach Model

Every team has a Coach by Default Model.

The first conundrum is that the Coach is the Scrum Master and Scrum Masters aren’t Agile Coaches but they are led to believe this as Coaching is seen as one of the moonlighting additional duties they do as per there training, certification, and endorsement of the role by Scrum bodies e.g., as above to labour it.

This undervalues the different duties Agile Coaches do, usually working with individuals one to one, teams, multiple teams, and teams outside of just software delivery, so our careers are impacted and the career pathway for others is to, as they have no room for growth and career advancement either as Agile Coaches.

Whilst you might be on the books as an FTE – that doesn’t mean Coaching has to be implemented every single minute of each and every day.

This is the second conundrum of this.

Good Coaches know when to step in or lean out, what hat to wear and when i.e., Coach, Teacher, Trainer, Mentor.

Do to this, you need to make and hold the space for engagement and the epiphanies and the holy shit, I see the problem now the Coach was referring too, wow, I wonder how the Coach can help us to overcome it.

This is the difference between making a process happen and Coaching. Its subtle, but has a profound impact of the individuals, teams, and organisation that SCMs/RTEs/STEs can’t do or achieve.

I am not saying we don’t need these roles, we do as they do different things, but they become part of the feedback loops and System of Coaching rather than be the Coach.

The SWAT Team Intervention Model

We will terminate all your Agile problems....

This is where Coaching is reactive to problems, and it takes the Lean idea of a Huddle, Swarm, Andon Cord pulling approach to jumping on and sorting the issue/s with tissues, band aids and sticky plasters.

Business Managers and Leaders love this stuff – its what they can see as activity and claim as Quick Wins, striking off the Low Hanging Fruits – except the root causes are not low hanging fruit or quick wins.

The conundrum is – this band aid fixing life support approach creates and encourages dependency building, when the Coach solves the problems.

The other conundrum is it doesn’t support stickiness e.g., making Agile change stick, as it doesn’t lead to self-sustaining, self-managing, self-organising, high performance teams.

Once the Coach walks away or doesn’t in the case of the FTE model which the Coach isn’t a Coach, the chocks are removed thinks revert to normal, Unlearning and Learning how to do things better hasn’t occurred or been embedded.

Like the FTE model, it feels like a quick win for problem solving, troubleshooting or technical debt recovery – but these wouldn’t be there if Agile Ways of Working were properly embedded in the first place.

Again, the difference between process Facilitation and Agile Coaching.

Coaching Non – Long Lived or Value Aligned Teams

Closely linked to all the above, is Coaching Teams who move about excessively.

I have seen self-organising mean, Julie is a $￡@# so I am going to work with John, who is ace.

The conundrum is people in valued aligned teams skip from team to team, squad to pod etc and Team Dynamics suffers, Product or Service knowledge is lost to code commenting or unmaintained wikis.

There is no Team Learning Culture, Psychological Safety is shattered and none of Agile’s Culture, Principles, Practices and Values are lived up to.

The other way this happens is via SPCs.

They shuffle teams around – calling it Organising for Value instead of Value Aligned.

Conceptually, its greats, seems like the same thing, but it gets picked apart when Value is not defined.

“Agile Coaching” then fails as it becomes a repetitive, gap filling affair for under resourced roles and I see this a lot mostly on Kanban based teams, who see it as an easy option or fall back when they can’t get Scrum, LeSS or Scaled Scrum working as the Scrum Master as Coach is out of their depth and the Coach becomes the back stop/backfill/resource augmenting team member.

In the case of SPCs – it fails because they most only see themselves and teacher/Trainers – regurgitating pre -made slides and they do nothing to Coach the Team, as they are just sent to conduct the half or full day training session and are like Seagulls, Butterfly’s, Nags and Experts, swooping in, leaving, and not sustaining and embedding skills, leaving others to pick up the slack – so SCMs, SPC are Coaches either!

