Enterprise Agile Coaching E-Book

Cherie Silas

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 612

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

When an Agile coach leaves an organization, the changes developed during their tenure should not roll backward. Compliance is somewhat easy to install and takes hold rather quickly. The challenge with that approach is that when the forcing mechanism (Agile coach) is removed, much of the compliance rolls back to the original position. Sustainable change requires a different strategy. This book introduces the concept of utilizing an Invitational Approach to Enterprise Agile Coaching which can be a crucial catalyst for integrating sustainable change by putting the client in the seat of responsibility.

Leseprobe

Enterprise Agile Coaching:

Sustaining Organizational Change Through Invitational Agile Coaching

Cherie Silas, MCC, CECMichael de la Maza, PhD, CECAlex Kudinov, MCC, CEC

With Bonus Mini-Book Cynefin Content Contributed by

Dimitar Bakardzhiev

Enterprise Agile Coaching: Sustaining Organizational Change Through Invitational Agile Coaching

Cherie Silas, MCC, CEC ● Michael de la Maza, PhD, CEC ● Alex Kudinov, MCC, CEC

Copyright © 2021, All Rights Reserved.Printed in the United States of America

Editor: Wendy Depperschmidt

ISBN: 9798985085105

December 2021

Table of Contents

Forewordsi

Acknowledgmentsxv

Prefacexxix

Part 1:The Invitation to Coaching1

Chapter 1: Why Coaching?3

Chapter 2: The Coaching Mindset13

Chapter 3: Challenge and Support27

Chapter 4: Engaged Neutrality43

Chapter 5: Developing a Solid Foundation57

Chapter 6: Developing Coaching Values77

Part 2:Getting Started97

Chapter 7: Business Development for Everyone99

Chapter 8: Selecting the Right Clients119

Chapter 9: Coaching Organizational Systems141

Chapter 10: The Relationship Agreement: STORMMES© Model167

Chapter 11: Impact Mapping Goals183

Chapter 12: Designing Well Formed Outcomes203

Part 3:Coaching the Agile Enterprise243

Chapter 13: Engagement Types245

Chapter 14: Coaching Culture Change269

Chapter 15: Coaching Client Partnership279

Chapter 16: Coaching for Sustainability291

Chapter 17: Coaching Values and Principles303

Chapter 18: Experimentation319

Chapter 19: Developing Metrics that Matter337

Chapter 20: Promoting a Learning Organization369

Chapter 21: Promoting Psychological Safety399

Chapter 22: Knowing When the Engagement is Over423

Bonus Mini-Book Cynefin Simplified by Dimitar Bakardzhiev441

Chapter 23: Introduction445

Chapter 24: Organization449

Chapter 25: System Organization and Structure453

Chapter 26: Typology and Taxonomy457

Chapter 27: Order, Complexity and Chaos461

Chapter 28: Cynefin Model463

Chapter 29: Clear Domain469

Chapter 30: Complicated Domain471

Chapter 31: Complex, Chaos, and Confused Domains475

Chapter 32: Intervention489

Chapter 33: Using Cynefin in Projects507

Chapter 34: Using Cynefin with COVID-19530

Chapter 35: Cynefin References539

About Authors555

Forewords

My first reaction when I read this book was, “Where on earth has this been until now?”

Enterprise Agile Coaching is one of the most relevant and relatable books I have read on the subject. Cherie, Michael and Alex take the reader through their own journeys with stories and examples of how they have grown and matured their coaching prowess to develop sustainable agile coaching practices.

As an example, one of my favorite lines from the book is, “When a coach leaves an organization, the changes should not roll backwards.” You will find many stories that any coach in their own journey within an enterprise, no matter the point, will say, “Aha!” I am sharing some of my own learnings from this book here since I have read it twice!

Early in my own coaching career, I believed that a coach needed to be everything to everyone; friend, mentor, counselor, teacher, etc., but as the book examines, it is just not possible. They use an analogy of the perception of Agile coaching as a “fancy cocktail", and needs a little bit of everything. This, for me, diluted the coaching I provided to my clients. Coaching is really about focusing on one single ingredient, being a coach, and nothing but a coach. The importance of this coaching mindset and the discipline to develop it is paramount.

Another reason this book is so meaningful to me is from those times I would say to myself, “So, I have learned a skill. Now what? I would love to hear a story or an example of actually how to use it.” This book has so many examples from three very different coaching perspectives. These stories and examples are what make all the tools and models in the book usable. I really appreciate the startling stories from these coaches, and I wish they had written this book 12 years ago!

This is also the first book I know of on coaching as a discipline that gives advice on launching a coaching business or coaching practice within an organization, focused on the one true element of coaching, which is coaching.

Becoming a skilled agile coach is like learning to drive a car. You start by learning what a car is and how to use its instruments, and the only way to become good and confident is to practice, practice … and then practice again. And we need feedback, which is why our parents would take us driving, so they could help point out the things that would help us improve and keep us safe. This book does a fantastic job of getting you started in the learnings of what coaching is and how to do it right – the book starts your journey – the rest is up to you!

It is tough to decide which parts of the book to share in this foreword because if I could, I would rewrite the whole book in this foreword, in my own words and using my own journey. Every part of the book applies to me! My copy will be dog eared so I can use every model, framework and tool. I will be quoting example after example as I share learnings with others. I hope your copy will be as well used as mine.

Anu Smalley, CST, CEC, ICF-ACCFounder, Capala Consulting Group

There is a reckoning happening in the Agile world. Agile is teetering between a real breakthrough and being relegated to yet another failed methodology. As a coach and practitioner of Agility for over 15 years, I have danced on this thread for a while working so that Agility is a positive force of change and success for the world of work.

