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

by Adkins Lyssa

What does that mean for me? What else must I acquire? What must I let go?

The people I coach are not motivated by carrots and sticks; they are motivated by a sense of worth and purpose.

This means teams need coaches who bring to them a clear view of agile done well and a host of other skills to make agile come alive for them.

We become their facilitator, teacher, coach and mentor, conflict navigator, collaboration conductor, and problem solver. We bring to them other things we’ve learned that help express the challenging, mighty, subtle, and deep aspects of agile.

Throwing some very rough numbers at it, I would say that agile coaching is 40% doing and 60% being.

As an agile coach, modeling the key behaviors of a good agilist, you are what you’re trying to teach them to be.

the ten abilities and mind-sets prevalent in people who have the native wiring for coaching:

Nothing should be faithfully reproduced as a ritual or rigid practice.

The qualities common to most successful agile coaches reflect openness, people orientation, and a deep and passionate pursuit of personal and professional excellence.

It doesn’t take long before the rituals built into agile can leave the team feeling like they are caught in a never-ending hamster wheel—always

You will not find that kind of definition of high performance in this book, either. I seek not to pin it down but to free it by acknowledging that high performance is not as much about achieving a certain state as it is a journey toward something better.

there are no two paths alike, and you cannot even begin to imagine what a team’s path might look like in the end. So, it’s best that you don’t try and, instead, rely on the team to create the path that feels right for them.

For sure, setbacks will occur. Your expectation that they will achieve greatness together, a contagion they catch and then expect of themselves, will sustain them even when the way is rough.

If you could, though, you would see both team members and circumstances clearly and, having truly seen, react clearly for them.

Empty yourself of personal agendas, emotions, and thoughts. Once emptied, you reflect like a clear mirror in which the team may see themselves anew. Once emptied, you act in their best interest rather than from your own needs.

Although we may not consider the way we talk to be violent, our words can wound people and cause them pain.

(adapted from Baran and Center for NonViolent Communication 2004):

To have an important impact, the kind of impact a coach needs to have to influence people and help them become good agilists, you must pay attention to your language and take responsibility for your emotional wake

Awareness is not a giver of solace—it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener.

“It is often a devastating question to ask oneself, but it is sometimes important to ask it—‘In saying what I have in mind will I really improve on the silence?’”

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

With conflict, language, servant leadership, and emotional intelligence, feel your knee-jerk reaction, notice it, and consciously decide what to do with it. Your ability to apply this pattern is a direct measure of your ability to master yourself.

Every time you think you need to solve something, stop and raise the observations to the team instead.

Get comfortable with uncomfortable silence. Do not fill it yourself.

Teams that fail together and recover together are much stronger and faster than ones that are protected.

To be of service to the team, free yourself from your worries and racing thoughts. Your mind must be still so that you can see, with clarity, what happens with the team.

What stories have you made up to explain their behavior (and to cling to your judgments)?

Levels of Listening from the school of coactive coaching

If so, speak it with clarity and simplicity. You’ve been thinking about it for a while now, so you should be able to express it in an incredibly short, precise, and impactful manner.

Practicing mindfulness helps you “get present.” Through mindfulness, you learn to be fully present more of the time, and your self-awareness increases.

I never realized how much being a coach of agile teams was going to require me to work on myself.

A martial arts student progresses through three stages of proficiency called Shu Ha Ri. Shu: Follow the rule. Ha: Break the rule. Ri: Be the rule.

To surpass one’s master, one must first master the rules—fully. Then break the rules safely. Then create new rules that allow a deeper expression of the principles behind the rules.

Constantly model the behaviors that lead to success: listening to one another, building on each other’s ideas, courageously facing impediments, and tending toward the simplest thing possible.

A serious point of ethics for professional coaches holds that the coachee’s agenda must be the single guiding light of the coaching relationship. The coach exists solely for the coachee, not so for us.

A regular, respectful conversation the rest of the team will overhear works well. This means you must be present and observant to “catch” someone doing well.

No matter whether you are coaching at the whole-team or individual level, set your coaching tone to these frequencies: loving, compassionate, and uncompromising.

Having said that, we coach the whole person who shows up in front of us, not just the work side and not just the life side but whatever combination they bring. We do this because work done well cannot be separated from personhood done well.

Real conversations are fierce.

claim the authority and influence that comes with the agile coach role, and use it to start direct conversations

No better way exists to deepen your coaching skills than to teach them to someone else.

Protect no one from the natural consequences of the situation because therein lies the learning.

deliver your observations succinctly, without judgment and with a sense of curiosity to invite their introspection.

What you think you saw may not be what’s really going on. Accuracy of these observations doesn’t matter as long as you deliver them in a way that causes the team to inquire—that’s the observations’ real purpose.

People who have worked on agile teams before think they “know agile” and don’t need training on agile practices, principles, values, and roles.

Bring this team of experienced agilists back to the core of agile.

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. —Mark Van Doren

A few activities that have become my standard fare in building this type of understanding are Journey Lines, Market of Skills, Constellation, and Values.

If a team gets off to a rough start, that’s OK as long as you don’t save them from themselves.

The product owner role has enormous impact on a team because direction setting and constant strategic decision making come directly from the person in this role.