Smells of the Bad, the Ugly and Putting a Stake in the Ground

I am going to use Adkin's descriptors again for this as they are still fitting.

As Hiring Manges, as recruiters, as Talent Folks as Agile Coaches and Practitioners, we need to know who to sniff out what the Bad and Ugly is to self-regulate ourselves.

Because we have so many moonlighters and rouge traders - we should call them out and put them on a registry, a bit like Check a Trade, were customers can rate, review and the Suppliers can be struck off.

Without putting a stake in the ground for better, we won’t professionalise, protect and grow.

How can you smell or sniff out the chaff then?

We can use these Agile Coaching Failure Modes within Competency Based Assessment and Interviews to sniff out and smell for examples of :

• Spys – those who hang around try to be unwitting and seamlessly blend in and slink off once they got their next subject matter, driving an push not pull agenda
• Seagulls – who swoop in and poop on and fly out
• Opinionators – who share thier opinion and have not heard or listened to facts, done any Go See observation, or who don’t use stories to inspire, influence and course correct
• Admins – those who just sort meetings, events, ceremonies, access and spaces out
• Hubs – the SPOC for the Universe
• Butterflys – those who land, but never hang around to make an impact, similar to Spys
• Experts – who get engrossed in technical detail and cant see the wood from the trees – unless you need a specialist technical coach of course!
• Nags – give reminders to do, but never show, tell how/why aka Scrum Master Drill Sergeants

The Issues

These things aren't happening by themselves, so lets look at the underpinning driving factors causing the Identity Crisis and Conundrums.

Badges and Titles.

This is the old got the t-shirt, or the badge and all the gear but no idea.

We’ve all got to make some money, but at what cost.

There are too many playing the monetisation game.

I think we need to do better in two areas:

1. Higher Education
2. Vocational Education and Training

As far as I know, could be wrong, but Agile Coaching doesn’t have a track, specialism or Pathway on any Agile, Project or Business Degree course.

Everything is predominantly based on 1900 Management and Scientific Theories, even Post Grad stuff.

There are literally 1000’s upon 1000s offering courses in Agile this and Agile that and Agile Coaching is one of them. Most are just Scrum based Mastering when you look at the course content though.

Competition is great, but when there are no Standards, Ethics, Principles, Good Practices underpinning it, it’s just a shit show and then all these people enter workplaces and cause unknown amounts of harm.

I don’t want a license to practice – that’s what the Agile Coaching Clubs are clamouring for, at, but we do need like Professional Coaching, stronger quality assurance or better yet, Built in Quality from National Occupational Standards – NOS as they called in the UK, Community owned Agile Manifesto and Ethics – so Scrum Mastering or SPC isn’t the proxy or defacto.

Also, this is a much argued about subject in Agile Community, we have a flat structure.

We don’t care, want to see, or give a hoot about post nominal letters.

Don’t be a dick. We understand it takes time, money, and vested interest to achieve them. we get it, but were not Academics – we are practical, hands on, pragmatists who practice a craft, not a theory, but loads of theories from all fields and disciplines to make Agility happen – it’s the cross functional part missing from why Scrum Masters can’t Coach.

If we had a recognised standard, which is what ICAgile Consortium is trying to do, then we would have a self-regulating, self-governing, community owned solve, but when Scrum Alliance comes in and makes the same claim, well it makes us all look like Dicks.

Scrum Alliance – stick to your foot print, One Team, One Product Scrum. Be experts in that. Leave the other stuff up to others in true Alliance or Partnership form.

You’re not the only ones either and this is a growing pain typical of other sectors and industries that we need to uplift and grow up as a Community, not via vested interests in monetisation first.

Consultancies and Representative/Peak Bodies

Some are better than others, but some are just seeing this as a sales opportunity and adding to the problem.

Again, I am not saying or not welcoming more Agile Practices as this will hopefully make things better, from more learning and application.

However, Scrum Masters, Project Managers, SAFe Programme Consultants are not Agile Coaches albeit they might have what appears to be less than 10% of what an Agile Coach might due under their role or title descriptions by the bodies and alliances fuelling the problem in the first place.