Done with empathy, thoughtfulness and skill, coaching can be a powerful tool for organizations to realize their full potential. Yet oftentimes, many organizations are unclear as to what coaching is and more importantly, what good coaching is. The good news is the market is responding. At the time of this writing, there are over three hundred thousand people identifying as Agile Coaches. As a profession, we have an obligation to be better at our craft for the benefit of our client and the integrity of the profession itself.

This book is an amazing offering to help in the effort of making the profession of coaching better. It is just what is needed, at the perfect time, by the right people. Michael, Cherie, and Alex are uniquely qualified to address this huge topic of making the world of work better through better coaching and thus better Agile coaches. Between them, they have mentored, coached, trained, and cultivated hundreds of coaches They truly care about making better coaches. I have witnessed their work firsthand and have even been a beneficiary. They spend much of their own time, energy, and resources to make the world of coaching, better. This book is a written instantiation of their care, love, and dedication.

Cherie, Michael, and Alex create a space of becoming better for every level of coach. As a coach practicing for over a decade, I left this reading as a more thoughtful, better coach and human being. What Cherie, Michael, and Alex are offering in this book can be life changing for many. I hope this writing leaves you, as it did me, fulfilled, inspired and better, as we owe it to our clients, teammates, and craft.

Brandon Raines, CEC, CTC, ORSCCContent Provider of LinkedIn Learning’s popular video series, “Characteristics of a Great ScrumMaster”

Writing this foreword is such a privilege because you hold the first Enterprise Agile Coaching book that offers an open invitation to sustainable organizational change beyond theory. I started my journey in Agile coaching back in 2005, when I was assigned as a project planner to work closely with a project manager named Tom Mellor. During a required traditional project management process training, Tom suggested that I take the Certified Scrum Master workshop with the co-creator of Scrum, Ken Schwaber. Ken was advising Tom as we worked to deliver the 1st Scrum project at State Farm. Tom would later become a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and the Director of Scrum Alliance when Ken left the organization in 2009. I moved on to other organizations with Scrum as my foundation and introduction to using Agile to assist with organizational change.

Early in my career in 2008, I had the opportunity to pursue the CST credential, but my desire for Agile Coaching outweighed it. In hindsight, I needed time to learn how to partner with teams and organizations to guide them in achieving their goals. Taking the time to learn how to run experiments, develop the right metrics and create environments that promote psychological safety was just the beginning of the journey. Seeing results and finding mentors in the agile community helped power up my abilities, but I noticed a dirty little secret within our industry. Many people believed a certification was all they needed and dictated this expectation to clients, which caused stagnation and hatred to grow towards our community.

This led me to partner with clients by founding BeardedEagle in 2011, and becoming the 1st Black CST in 2013. As a CST, there is a requirement that people who aspire to earn this certification complete co-trainings with existing CSTs. Cherie Silas expressed her desire to become a CST, so we met to provide an honest opinion about her journey. Here is her accurate description of my words to her during our exchange:

"Tell me why you think we should consider you for the CST. I've never heard of you, never seen you at any user groups, haven't met you at any conferences, never seen you speak publicly, and you are making no contributions to the agile community."

These words became critical to her path of becoming a Certified Enterprise Coach, but my advice continued: "If you want to be a CST, do something about it. Get out there. Join the Agile community. Go to user groups, to conferences. Speak at conferences. I want to see you and know who you are. And you can never stop coaching. You cannot be a good CST if you are not coaching. That is where everything you know comes from. That is where you gain your credibility and expertise that can help people."

I know it sounds cold and heartless on the surface, but I provide honesty to those who ask. Within a few months, I saw Cherie executing that advice by presenting "Connecting Practices to Principles" at a professional development conference for the Fort Worth Chapter of PMI. Her topic helped people make better decisions using Agile values and principles. This was just the beginning of a systematic approach to meeting her goal while coaching clients at all levels. She took the actions needed to establish herself as an expert on this subject.

Cherie is the first and only CEC through the Scrum Alliance that is a Master Coach with both the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC). She created a name for herself by working closely with the Scrum Alliance to improve and promote the coaching certifications that helped thousands of people understand the intersection of the Agile Manifesto and professional coaching. I remember talking to her about the work at Cox Automotive, which showed me that she was interested in the client's success. I have literally sat in sessions where I observed her humility and ability to leave anything she touches better than how she found it. Cherie is a strong believer in diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is evident in her work to help marginalized people. I am enjoying watching her journey and the impact she is having on the world.

I have not to worked closely with the other authors, but their experience shines through these pages like a movie. It starts with an invitation to get to know the author's mindset for the journey you, the main character, will embark upon. It helps you build a healthy relationship with coaching by building a solid foundation. The second act helps you confront the common challenges most Agile Coaches deal with when getting started and allows you to set sustainable boundaries for success. In the final act, aka the climax, you learn how to deal with the organization, understand the current state, and find ways to conquer many of the common issues you face as you coach Agile enterprises. This is an opportunity for you to partner with the organization in building the most appropriate ending.

I have seen many coaches join the agile community over the years but have yet to see a group of authors come together with the breadth and depth of those in this book to use it as an ode to aspiring Enterprise Agile Coaches. It is a testament to practical ways to demonstrate the intersection of coaching competencies and ethics with the Agile value and principles. It is a good reference book for any current or aspiring coach. Every so often, a book stands out in our industry as a go-to for a particular topic. This book has done that for Enterprise Coaching.

