What is NOT Agile Coaching ?

Vivek is the CIO of a mid-sized software development company that has been struggling with project delays, quality issues, and poor customer satisfaction. Vivek has heard about agile/scrum and believes this magic wand could fix all his problems and could help his company improve its software development processes. He hires an agile coach to help his company adopt agile practices, but the coach underperformed many times. In fact, the coach seems to be doing things that Vivek did not expect.

What went wrong in this case? Let's look at some examples of what is NOT agile coaching from my point of view.

Agile Coaching is NOT a Project Management role.

The first thing that Vivek's agile coach does is to take over the project management role. The coach sets up a project plan, assigns tasks to team members, and tracks progress using JIRA or any project management tool. This is not agile coaching. Agile coaches are not project managers. They do not manage timelines, budgets, or resources. They do not fight with stakeholders and customers on “What is in scope?" "What is out-of-Scope?" and "What is a Scope Creep ?" but instead, they help teams understand and apply agile principles to their work.

Agile Coaching is NOT showing off your "Technical Expertise”.

The second thing that Vivek's agile coach does is to provide technical solutions to the team. The coach spends a lot of time reviewing code, identifying defects, and suggesting improvements. This is not agile coaching. Agile coaches are not necessarily technical experts in a specific domain. They may have a broad understanding of technology, but their role is to facilitate the adoption of agile practices and principles, not to provide technical solutions.

Agile Coaching is NOT Consulting

Next, Vivek's coach have too many readymade solutions for the problems. Agile coaching is not about providing a solution or a quick fix to an organization's problems. It is not the same as consulting, where the consultant provides recommendations and solutions. They help teams find their own solutions and encourage them to continuously improve. For example, an agile coach might help the that a team explore and try a new retrospective technique to improve their communication, but they would not tell the team what to discuss during the retrospective. Lot of frameworks like SAFe etc created a big confusion in many organizations who frequently struggle to understand the differences between coaching and consulting.

Agile Coaching is NOT Training teams.

Vivek's agile coach spend hours and days keeping people in the room showing beautiful powerpoints. Agile Coaching not about delivering Agile/Scrum/SAFe training to teams, using predefined training materials. Many professional organizations like Scrum Alliance, ICF separate training from professional coaching, it quite a common practice that Agile Coaches spend a significant amount of time training teams.

Agile Coaching is NOT implementing another Process.

Further, Agile coach hired by Vivek ensures lot of process compliance. Agile coaching is not about implementing another process like CMMI, Six Sigma etc. Agile coaches may help teams improve their processes and their own ways of working, but they do not impose processes on teams. They help teams identify their pain points and help teams identify their own improvements, but they leave the implementation up to the team. For example, an agile coach might may ask "What testing frameworks would improve their quality, given the kind of mess the team is in ? but leave it to team to explore and experiment further.

Agile coaching is NOT enforcing agile on everyone.

Making everyone strictly follow the process may not make help Vivek's Hiree as a capable Agile Coach. Agile coaching is not about enforcing agile principles on individuals or teams. It is not someone who dictate how things should be done. Instead, agile coaches help individuals and teams to understand agile principles and how they can apply them to their work. They facilitate discussions to ensure everyone understands the importance of agile principles in creating a positive impact for organizational goals.

Couple more view points:

Agile coaching is not just for software development.

Agile coaching is not just for software development. Although agile ways of working originated in software development, agile principles and practices can be applied to any industry or domain. Agile coaches work with individuals and teams across various industries to embrace and implement agile practices to achieve organizational goals. Whether it is healthcare, finance, marketing, HR or manufacturing, agile coaching can help organizations to improve their processes, deliver value, and achieve outcomes.

Agile coaching is not a one-time event.

?Agile coaching is not a one-time event but an ongoing investment for leadership. Agile coaches work with individuals and teams to continuously improve their agile practices and processes. They provide ongoing support and guidance to ensure that individuals and teams are continually learning, growing, and improving.

It is very essential for leadership to understand what NOT agile coaching is before hiring an agile coach. Agile coaching is NOT consulting, imposing agile methodologies, enforcing agile principles, a project management role, or a quick fix. It is a collaborative approach that empowers individuals and teams to embrace and implement agile principles and practices effectively to achieve organizational goals. Agile coaching involves helping individuals, teams, and organizations adopt and improve their agile practices. However, there are significant differences in the impact and depth of Team coaching and Enterprise Coaching.

#agile #agilecoaching #scrum