Agile Coaches are Business Strategists, Tacticians, Strategic Advisers, Talent Magicians, Organisational Change and Transformation Agents and Leaders.

That’s a huge difference from running some events and ceremonies and spending and hour or two on people performance issues, if at all, as retros are one of the worst led and undervalued areas on the Team Health radar.

Like I said, some are better than others, some take a nice neat view and stay within those boundaries and others get behind, sponsor and cross promote the cause and craft of Agile Coaching.

The message, we can do better still by making Agile Coaching a separate line of business, practice area separated from Delivery but related, and closer to People, Talent or Workforce Development or even my arch enemy, the actual ideal place for it, within HR, Org Development, Change, L&D.

Representative or Peak Bodies could do the same thing, stop clumping it into Scrum, sperate out the methods and framework that make up Agile Project/Product Management/Delivery and put Agile Coaching into its own space – take a hint from the Scrum Alliance who have done this, but still make it stink of Scrum, probably not the best place, but at least some progress and better would be to add links to the Agile Alliance and ICAgile and not to Scrum Master courses, validating Agile Coaching as a serious thing by endorsing it, not contributing to the conundrums and identity crisis issues.

Talent, Recruitment, Interviews, ATS, AI Key Word Scanning

Another thing driving, the problems is the relentless Job Board Ads for:

Scrum Master/Agile Coach/Delivery Manager/Project Manager/Programme Manager

ATS and the use of AI in HR is dismal.

All it is doing is putting the wrong people into the wrong roles.

How – by gaming it.

Application Tracking Systems liked to rubbish like Taleo and the like just sift applicants based on repeated key words, qualification, and education.

Then compounding this is the Hiring Managers and Recruitment people going for a spray and pray shopping list approach.

They use slash this slash that to cut and paste 4, 5,6 job descriptions hoping that they can get a best fit applicant to what they think is the role.

Adding to this, has been a common experience I am having lately in seeking a new role and in speaking to others.

Recruiters show some empathy and say they don’t get what the company is looking for. Fair do’s, so use the shopping list.

You speak with the Hiring Manager, ask questions, making assumptions and putting out challenges to be shot down, amplified, or have more questions asked to scope out the needs in order to serve.

Then you get to the interviews and find out the interviews are biased, hold grudges, don’t understand agile and come from the traditional PPM camp and Coaches, well the Scrum Masters, ask you all sorts of irrelevant questions to Agile Coaching, ask how you would do a Status Report in 10 different ways for different managers, ask noting about Coaching Models, Change and Transformation etc etc.

I got to several second and final round interviews where I expected more after having to do the presentations and had positive feedback.

I did expect to explore Agile Coaching questions around:

• How is Coaching conducted here?
• What are the typical Agile conversations going on where I can add value?
• How do the individuals, the team or the Org want to be coached?
• Is there a unique way they need to be coached or preference on how they like to receive constructive criticism and feedback to help them do better?
• Describe a challenging moment in your organisation that a Coach might face?
• Who can the Coach work with to get feedback, support them and reach deeper and further across the business?

What I got from one chap holding a PhD in Computer Sciences left to ask the questions, was an inquisition on Scrum Mastering for an Enterprise Agile Coach/Software Delivery Manager role. The scope of the role was defined to create a Flow Metrics Framework, Monitoring and Observability Capability to give deep insights and understanding into what was going on across the global technology function to improve their visibility into the fastest adoption of SAFe ever in WAM setting. Several “Coaches” SCMs, SPCs etc had all failed to support and provide this.

I also backed out of several other interview processes for Agile Coaches and Master Practitioner roles because it was clear, despite the scope and ask of the role, they were only interested in Scrum and Traditional PPM.

The best one I’ve had,

“I don’t get what you do (Senior Agile Coach asking) you’ve got all the buzzwords and say you’ve worked on Agile Transformations, Technology Change and Product Development at Scale, but summarise it for me, what do you do”

At first, I ignored it, then others said the same thing from their experience.