Devon Morris, CST, PMP, CSSBB, CDPFounder BeardedEagle (aka the Scrum Preacher)

I am the worst coach in the world. Don't ask me to help you with your organizational change because my coaching skills suck. I care more about my own problems than the challenges of others. And when it comes to problems, I have plenty.

Perhaps I should be coaching myself.

I could definitely use a change of mindset. At least, that's the impression I get from the arguments with my partner. A bit less defensive. A bit more social. A whole lot more empathetic. Indeed, maybe I should make a coaching plan for personal change and draw up an impact map with myself. That would be a cool experiment!

When it comes to running experiments, I could use some coaching as well. Not that I lack a desire for experimentation. On the contrary, I have plenty of tests going on. But making the outcomes measurable would come in handy. And finishing what I started. And not running dozens of them at the same time. Yes, maybe I could coach some more focus into my work.

Oh, and non-violent communication should be on my coaching backlog, for sure. I hope the neighbors that live downstairs didn't hear my expletives when I clumsily struggled with a paint bucket yesterday. Fortunately, my partner wasn't home at that moment, or else I might have been told to add psychological safety to the coaching plan.

Is dogfooding something that system thinkers do? I don't know. But I look forward to finding out because the book you hold in your hands offers a comprehensive overview of the job and responsibilities of an agile coach. The authors did a fantastic job. It has the most impressive collection of advice I have ever seen in a book for coaches. Too bad they didn't write it for me. Unless I run the experiment to be a coach for myself.

After reading and applying the recommendations in this book, I'm sure that my coaching skills would suck a little bit less.

Jurgen AppeloAuthor of Management 3.0 and Managing for Happiness

“If I had this book 5 years ago when I was starting out as an independent Agile Coach, it would have taken a lot of the stress and nervousness away from me.”

When asked if I would review and provide feedback for the book, I was honored to be asked to add my insights to what it takes to coach an enterprise organization.

Cherie is an exceptional coach, the first ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) in our Agile Community. She has translated her vast coaching expertise and experience into this amazingly practical, easy-to-follow book, for Agile Coaches.

I love the practicality of this book. The focus on coaching in this book is a refreshing shift from other publications I have read. Cherie, Michael, and Alex bring a wealth of experience and expertise in the field of Coaching Enterprise Organizations to this book. This is exactly what is missing on many bookshelves.

The shared stories in this book brought everything to life for me. Cherie’s impact in the Agile community is immeasurable because she coaches, mentors, builds, and grows the talents of future coaches. To paraphrase Cherie’s vision; “Leaving you better than she found you”. This book epitomizes that vision.

Readers of this book will get practical gems with beautiful real-world examples on how to tackle the complex domain that is Coaching Enterprise Organizations. You will appreciate the great piece on Cynefin which shed a lot of understanding and clarity for me on this topic.

Kwasi Owusu-Asomaning, CEC, PCCDirector & Executive Coach, OAK Agility

Acknowledgments

It is impossible to write acknowledgments without first honoring Lyssa Adkins who kicked the door open for using professional coaching skills in agile world. Without you, there would not be me and there would not be this book. Thank you for disrupting the industry by realizing and promoting that to be an agile coach, you must first start with being a coach. Your work is the foundation upon which the rest of us seek to build. You have been a lovely influence on my life both from a distance and through our interactions over these past several years. Your support of my work leaves me eternally grateful. You are a beautiful force for good in the world.

To Christine Thompson, who gave us honest feedback chapter by chapter every step along the way. You were our constant monitor of tone – thank you.

Allison Pollard and Ty Crockett, the time we spent together coaching side by side taught me many things and gave me the courage to go forth and conquer. Thank you for allowing me to stand in your shadow.

Devon Morris, you have been an inspiration and gave me the much-needed kick in the pants back in 2013, to get out there and make an impact on the agile world. This book is my response. I am proud to be part of your circle and humbled by your friendship and support.

Ross Hughes, you trusted me and believed in me at a time in my career when I wasn’t sure if I still believed in myself. You were humble enough to give me free reign and not feel threatened by my approaches. You were a mentor and a friend. Working with you was the best experience of my career. I am honored to have had the chance to work so closely with you. Thank you for helping me rise from the ashes and bringing me to the pinnacle.

Thank you to my daughter, Toni, and husband Anthony for taking me away on writing retreats and for tolerating me sitting on a beach in Hawaii for hours on end writing, instead of hanging out with you. Without your grace, I would have never finished. Thank you for always believing in me and assuming I am the best in the world – at everything. And most importantly for being proud of me, even though after all these years, you still have no clue what I do.

Michael de la Maza, you showed up out of nowhere and just started asking me to do zany, brilliant things. This book is just one of many of those zany, brilliant ideas you involved me in. Thank you for trusting me to take your ideas and help you make them reality. Your ideas and your belief in me have been a huge part of my success. I am grateful.

Alex Kudinov, you are an amazing business partner and the most faithful friend I have ever encountered. Your brilliance and integrity are gifts to the world. You are a stabilizing and catapulting force in my life. First, you poured your energy, talent, and time into me asking nothing in return because you saw things in me, I could not see in myself. Then, you put it all on the line for what you knew we could do together. Partnering with you is the wisest business decision I have ever made. Words will never be adequate to convey the depth of my gratitude and admiration towards you. We make the perfect team.

To those around the world who have trusted me to be your instructor, mentor, and coach. We have experimented, learned, and grown together and I have learned as much from you as you have from me. This book is for you.

