Exploring Opportunities: A Learning Journey for Agile Coaches Towards Sustainability

Heiko Erhardt has held various positions in technology and management in his professional career. He has founded companies and supported others as an agile coach. As members of the Sustain-Agility association, we both focus on utilizing agile approaches for sustainable goals. Heiko recognizes some critical gaps that need to be addressed: "As agile coaches, we are usually tasked with making software projects less risky by addressing user needs and achieving efficiency gains through well-running teams. Agile is an excellent approach to deal with the unknown. Beyond classical agile, many agile coaches are familiar with creativity methods such as design thinking. So we can substantially contribute to product discovery and innovation in respect to innovative sustainable products and business models. However, we are often not trusted with this strategic consulting expertise."?

A Crisis for Agile Coaches?

Recently, we’ve heard reports that the reputation of agile coaches is declining, and that they are even being dismissed on a large scale. One prominent example is Capital One . The company has decided to integrate agile jobs into existing engineering and product management responsibilities after agile coaches had initially played a crucial role in agile and technical transformation. There is a perception that agile coaches are overly attached to their frameworks, whether they are called Scrum, SAFe, or OKR, and lack the skills to help a company optimise its value, increase innovation and be future ready.?

This impression fits with the definition in the 2022 State of Agile Coaching Report : "... we define an agile coach as someone who ‘helps organizations, teams, and individuals adopt agile practices and methods while embedding agile values and mindsets’, while also recognizing that an agile coach is more than a simple definition. It’s a career and a calling." Agile coaches have traditionally offered what their clients have (so far) expected and asked for: experience and services in agile coaching and agile transformation. However, this has made them superfluous for companies that claim to have achieved agile independence and maturity. On the other hand, our “calling” in my interpretation includes being prepared to adapt to new circumstances, to foster change, to build learning organizations and keep them running – and to learn relentlessly ourselves. The report also shows: Nearly half (47%) of agile coaches invest in learning three or more days per month.

How Agile Coaches Could Support Sustainability Initiatives

Could agile coaches find a new field of activity with companies seriously considering a sustainable path, with immanent far-reaching changes? If so, they need to work on their expertise beyond agility - and also on their reputation. Heiko sees medium-sized, owner-managed companies as the most likely candidates in this field. "Large companies have a strong focus on the stock market, financial sector stakeholders, and legal requirements. The well-being of the planet and social progress is not on their action list, unless it directly or indirectly affects the financial performance or the prerequisite for operation of the company."

How in particular can agile coaches support serious sustainability initiatives and transformation on a strategic level? Heiko explains the following scenario: an SME entrepreneur is convinced that sustainability will be one of the mega-trends that are shaping tomorrow’s economy. As such, they want their company to move away from extractive business models towards sustainable products and services. This is a new domain for the company. Ideas and expertise for new fields of business, new technologies, new materials etc. need to be generated, discussed, decided about and prototypically tested. A co-creative and agile innovation and discovery process is required to do so.

Now, there are two main things at stake: ensuring the economic survival of the company during the transition phase and involving employees in order to utilize the potential of the workforce and to avoid resistance against the desired change. This change is not only associated with a new identity of the organization. It also requires new competences from leaders and staff, while some of the "traditional" ones might become superfluous.?

Heiko's Learning Journey - an Example of Structured Competence Development

What do agile coaches need in addition to the agile palette, to make a valuable contribution to this change and to be trusted as a guide? Heiko has been thinking about this and has invested a lot in his own training over the last 12 months. Here are the building blocks he has chosen:

• Knowledge in sustainability: Heiko undertook a 10-week training course to become an agile sustainability expert at Grubengold, learning how to carry out an agile sustainability transformation based on a target image and a sustainability strategy. The course covered theoretical and practical regulatory and legal tools (impact analysis, stakeholder dialogue, materiality analysis). He encountered many techniquies he had been using before as innovation manager of a corporation.
• Economy for the Common Good (ECG) Consultant Training: The Economy for the Common Good (ECG) aims to establish the well-being of people and the environment as the primary goal of economic activity, making companies' endeavors in human dignity, solidarity and justice, ecological sustainability, transparency, and co-decision-making measurable.?
• Change Management and Systems Thinking: Heiko participated in the "Change Essentials" training programme from Heitger+ by KPMG to strengthen his change management competences. This programme deals with two perspectives that complement each other: necessary cuts? such as gracefully shutting down business units that cannot contribute to the new direction including staff reduction and new growth through strategic innovation. He found the convincing case studies from the trainers' vast experience treasure box particularly valuable. He has written about his experience in a LinkedIn post .
• Participation: "If you want sustainability, you have to design it with participation." "Transformation cannot succeed without cooperation." Insights from Jascha Rohr , philosopher, entrepreneur, consultant and keynote speaker, whom Heiko has chosen as his teacher for participation . Jascha is one of the most influential voices when it comes to cocreation and participation. His company IPG is part of the consortium that organized the first citizens' council set up by the German parliament on the topic of "Nutrition in transition”, employing various methods that offer intellectual, physical, and emotional approaches.
• Inner Development: Many sustainability initiatives fail because the participants are missing the inner competences that it takes. For an agile coach, it is even more than acquiring new skills; it is about undergoing an inner transformation to effectively accompany a client on such a journey. In our conversation, these abilities consistently shine through: attentiveness, empathy, relating, co-creation, vision building, long-term orientation. The Inner Development Framework provides a guideline for this transformation.?

I find it exciting that the topic of agility is on the agenda of all these training programmes.? Heiko considers these training courses very valuable for his work: "I have learned and applied quite some techniques of these programmes before. However, revisiting them in a structured context and learning from the experience of the trainers helps me to even better utilize them in real-life consulting situations.

Besides companies, Heiko applies his knowledge also in community and municipal projects. For example, he facilitated a process for the residents of ZEGG , one of the largest eco-villages in Germany, on intergenerational cooperation. This year he and his family are moving into a multi-generational co-living project, where he has been engaged in the planning process for several years already.?

Inspired by his journey, I find myself eager to sign up straight away, but at least I have added two more books to my reading backlog. Good luck and success with all your future projects, Heiko!