So, I got clever and wise to it and cheated the ATS, pass, but then you get to interviews and it just goes on a downward spiral and up sheep creek and you realise this has nothing to do with Agile Coaching – it’s a PM role, or a Scrum Master or Programme Manager in camo role.

It’s not just Hiring Managers and recruiters who get made piggy in the middle, it us Coaches by the Lemons who claim they are Experts.

We have got to change this so we are valued and respected in our craft and separated from the chaff.

Agile Coaching Clubs

At first, I thought this was a good idea.

Then I had the realisation its actually a rubbish one.

Its really not about mentoring, but one of self-gratification for the so called elitist Agile Coaches.

I’ve thought about this one, I am I write, am I wrong, somewhere in between.

You submit a portfolio and then the panel says, they don’t like it or you don’t display the skills to join our guild yet you’ve been doing it thoroughly well for a long time and am now seeking to praise the badge hunters and scanners so you can keep earning from a career you love.

It’s not like we are green apprentices or looking for a traineeship, we are trench hardened experienced professionals.

Scrum, as much as I think it’s great, am a champion of it for the right use case and setting, Scrum is 0.05% of Business Agility – maybe a tad more, but you get the point.

And there in lies the issue, they are so self-absorbed they cannot see the bigger picture of an Agile Coaches’ work, seeking to serve Business Agility and support it because they are engrossed in their Scrum world.

SAFe is the same, they as well as Consultancies put SPCs and SPCTs up on a pedal stool, the best at the game, the only ones who know how, well glorified trainers and mostly shit ones at that has been my last 8 years expereince of that since SAFe has become hot stuff.

What most SPCs and SPCTs do is teach and train of pre-set slide decks, become robots.

They are as bad as Scrum Masters.

All they do is run through and over the Mechanics of the SAFe Big Picture.

I asked my SPCT a question about the Release on Demand competency and how does it speed up the SDLC. Like the hours of verbal before it, he had absolutely no idea. To be a prat, I’ve done this to others as well, testing what they say, not looking for a perfect, but just a good enough answer to know their heads in the right space/place. Lack lustre have been the results.

So, the conundrum and issue to hand is, you can’t be a Coach or Mentor, or Teach or Train in something that you do not know or understand. I don’t know how to mix concrete, so I wouldn’t expect a Nurse to train me in it.

Some of the SPCs have no idea about Traditional PPM or Management either, and this compound the problem of what many Agile Coaches are faced with, supporting, and proving out the benefits case to Agile and Agility. For some, it’s because they are just too young, other just do know it, so more on the backstory is needed so they get why Agile Ways of Working came about in order to Teach and Embed it into the Organisational DNA and Culture which is very different job to facilitating a defined, well-trodden “factory model” process.

We don’t live in a perfect, neat world, it would be boring, but we do need to sort this stuff out if Agile Coaching is to have a successful future and not get blurred between the lines and surrounded in grey stuff.

That how’s the old Guilds worked, Master to Apprentice, Apprentice Shu Ha Ri it and becomes the new Master. Badges are coming before Knowledge and Teaching before Mastery.

Getting Real about the Cost of Agile Coaching L&D

The 9.99 LinkedIn Learning or Lynda 45min courses have there place.

We all like bite sized on demand learning, skip to what we need to skill up on, move on.

No 2-day course is going to impart all that’s needed to practice the craft of Agile Coaching.

To master a skill, it is said you need 10,000 hours, but even at 5,000 hours, you can already be proficient

Paying 5K for a 5-day Agile Coaching Bootcamp is not value for money when a year at University cost 10 - 15K per year.

The course content, is great.

But this soon adds to 7K once you factor in travel, hotel or T&S, plus any down time lost to a business/client and then there is the ongoing Mentoring and Coaching Circle participation costing a few more grand.