With joy,Cherie SilasDallas, TX USAOctober 2021

Without those around me who have supported me over the years, this book would not have come to fruition. First, I want to give thanks to my mentors, particularly Steve Bell and Michael & Audree Sahota for your support and sharing wisdom through the years.

I also want to extend a huge thanks to Dimitar Bakardzhiev who wrote the Cynefin section almost instantly two years ago and then waited and waited and waited while we assembled the book. His explanation of Cynefin is a huge gift to the community and the best compact description of Cynefin I have seen.

This book also would not be available to the world without the collaboration of my writing partners, Cherie Silas and Alex Kudinov. Working together with them, has given me perspective. And thus, I realize that I dislike getting old. That said, getting old comes with at least one benefit – you get to see life strategies play out.

With this book in the backdrop, I recently contemplated the performance of my life strategy compared to those of my co-authors, Cherie and Alex. It was not all that pretty.

Here is how I see Cherie’s approach to life: She does not think she will be given anything. So, she works extremely hard and is eternally grateful when she achieves success. I am the opposite. I think I am entitled to everything. So, I do not work for anything and get irritated when I do not achieve it.

The end results: Cherie scales new peaks every year while I fall into new valleys. I told you it was not all that pretty (at least for me). And Alex? I see him has that important third leg in the stool, providing balance and stability.

All this is to say that this book is the outcome of a collaboration among three radically different people with radically different experiences and approaches to life. However, there is one thing upon which we all agree: an Agile coach benefits from having the mindset of a coach.

Be well,Michael de la MazaBoston, MA USAOctober 2021

First, this acknowledgment would not be complete without mentioning the biggest opportunity of my life – coming to the United States and making my living here. I am grateful to this great nation for letting me be a part of it and enabling my becoming what I am today. God bless these United States of America.

I would not be doing what I am doing today, nor would I be who I am today without my teacher, coach, mentor, business partner and friend, Cherie Silas. You, Ma’am, are the epitome of your own motto; you make me a better person at every turn. You are a gift to this Agile community and my wish for you is that you keep giving your wisdom for years to come.

I am grateful to my former boss, mentor and friend, Joe Louis. Thank you, sir, for being in the right place at the right time, seeing in me what you saw and helping me through the thick and thin.

My contribution to this book would not have happened without the push in my development I received innumerable trainers and mentors from the Agile community, for which I am eternally grateful.

Alex Kudinov, MCC, CECHouston, TX USANovember 2021

Dedications

In honor of those who have come before us and expectation of those who follow.

To my mom – your fearlessness and the love of reading were your heritage to me. Using it to benefit the world is my tribute to you. If we could share this moment, I know you would be proud.

- Cherie Silas, MCC, CEC

¡Amaia Amaia Papaya!

- Michael de la Maza, PhD, CEC

Маме – единственному человеку, любящему меня беззаветно со дня моего рождения и до её последнего часа.

To my mother – the only person in this world who gives her love unconditionally from the day I am born till her last breath.

- Alex Kudinov, MCC, CEC

Preface

In the book you hold in your hands, Cherie, Michael, and Alex introduce doing the work of enterprise Agile coaching via an invitational approach. And it is important to start out with clarity about what it means to take an invitational approach to coaching. The invitational approach to Agile Enterprise Coaching is not a technique or tool – it is a mindset shift that enables you to partner with your client to create sustainable organizational change.

In the Agile community, there are roughly two schools of thought on how to approach this work, a directive approach, and an invitational approach.

The directive approach interacts with the client from a perspective that the Agile coach is an expert in the field and knows what needs to be done to make the client’s organization successful. Coaches who take a directive approach focus on fixing the client’s broken state using their expertise and experience to tell the client what needs to change. They do this by assessing current state, determining what needs to change, and telling the client how to make those changes.

Most times, the people being coached (or as Alex likes to say, the people having coaching inflicted on them) have neither requested nor do they want coaching. However, the directive coach, who takes ownership of ensuring that the client’s organization changes, often has power and executive backing to force compliance. This may leave people in a state of fear, frustration, or resistance. It also creates a change that is unsustainable because with no mechanism in place forcing compliance, change rolls back.

The invitational approach is different. Invitational coaching starts with the assumption that the client is fully competent and doesn’t need the coach to fix them or their company. Rather, it assumes that the client has invited the coach to join them on a journey of continuous improvement. It assumes partnership between the coach and client. In this partnership, the client maintains ownership and control of their own decisions and actions. They also maintain responsibility for their own growth and improvement. Thus, coaching is neither inflicted upon nor done to the client. Coaching starts with an invitation to partnership. The client has full power to accept or decline the invitation. Because of the mutual agreement by both parties that they wish to be in a coaching relationship, they develop trust and rapport.

Rather than pushing their own agenda, thoughts, ideas, and solutions, the invitational coach first asks questions to help the client draw from their own wisdom. Then, the coach makes appropriate contributions in a way that invites the client to consider how they might use the contributions. It also gives the client freedom to discard those ideas without damaging the relationship.

The invitational coaching approach removes resistance from the relationship because, since the client is in control, there is nothing to resist. It enables the coach to make observations and challenge ideas without creating defensiveness, because mutual respect is at the core of the relationship. The invitational coaching approach has the power to create more sustainable change for the client because the client takes responsibility and ownership for all changes, they wish to make without being dependent on the coach for direction or approval.

