Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition

by Adkins Lyssa

Watching a great agile coach is like watching a magician. No matter how closely you watch, you can’t quite figure out how she does it.

Becoming a skilled agile coach, like becoming a magician, starts with learning a set of techniques. From there it’s a matter of practice, practice, and more practice.

I look for four things in agile books: Does the book contribute new ideas? Does the book organize existing ideas in new ways? Does the book extend existing ideas? Is the writing good?

improving team performance is not just the responsibility of the leader or coach but the responsibility of every team member.

agile exposes the dirt people have been sweeping under the rug for years.

You’re not going to hit the mark all the time. You will make mistakes. You will lose your cool and yell. Your mind will wander during the stand-up meeting. You will skillfully manipulate people into doing what you think is right for the team.

“Gravity Works.” Yes, it does. Rock climbers know this and plan for it. So do agile coaches.

Honor your context and yourself, and make sure you don’t stay in your comfort zone. Challenge yourself. Make coaching agile teams an expression of your personal excellence.

Setting high performance as your baseline expectation and giving teams a way to achieve it play directly into these powerful motivators. Thus invigorated, everyone wins.

Everyone tastes the sweet fruits of high performance.

Expecting high performance means that you simply know achieving it is more than possible; it is normal.

high performance is not as much about achieving a certain state as it is a journey toward something better.

help them start their journey toward high performance by simply setting your expectation that they will achieve it.

Create a sense of anticipation, expectancy, and excitement for this journey—first in yourself and then let it flow to them. Lead by believing.

when they get into trouble or get into a rut and you point to it and say, “Where are our roots weak?”

when they are showing all the signs of a high-performing team yet their products reek of mediocrity.

Hold out to them that the work of becoming high performing can be done with humor, curiosity, and appreciation, too.

An agile team’s journey toward high performance is just that—a journey. The team may touch high performance now and then, they may even live in a state of high performance for a while, but they have never “arrived” at high performance where the story ends. No, the story continues.

teach the team to honor their ability to fully and quickly recover from setbacks—even

There is a world between stimulus and response. This is where character lives. —James Hunter

The more skilled you become at mastering yourself, the more self-organized and self-monitoring the teams will be.

For those of you who recognize command-and-control in your own life, read on with yourself in mind. Worry about helping others later. As they say on an airplane, secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.

we’re talking about skills, not talents. You can develop the ability to fully listen through applying frameworks that help you bring attention to the matter—that, plus lots and lots of practice.

It is interesting to note that the words silent and listen contain all of the same letters, just rearranged. —Suzanne Marsh

Coach the team to see that sitting with silence creates enough space for the really big ideas to emerge. To coach the team to do this, you must first do it yourself.