A Lean approach is needed to make Agile Coaching Training accessible to individuals and businesses.

The issue is its hot, its on trend, and instead of taking a quality first approach, and making some trade-offs, we are faced with a pure old school commercial, monetisation supply and demand model, when demands high, charge an earth, a fortune for it, milk it while it shot, when it not, a few hundred will suffice.

I am hoping that Digital Learning can make a hug impact and disrupt this.

Coaching is an art, most of the content, theory can be learnt digitally.

The like at Uni, some Tutorials or Practice or Dojos and Labs could be run face to face to polish it off.

That way, we would have a nice blended learning approach and not get fleeced 750 for the playing with Logo fun activity chucked into the course.

Going Rates

There is not see fee or salary, lets establish that first.

Everyone pays a bit differently across industries and sectors and you have to learn to negotiate your rate based on your skills, your value proposition/offer and the needs of the employer you are to serve.

The problem is we, are baselined on Scrum Masters.

We are not Scrum Masters.

Scrum Masters in the Software/Tech space can earn from 30 - 40K right up to 50 - 70K.

Agile Coaches span upwards of 70K, into the 80 -120K bracket/range.

This is in recognition as master crafts people.

This isn’t an entry level career, get the badge or the degree and walk right into a high paying role.

However, we need some flex. Why?

Software is eating the work and everyone’s a Tech company supposedly.

But many aren’t Tech company’s who can afford these high rates.

These who most need our skills are in other sectors and in other parts of the business where cost and profit margins are slim because value is based on scales of economy and not customer or market value.

This is why I am still not sure an Agile Coach is a Full Time Role.

Where and when it works best is across a series of planned and responsive sessions and through One to One and Organisational level efforts. This is where most value can be added over an above SCMs, RTE, SPCs/Ts.

Then there is the flex bit, if you can serve as a contractor, 2 or 3 clients at a time, across different sectors and industries, we can improve our reputations and value by adjusting our rates and offsetting.

Not rocket science, but every bit helps to professionalise us, take out the growing pains and set us up for future success when Agile is not the thing and we have to Coach something else when there is no separation between Tech and the Business, its truly ubiquitous.

Line Managers as Agile Coaches

Everyone is a bit of a Coach.

There is some truth to that, if your showing leadership to your teams to co-create and collaborate better, if you’re a boss of direct reports and you’re trying to get more for less or if you belong to the Talent folks.

That’s called Performance Coaching.

You’re trying to get staff over the line, above the cut offs and the bell curves ensuring they done all the required minimum training.

Agile Coaching isn’t about any of that.

Agile Coaching by a Line Manager or HoF/HoD is a Conflict of Interest, breaks the Psychological Safety and the Agile Coaching Code of Conduct/Ethics between Coach-Coachee/e’s

Agile Coaches serve the business relationship and grow and future people in Agile Ways of Working to make that happen.

Agile Coaches are bi-partisan, politically neutral, have an agenda based on embedding Agile and Agile Change and noting else.

Line Management has aspects of personal growth and development, but its contained into limited boxes and pathways around the functional silo.

Agile Coaches expand horizons, making people truly cross functional and multi-disciplinary.

Managers don’t do this because they don’t like it.

Good ones do, they surround themselves with brighter, smarter, more creative, more innovative, and different people to themselves, but this is few and far between and causes the glass ceilings and closed doors using biased AI and recruitment processes that look for “team fit”.

Line Management is it an expected norm in matrix and delta hierarchies.

Coaching is a service; the process of coaching is servant.

You must be invited to Coach, whether that be formally by a water tight Contract and NDAs, through informal arrangement, by the business who welcomes the role, rapport, and guidance of a Coaching relationship or via a loose social agreement.

Rounding it out, What Agile Coaching Is Not:

To separate us out, uplift and professionalise us, its then important to be clear on what we are not, ethically, professionally and to remain contextually relevant, valued, in demand and needed aka – our Product Market Fit, Value Proposition or USPs.