The chapters in this book all focus on how you can take your coaching to the next level by using the invitational approach to Agile coaching. Within these pages, Cherie, Michael, and Alex have shared their wisdom, experience, and stories of how they have worked successfully with this approach coaching large Agile enterprises. Each of these industry leading coaches has shared their expertise, opinions, and advice gained through a combined three plus decades of experience. Their hope is that you will take the information you gain in this book and use it to become the next generation of industry leading Agile coaches.

Part 1: The Invitation to Coaching

Chapter 1: Why Coaching?

We [Cherie, Michael, and Alex] have had people ask us why we put so much emphasis on professional coaching skills for Agile coaches. In this book, we attempt to give you insights into both the why and the how. We are passionate about this topic because we have experienced the positive impact that using these skills has had on our clients. We recognize that Agile coaching uses a broad skill set and incorporates expertise and experience. There will be no heavy focus placed on technical skills, mentoring, training, facilitating, or consulting skills in this book other authors covered these topics rather well. These disciplines, along with expertise in Agility, gained through formal and informal learning, plus experience working in Agile teams, are all necessary to be successful coaching Agile organizations. To coach Agile organizations in the adoption of Agile ways of being, thinking, and working, we also believe you must first experience the reality of doing it. We also recognize that the work of Agile coaching goes beyond implementing Agile things. At its heart, the work we do is cultural transformation.

In our experience, to make a sustainable change in organizations, you must work in partnership with your clients to help them create the change they want. This starts with understanding the mindset of a coach and adopting a coaching approach to consulting, training, mentoring, and facilitating can be a powerful way to use these disciplines for maximum impact.

Cherie says, “Let me start with a firsthand account of how taking an invitational approach that embodies a coaching mindset and behaviors has made a more sustainable impact. I began working with a client that already had one Agile coach on site. This coach was leading the engagement and was making good progress. He had the favor of the top leaders in the organization, and they trusted him. The client added a few more coaches so things could move along faster. I was one of those new coaches. As is my custom, when I arrived on the scene, I spent a few weeks getting to know people and just observing how things were done in the organization. I noticed some interesting patterns across teams. There were several things that showed up as mirror images across teams. Of course, this in and of itself was not too big of a deal. People share best practices all the time, so it is not unusual for organizations to have multiple teams doing some of the same things. After seeing the pattern repeat itself multiple times and asking a few questions, I could put the pieces together and identify which teams were working with the original Agile coach and which teams were not. It seemed to me that the coach must have a heavy hand in deciding how teams do things.

Then, I noticed the coach saying things like, ‘(x person) is uncoachable.’ He also mentioned that when he deemed someone uncoachable, he would go to their manager and tell them that a person was not complying with coaching. Thus, the manager would discipline the employee and instruct them they had better listen to the coach. This was interesting and seemed contrary to my normal way of working. At about the three-weeks into the engagement, I quietly slipped into a team’s Daily Scrum being conducted in a conference room. I noticed the team was standing up around the conference table, looking at their electronic story board displayed on a large monitor. Several of those who saw me walk in looked at me a bit nervously. I just smiled and encouraged them with a nod to ignore me and keep going. After they finished with the Daily Scrum, they looked to me for input. Since it was their daily Scrum and I was just observing, I did not really have anything to add that would be valuable. They were collaborating and seemed to have a plan for the day. I wondered why they were all standing around the table, but I let it pass, since many people have picked up the industry’s ‘stand-up’ terminology and feel a need to stand up even when it is not adding value. Then it happened. The moment when the world I had stepped into made sense. Someone said to me, ‘Wow, I cannot believe you said nothing.’ I shrugged and said, ‘There did not seem to be any major issues with what you were doing, so there really was not anything to say.’ Their response was, ‘If the other coach had walked in and saw us looking at our board with this filter, we would have gotten in trouble. He would have scolded us and then went and told our manager that we were not listening to him.’ I remained non-reactive and asked, ‘Well, what makes you not use the board with that filter when he is not in the room?’ Their response, ‘It does not give us what we need to plan properly. This filter is how we need to see the information.’ After hearing this, I simply responded, ‘Well, you should use this filter if it is the one that adds value.’

I worked with this client for a year alongside the other coach. We approached things very differently. At our core, we had the same beliefs about Agile and how people can do things more effectively. We simply had different ways of approaching our work. He was more consultative and dictative in his approach, identifying things that were wrong and giving instructions to make corrections. He took on the responsibility for the change the client wanted to make and, as a result, his success hinged on forcing fast compliance with the rules. I took an invitational coaching approach to my work, letting the responsibility for making changes remain with the client. I asked more questions and gave fewer dictates and certainly shared information about things that might be more effective. Whenever I did, my standard way of doing so was to add my thoughts to the ideas they already had and allow them to use those ideas as they saw fit. If I thought a group was making a decision that had risks or impacts that concerned me, I would ask questions to help them uncover how they would deal with those risks. Occasionally, I would even say, ‘In my experience, I have not seen this solution work out well for others. I do not think it is the best option for you.’ If they moved forward with the option, I supported the experiment and got curious whether it would work out for them. Sometimes it did. I also spent some time training new team members and new team startups.

I started working with the individuals and teams who had been labeled ‘uncoachable’ because I knew these were the people who were not interested in simply doing what they were told. These people were ready for change and wanted to make changes that both added value and made sense. I wanted them to stop being seen as ‘uncoachable’ because I did not think it was a fair assessment. I mentored employee Scrum Masters to be coaches and challenged them to allow their teams to be both self-accountable and responsible. Rather than trying to take control, I challenged the Scrum Masters to release control and ask questions that allowed the teams to be creative rather than simply following orders. This way of working really resonated with team members. Soon, Scrum Masters and the teams began taking chances, experimenting, and getting noticeable results.

