Wanna Switch role : How about Agile Coach as goal?

Today i am not in serious mood. Its very light weight fun kind of evening. Enjoying evening sunlight in Toronto... Have been reading alot about it from few months and sharing what my experience has been around role switch. These views are very personal thoughts and should not be attached to professional guidance. I am not a career counsellor :) so read this with light heart, evening mood.......

" I have played this Scrum Master Role enough." I want to switch either my team or my company. ( One of my thought... couple of years back)

I am no longer enjoying what i was most passionate about. I am feeling stuck ( another thought...)

I am continuously doing same task again and again , though i like it but .. ( another thought)

My Boss is excellent, work environment is pleasant, the role I am playing has been my goal BUT ....( ????)

These dangerous ??? ?? . At some point we all feel and think about .......

I have hunger to do something more or what we call is DIFFERENT... That different is an inspiration from variety of stuff I get everyday may be a video, a talk, a role model, another employer, some webseries, a movie & now I want to experiment with this. Sometimes I try in my existing role but many times its not possible. Then I start wondering - SHOULD I CHANGE?

Pandemic kicked this more because we had time too. We got many inspirations around. Everyday when we Open linkedIn and see new role posts and we feel excited or sad too...

It is good to be progressive, hunger for more, but I have seen that hunger is not consistent. One day you want be to better Scrum Master and next day you want to be Digital Product Owner. Quickly you may read that there is lot as Coach you can make so you want to be BIZPRODUCTCUSTOMERCENTRIC Coach... Few years back i was in same boat. Hungry seeker but not clear what to seek. I wanted to know and do everything which is good as learner or reader BUT that should not drive your professional decisions.

I found out that to progress there needs to be great clarity, focus and step by step approach to achieve your professional goals. It's okay to fail, experiment, be slow sometimes, but its not OKAY to change Focus or goals continuously. Have a clear Vision - work on it consistently and you will be - Where you want to be OR may be a way better........

Few things I practiced when I was designing my long term Vision and short term goals -

1. Where do i see myself in next few years? Reflecting back on it after every year - does this hold true. Pandemic might have asked to adjust your goal but if you have complete change of Vision - then be more specific on below points. I designed my Vision/career on a) assets (soft assets like knowledge, skills and connections - maximum I got benefit by looking at my mentors & models in my connections) b) Aspirations & core values - my aspirations got reshaped by my experience over time c) Market needs and realities - including what' latest and trendy
2. What is an ideal role for you? What is your purpose to do that role and are you enabled to perform that role (skill competency etc.)
3. Why do you feel this role will be your true goal - Benefits, value, outcome you want to get while performing this role.
4. Do you want to perform this role as an Employee or independent? Make your pointers clear both have pros and cons. (Flexibility is very loose term - differ from profession to profession). Long discussion will do some other time, i have lot on this
5. Is your role not right or environment is not helping to prosper you? or Vice-versa : that environment is so cool that you have forgotten about your goal and purpose. Salary ley chill maar!!!
6. Plan is not important but Planning is but how will you do planning without it..so unless you are clear do both. First create a small Action Plan, Act, Check, Reflect/Adjust ..Replan....

So i will share my example in 2019 beginning I created my Vision to Enable myself AS an Agile Transformation consultant and Coach that will help organizations of varied scale and size to move towards Agile. I was focusing more on SAFe but then I added the experience of other models Spotify, DAD, Nexus etc as well along with LeSS and Scrum@scale that i had The focus was clear to learn more by DOING & EXPERIENCING on the ground in various domains, teams, using Golden Circle ( Why, What & How of it) . In this way I picked up small projects, programs or even small workshop where I was able to learn more. I have worked as Agile solution consultant where we created and validated many RFI, RFP, RFS, co-creating transformation roadmaps with many enterprises. I also got an opportunity to work on some winning deals where I picked up DevSecOps, Lean Change Management, Project to Product and OKR in it. Vision remained the same for 2-3 years be better Agile transformation Enabler . My Competition is always with me adding more skills , techniques, badges, coins........... I spent some extra money but learning around this Vision only.

Many people asked me why I am not doing ICF or few other more professional courses, reason was clear - my short term goal is not be Professional Coach. Yes I am learning alot from books, webinars, LinkedIn learning around this aspect but my Career Vision is still not around it.

Hope this brings some clarity for you as Agile Enable - If you have any question let me know?

I run a small Community initiative with Agile Coaches to learn from them & mentor each other in alignment with our true goals. I have my Agile Coaching Dojo where we are a family of 200 .....

This time I will be starting a small cohort in June 2022. Looking to learn together if your vision is aligned with mine............... Drop a note to me :)

Key Objectives that i have planned are around : Project to Product Ways of working, Facilitating workshops , Design to DevOps