So here are the things we are not:

Project/Delivery Management

Agile Coaches have no Accountability or Responsibility for the delivery of specific products, services, platforms or experiences – that lies with and is the responsibility of the Agile Teams, SoSoS, Trains, PMO/VMO and Portfolios.

Agile Coaches are simply “enablers” by encouraging the use of Agile Ways of Working to accomplish goals and achieve results whilst the teams, teams of team, and teams of teams of teams are the “doers”.

Product or Solution Ownership and Management

The Product Owner role is specific to the Scrum Method – or Framework as is Solution Management to SAFe.

However, Product Ownership and Management was around much before it was embraced in our contexts of Agile or Agility.

These roles are accountable for maximising the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team, SoSoS or Trains by:

• Performing effective Product Backlog management:
• Developing and explicitly communicating the Product Goal
• Creating and clearly communicating Product Backlog Items, Cards, Issue Types, User Stories
• Ordering them in priority against Visions, Roadmaps and Release Plans
• Ensuring that the Development and Delivery is open, transparent, visible, and understood in relation to customer and market needs, wants, demands and opportunities for innovation

The Agile Coach will help teach, show, and embed these skills so Product, Solution, Platform, Feature or Component Owners and Managers can derive value from them.

The Agile Coach will also work one to one to highlight the major differences e.g.:

• A PO is inward team facing as a representative of the customer – the Product or Solution Manager of function
• The Product Manager is an outward, commercial facing, accountable role and representative of the end users and markets.

to enable the collaborative and co-creation relationship they should share in customer centric way.

The Agile Coach is neither of these but a jack of all trades as an enabler of all of this.

Scrum Mastering/Release or Solution Train Engineering

scrummaster-fragrance.com

Couldn’t resist, this was one of Mike Cohn’s light hearted digs at SCMs a few years back.

Similar but very different roles here contributing to the identity crisis and conundrum.

The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide.

It’s a One Team – One Product Scrum specific role

It’s a full-time role associated with One Team – One Product Scrum only

It’s a One Team – One Product Scrum Process Facilitation role only

It’s a Delivery centric Scrum role – not Agile or Scaled Agile.

They do this by helping Scrum Teams understand Scrum Theory and facilitating the Process by:

• focusing the Scrum Team on creating high-value shippable increments meeting the Definition of Done
• ensuring and conducting Scrum Events and Ceremonies within the Sprint Cycle
• helping to remove Impediments to the Scrum Team’s progress
• assisting the Product Owner with Release Planning, Estimation, Sprint Goal Setting and Prioritisation

Release or Solution Train Engineers, without downplaying, do largely the same thing, just at scale across more than one team across the Trains in Essential and Large Solution process levels of Full SAFe.

The RTE is a servant leader for the Agile Release Train who facilitate the ARTs events and processes and assist in delivering value.

STE’s are also servant leaders for the Solution Train, facilitating and guiding the work of all ARTs and Suppliers in the Value Stream.

RTEs and STEs, working at scale also tend to communicate externally with wider stakeholders, vendors, and suppliers, where usually the SCM only works internally, and Business Owners outside the Scrum Team interact with external vendors against Agile’s Flat Structure.

Like SCMs, RTEs and STEs help Product or Solution Management in the Portfolio with the ITIL/ITSM Change and Release Manager role.

Agile Coaches do not plan, design, delivery and release products, services, solutions, platforms, or experiences, they Teach, Train, Mentor and enable all the Scaled Lean and Agile roles to be responsible and accountable for this with the aim of creating better flow around the creation, delivery, and realisation of value.

The hype of the short courses make the SCM, RTE and STE roles sound overly easy and too simplistic to which they are not – as they say, Scrum is easy on paper but hard to master.

Agile Coaches - Coach, Teach, Train, Mentor and Uplift SCMs, STEs and RTEs because the 2-day courses don’t teach to full depth and breadth of skills needed in reality to practice being a Master and serving the complex technical team and domains needs all at once.