I will be honest and say that I was not revered by the other coaches working with that client. In fact, I became so disliked by them that one of them gave me a verbal thrashing and stopped associating with me. The other simply refused to even look at me when we passed one another in the hall and did not speak to me the last three months I was there. Why? My guess, because I was not forcing compliance. From their perspective, I was allowing things to roll backwards rather than pushing it forward. From my perspective, I was moving slower and creating a more sustainable impact through an invitational approach by allowing the client to decide for themselves how they would improve.

Shortly after I left the engagement, something interesting happened. The leader of that organization decided they were doing so well, they called the ‘transformation’ a success and released the coaches. They also determined that since they were doing so well, they no longer needed Scrum Masters. Those teams who could make their own decisions and grow organically started being forced to do things they saw as not valuable and, in their words, ‘not Agile.’ Within a year, all the most talented people I had worked with left that organization after long careers, stating, ‘They brought Agile to us, and it was the right thing to do. Now, they are taking it away and expecting us to go back to the way things were before. We simply do not believe in that way of working anymore and cannot do it.’ These people had changed their mindset. They each said that they had changed the way they think about how work should be approached, and it had changed who they were from the inside out. They had adopted Agile values and principles into their core value systems. They believed that a collaborative, cross functional, self-accountable work environment was the best way to work. These people had become Agile thinkers and refused to think any other way. That is what sustainable change looks like. Others in the organization who had been under a more dictative approach had only changed behaviors. So, going back to the way things were relieved some pressure.”

This is just one of many examples where we could see the differences in the impact our approach has with clients compared to how we were seeing others work. Working from a coaching stance does not create fast change. However, it has a stronger likelihood of creating lasting change. Forcing behavior change can be a fast way to gain compliance and can gain favor with organizational leaders. It also creates a vanity metric around how fast things are changing. What is important is not how quickly things can start changing, but how sustainable the changes are. If a company hires an Agile coach for six months and that coach gains fast traction through powerful force and threats, compliance may come quickly. This creates a scenario where the coach becomes the forcing mechanism that is holding all the changes in place. However, when the coach who is acting as the forcing mechanism is removed, much of the change rolls back. If the change rolls back, that company has just invested sizeable amounts of time and money with no sustainable results. They may bring in another coach and repeat the process, or they may simply say Agile does not work and give up.

Alex says, “It has been our experience that a much more valuable investment for an organization is to invest a year of time and resources to work with someone who takes an invitational coaching approach.”

Improvement will probably happen in smaller increments. Experiments will be done to help find the right solutions. People will make changes and then go back to what they are used to until they see the value they are getting with new methods. A momentum will build and will keep moving after the coach leaves because the organization is its own forcing mechanism for change.

Michael adds, “In the fifth week of an engagement, after watching another Agile coach provide consulting advice, I asked the management team, ‘What job has your organization hired Agile coaches to do?’ The other coach had some success initially. He had been telling the management team what they should do and how they should adopt change. Eventually, he ran into trouble because the management team was not aligned with its business goals. He had simply not asked enough questions to fully understand the client’s needs and culture. It was simply cookie cutter advice he offered. When that coach used the same approach working with teams, they found the consulting advice overwhelming. On one occasion, a Scrum Master cried for 20 minutes while listening to the coach tell her how she should do her job.

I asked management what they wanted Agile to do for them. They replied they wanted to run more product experiments that would lead to quick successes. They believed this would help them get additional funding from their strategic partners.

I suggested and helped them put together a workshop based on Lean Startup ideas. The VP of Engineering took ownership and ran the workshop, and I happily let the client drive. Team members found the ideas shared in the workshop riveting, and they quickly collaborated on developing small experiments they could immediately execute. By running these experiments, they learned more about what their strategic customers wanted. And no one shed a tear.”

Perhaps you are the person at your company who is on a mission to make improvements, so you are reading this book to understand what an Agile coach can do for you. The invitational approach to Agile coaching that we describe in this book seeks to increase the capability of an organization to solve its own problems. Where consultants may take responsibility for the changes being made in your company by telling you what is broken and how to fix it, an Agile coach works with the company to identify the root of workflow problems and improve flexibility. Most importantly, Agile coaches want to put your people at the helm of change — not an outsider.

Michael says, “As an agile coach for over 10 years, and only 1 of about 150 Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coaches in the world, I have seen firsthand the dramatic difference our approach can make.”

While looking to hire an Agile coach, there are three things you should consider. First, Agile coaches work with pre-existing needs instead of creating new ones. As a business leader, you do not need to be told how important change is — you already know. They do not step in and tell you, “This is urgent.” They listen and ask, “What outcomes are you looking to achieve?” and, “What do you want to improve?” And more importantly, they partner with you to figure out what changes can be made and how those changes work best in your environment.

Second, the best wins come from the people in the company. Remember: your people are your experts. They already know best; you just have to get them to talk to you. A good Agile coach1 can help push the right buttons and open the right channels to start the necessary conversations. By listening to your people, needs, goals and challenges, Agile coaches help you create the best solutions internally. Coaches facilitate but do not dictate, allowing you to innovate the way you are meant to. This partnership is a true investment in your success.

Third, when a coach leaves an organization, changes should not roll backward. Compliance is easier to install and often takes hold quickly. Sustainable change takes time and effort to gain momentum. It only occurs when the client, not the coach, is in control.

We wrote this book because it is our belief that Agile coaches should work with clients to bring sustainable change. We believe that a coaching mindset is critical to sustainability. Many Agile coaches work from a consulting mindset and do not necessarily have a full understanding about how a coaching mindset can be critical to making change at the organizational level. In this book, we hope to bring that knowledge to the industry.

In Part One of this book, we extend to you an invitation to taking a coaching approach to the work you do. We will cover things like mindset, how to engage with a client from a coaching stance, and the work you can do as you take on a new way of thinking as a coach.

The Coaching Mindset

The magic of a mixed drink comes from the variety of different ingredients. You get a little of this, a little of that, and a bit of another thing, all blended to create the perfect cocktail. While this concept may be great for crafting amazing drinks, it is not the way to conduct an amazing professional coaching session.

The magic of professional coaching comes from sticking with a single, solitary ingredient: coaching. You do not mix in a little consulting, a little advising, and a batch of rules and regulations you insist clients follow. You need to stick to straight-up coaching without watering it down if you want your clients to reap the greatest rewards and success.

A quote from one of the founding members of the International Coach Federation (ICF), Marcia Reynolds that Cherie and Alex captured during a podcast2 with Tandem Coaching, sums it up neatly:

“The notion of Hybrid Coaching dilutes the value of coaching. When you mix mentoring, advice giving and leading people to what is best for them into what you call coaching, people come to expect the easy way out. They look forward to you telling them what to do. This might be helpful, but if coaching is what they really want or need, they are mis-experiencing this powerful technology for creating breakthroughs and growth.”

Agile coaching is a mix of disciplines. Each discipline has power to bring to the engagement. The question is: can the Agile coach exercise enough self-management to be in the discipline the client needs and, when shifting disciplines, do so effectively and purposefully? It is our opinion that to switch between disciplines effectively, an Agile coach must understand and embody a coaching mindset.

The Coaching Mindset

The coaching mindset is not only a way of behaving when you are conducting a 1-1 or team coaching session. Many people can “act” like a coach, use coaching skills, and even conduct a good coaching session that checks all the boxes. Coaching skills can be taught. A coaching mindset must be developed purposefully. Many people have coaching skills. However, knowing how to coach does not make you a coach. The thing that is critical to have a coaching mindset is the ability to see the client as competent, resourceful, creative, and not in need of fixing by the coach. When you look at people as fully able to exercise their talents, skills, experience, and expertise to make decisions, you treat them differently. What we have witnessed in our experience working with clients among other coaches is that those who have a coaching mindset treat the client as an equal. Those who do not have a coaching mindset often treat the client as if they are subject to the coach.

Much like the coaching mindset, an Agile mindset is a way of thinking, believing, and behaving. What we have noticed in our experience is that Agile coaches who have an Agile mindset are more likely to have a practical application of Agile rather than a dictative application where everything in the book must exist. An Agile mindset is a mindset that embodies the Agile values and principles and thinks in a way that is collaborative, focused on results rather than processes, and is empowering. When you mix this way of thinking with a coaching mindset that sees people differently, everything about the way you engage changes.

Think about it this way. When you work with an organization, and they adopt Scrum, Kanban, or some other discipline, the first thing they, and many Agile coaches think about is following “the rules”. Coaches make sure the teams are having the right meetings. They make sure the teams are creating backlog items a certain way. Agile coaches make sure the teams are right-sizing the work. None of these things are incorrect. However, they are all external actions and can be done with no actual change or impactful outcomes occurring in the organization.

Cherie shares, “In my experience, focusing only on behaviors often results in people not changing the way they think about how they approach work. If they do not know the why, or the processes are not solving a problem, then they go through the motions. If people believe their jobs or performance reviews may be negatively affected, they may comply in order to keep moving forward. I have often witnessed people say, ‘Sure, fine, we will do it this way if it makes you happy.’ Then, when an emergent challenge comes, they default to their habitual way of thinking and do what they have always done. Because they have not changed the way they think about work and decisions, they just go back to the same way of making decisions that has worked in the past. “

Now, let's bring this back to coaching skills. When a coaching session is going well, it is easy to focus on following the coaching arc, asking questions, and giving the client space to think through their challenges. However, when the session is not perfect, it is the coaching mindset that keeps the coach in the proper stance. If you do not have a coaching mindset, coaching behaviors are a fine idea, but they are not convenient when you have seen the client’s problem before, and you “know” what they can do to solve it. Coaching behaviors do not seem important when you believe the client should take certain actions if they want to be successful. Moving them forward, so you can add value to the engagement, is what will seem most important at that moment.

However, it is the coaching mindset that enables you to self-manage. It enables you to consider carefully if stepping into mentoring or consulting is what is best for the client long term. Sometimes it is important to make a shift and help the client understand something they genuinely do not know that is vital for them to move forward. However, what we have seen more often is that shifting disciplines is not what the client needs, but what the coach needs. That need drives the coach to step into consulting or mentoring. Sometimes they need to prove their expertise or feel like they are adding value. Often, they just want to escalate the timeline to seeing changes happen in the organization. However, the question of success is not how quickly an organization can install new behaviors. The question of success is how sustainable are the changes? Agile coaches often talk about “individuals and interactions over process and tools” then focus on process and tools. Perhaps they focus on interactions because it is easy to see those through behaviors. But how often do we really focus on the individuals?