SCMs, RTEs, STEs and Agile Coaches work in partnership as a feedback loop and as part of the Coaching Sub System, even in LeSS were their suggested 3 levels of Coaching support technical, quality and product development goals.

Therapy

Agile Coaching is not healing, curing, or treating people for an acute or chronic disease, disorders, or a medical condition – however, some types of talking therapeutic practices do help the Agile Coach – see Skill Sets when applied in context and ethically to change people, process, models, and organisations.

Counselling

Agile Coaching is not providing physiological or psychiatric assistance and guidance in resolving personal, mental, or emotional health problems despite being a People First craft.

So there, these are the things Agile Coaching is not, however we do share some similarities hence why there is/can be crossed wires, blurred lines, and grey areas

Great Agile Coaches respect other disciplines and domains of knowledge, but Agile Coaches often find themselves in these roles as “Proxies” – doing it by stepping or leaning in to fill a temporary gap as Transformational Leaders, and this can lead to the issue, conundrum, and trap of why we are seen as all of these things in being servant, having a service orientation, but really aren’t the solve you really need.

So some of it might seem trivial, or why did he mention that, but to ensure we respected and valued as traders of our craft, we need to educate others claiming to be Agile Coaches and the Hiring Managers, Talent Folks and Recruiters so they understand, don’t assume, making asses out of us.

Conclusion to Part 1 of my Rant for Better in Agile Coaching

Agile Coaching Community, we have a problem to not stick our heads into the sand about and watch our craft become even more devalued, misrepresented and blurred.

Agile Coaching is facing several conundrums and issues as outlined in this Conversational Whitepaper, challenging its legitimacy and professionalism as a Discipline in the Agile Domain and our application of it is ready for modernisation.

Some of this has sparked the need for an Agile Coaching Code of Ethics and a community owned Agile Coaching Manifesto.

This should not be taken as a pessimistic view, of being overly critical, however it is a synthesis of what’s actually going on to challenge, awaken and shine a light on of whats getting called Agile Coaching, and the aim is to have the reverse affect and spark deeper thinking, collaboration and co-creation, contributing to and going beyond the grateful efforts already going on to modernise it - the focus of how is in my Part 2.

This is the Sunny Day story or upshot of this learning, we can change and improve it applying our very ethos of Continuous Improvement so we don't compromising Agile Coaching’s efficacy, reputation, as well limiting career growth and Agile career progression pathways.

Key takeaways for sniffing out the smells of Bad and Ugly Agile Coaching:

If you’re trying to manage the performance of Business Agility utilising Agile Coaching as the medium, then you must anchor yourselves in Lean Agile Methods, Scaling Frameworks or Agility Models to have a North Star refence point for the Coach – Coachee relationship to work – not the thin air of the UnAgilists.

Agile Coaching as a craft works best when it can ignite, unlock and unleash the creativity and innovation of trusted and empowered people in networks of networked teams, leveraging complimentary domains of knowledge and disciplines enabling continuous exploration, development and delivery around a clear purpose/mission, objectives and key result areas, to push the levels of business performance.

If you’ve got a delta pyramid beauracracy with lots of middle management, band aided with a Dual OS, Multi Speed IT, or Spotify Model camouflage over it, then you’re comprising your Agile Coaches ability to make a Transition from Adoption as your Organisational Agility e.g., Org Structure and Design is out of alignment with Agile Ways of Working and Cultures.

Unlike Scrum Masters, RTEs and STEs, Agile Coaches empower people to take calculated risks in 2-week containers, learning from rapid cycles of success as well as failure, to fail forward and are not purely focused on process facilitation and activity management and are not SPCs/Ts verbatim repeating pre-prepped slides.

So as with Bad and Ugly “Agile Coaching”, no investment into next generation technologies is going to make a difference, but true, authentic, and great Agile Coaching can be the differentiator that unlocks your path to Business Agility.

Next: Part 2: Modernising our Craft for the New Normal - Business Agility Coaching 4.0