Professional coaching has a concept: coach the person, not the problem. At first glance, this concept does not fit into Agile coaching. Let's be honest, companies hire us to install Agile and fix the problems they are having, so they can get business results. To do this sustainably, it is important to help the client focus on the problem, so they can take ownership of the changes they want to make. However, the Agile coach needs to focus on the client. Most decisions and actions clients take are temporal experiments. The decisions and actions are not as important as how they went about determining that the decisions and actions were the most appropriate. If you focus on the client's mindset, you will focus more on the values and principles of Agile than the best practices of Agile. This will enable them to make excellent decisions that keep them in alignment with the way they want to see their organization work. By learning to think like an Agilist, their behaviors will display Agility. Forcing them to do Agile processes will not create Agile thinking. To develop a coaching mindset, there are a few key shifts in thinking that must occur.

Competent — Not broken or in need of being fixed

This may very well be the most important concept in this book. It underlies the coaching mindset, determines how you see people, and reinforces the decisions you make about how to work with clients at that moment.

Cherie notes, “Seeing people as competent was a core aspect of the mindset that enabled me to move to a place of mastery and effectiveness in coaching. A coaching mindset moves beyond the coaching conversation and becomes a part of who you are. You see people differently. And because you see them differently, you interact and react differently. The coaching mindset enables you to be curious instead of arrogant.

Whenever I do any coach training, there is a powerful exercise I do. I ask people to take a moment to reflect on and discuss these two questions; 1) What will be different about my interactions if I genuinely and authentically believe that every person in the organization I am coaching is completely competent and they do not need me to fix them, 2) In what ways have I been judging the people in the organizations I have coached to be incompetent, which means they need me to learn to do things properly.”

Our challenge to you is to reflect on these questions and do some soul-searching. Are you seeing the individuals in the organizations you coach as fully competent? Or have you judged that some of them are broken and need you to tell them how to change? If you are up for a challenge, we invite you to look around at other parts of your life. Who are you seeing as not competent to make their own decisions and be responsible for their actions? Perhaps it is a partner who approaches life differently than you do. Could it be a parent who does not understand technology and trusts you enough to ask for help? Maybe a teenager or a younger child that you feel compelled to protect, so you will not allow them to make mistakes and learn valuable lessons they will need later in life.

Your ability to trust in the competence of other people is at the pinnacle of allowing them to take ownership and responsibility for what they want to change and what they do not. When you can trust that they are competent to take control of their own life, profession, and company you will trust them to decide what changes they will undertake now, and which will be de-prioritized. It is only when you trust in the competence of the teams and organizations you coach you will model self-organization. Until then, you will insist that people self-organize within the boundaries you give them.

When you believe your client is competent, things shift. When you notice something happening that seems completely off base, you will react differently. Have you ever rolled your eyes when seeing a process the client is following that makes little sense? Have you gotten frustrated because even though you have talked about it at length, the client keeps saying they will do one thing and yet they keep doing something else? Have you gotten angry when seeing how a manager or team member is acting? Perhaps they are blocking progress or not allowing the others to function properly in their roles. Perhaps their command-and-control behavior is triggering you to want to march into their office and tell them how hard they are making things for everyone else. We all have these moments, and these are all symptoms of not seeing the client as competent and of you being triggered to “fix” them.

What happens if you see your client differently? When you see these same things happening, instead of being triggered to react, you will get curious. When you know the client is competent, you also know that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for what is happening. If they put this process in place, there must have been a problem they tried to solve with it. You will ask questions to understand the problem. You will ask how the current process is working for them and if there is anything about it, that is not working. Instead of deciding for them, they must change the process, you will help them examine the process and decide for themselves if it needs to change.

Creative and resourceful — not in need of rescuing

Supporting clients to reach the outcomes they seek begins with a true partnership. You not only need to believe that your clients are competent. You also need to believe that they are creative and resourceful and can figure out the best next steps for themselves, their team, and their company. If you believe this, you will leave your superhero cape at home and trust the client. The enormous challenge you face as an Agile coach is also what sets you apart and makes companies hire you — your experience and expertise. Masterful coaching in an Agile environment does not mean that you leave what you know at the door. That is not a partnership. There is more to Agile coaching than just showing up and asking questions. And there is more to Agile coaching than showing up and teaching everyone how to do their jobs. You must know more than Agile to be an effective Agile coach. You have to experience working with broken Agile repeatedly before you can understand the challenges clients face when trying to improve.

That experience enables you to empathize with what the client is experiencing. No one comes to work every day hoping to fail. People want improvement. What they need from their Agile coach is to understand and empathize with the client and partner with them to figure out how to remove the barriers to success. Keep in mind that clients need empathy, not sympathy. Empathy connects with what the client may experience and gives validation and acceptance. Sympathy feels pity for the client and expresses a belief in the client’s brokenness. If we think the client is broken, it will affect our ability to work with them to create sustainable change. If they are broken, and you fix them, the client will grow dependent on you to solve their problems. You might get lots of recognition and appreciation for helping them, but this is not in the client’s best interest. For them to create sustainable changes, the client needs to take ownership of making the change for themselves. This is how they learn to think through the challenges they face and make educated decisions about how to overcome them. Your goal as a coach should always be to ensure that the client continues the work after you leave.

Showing concern for the client is not the same as worrying about the client. Concern communicates that you care about the client and want the best success for them. It communicates that you are all in and a full partner in doing the work. It builds trust with your clients when they know you support them.

Worry expresses that you want to fix the client’s problems somehow if given a chance. It expresses that you can fix the situation when you believe your client cannot. Worry will cause you to push your own ideas, solutions, and agendas on the client. Worry drives you to put on the superhero cape and tells the client to step aside because you have the answer to their problems.