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What is agile coaching? We talk a lot about the coaches themselves, not so much about the disciplines involved in agile coaching though.
In this video I share the basic distinction about what agile coaching is, what it does and where it comes from.
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Agile coaches? Do you know one or maybe are you one
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If not, you've probably seen them in action with post-its and dry eraser in their hands
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talking to everybody in the organization no matter the role, running with respectives
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facilitating big quarterly planning sessions, etc. While the name and role agile coach seems widely used, an interesting question arises
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What is agile coach in exactly? And the power in asking this question resides on the fact that Agile coaching is relevant and long-lived
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The title of Agile Coach, not so much. Hi there, my name is Petula, your host here at All Things Agile
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Welcome or Welcome Back. Let's start then with a definition. The definition that I use is that agile coaching is the confluence where the iterative
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flexible nature of agile methodologies or approaches meet the personalized growth-oriented approach
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of professional coaching. This powerful combination enables organizations to foster environments where continuous improvement is not just an ideal, but a practical reality when done right
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Agile coaching equips individuals and groups with the tools to navigate comforts
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complicated and complex situations, they're not the same, navigating organizational change and focus on value delivery because that is the problem agile solves. The obvious part of this
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nomenclature is that it makes us two disciplines or two sets of skills, both coaching and
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agile. How so? Well, if agile means designing better systems in organizations and teams
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coaching allows people to adopt more productive behaviors and change their mindset
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These are both human-centric approaches that intersect in a competency framework designed
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for having in mind the intricacies of change in organizations, especially technologically dependent
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organizations that deal with a ton of change and with the need to adapt constantly and fast
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The term agile coaching was first coined by Lisa Atkins in her decade old marvelous book
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coaching agile teams of which I made a video reveal a while back and I'll leave the description
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at the link in the description down below. And Lisa Atkins and Michael Spade created the agile coaching
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Institute and they were the pioneers of suggesting the competencies agile coaches should
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possess in their agile coaching competency framework, as you're seeing here. It was the first time
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a set of skills was laid out to organize what is necessary in helping others adopt change at this
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level. In a nutshell, you have four stances of helping people learn and communicate. You see that you
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should possess a certain degree of mastery in the nature of the business, the technological aspect
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of your industry and your product, and understanding how transformation and how change happens
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in bigger or more complex environments such as organizations. Not to mention, obviously, that you
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should be an experienced, agile practitioner, someone who understands the why, the what, and the how
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of Agile. Many more initiatives were created after that, expanding the notion of what is Agile
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Coaching, including Scrum Masters in the mix, which the most famous is the eight stances of
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Scrum Masters by Barry O'Rein, which has since been revisited into six stances. And the Agile
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Coaching Growth Wheel, which was an initiative, started with the Scrum Alliance, is a fantastic
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resource that I believe was inspired by the leadership source. approach. If you want me to review any of these frameworks in a deeper dive, let me know
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It can also be one that I haven't mentioned here today. Lots of other explanations and
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competency frameworks aside, I believe simple is always best. It is possible to spend too
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longer time defining a very specific set of stances for coaches and fine the details of each skill Yet With my experience coaching literally thousands of people getting this agile thing right and helping hundreds of other agile leaders and coaches and change agents using the original
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competency framework, I do believe the original agile coaching competency framework is
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truly all you need to situate yourself and grow the necessary competencies and filling in the
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blank with the best practices that you might need considering your own unique context
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Whatever the tool you use, though, you will notice effective agile coaching in action
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because it will allow teams and organizations to do these things. Learn and adopt new behaviors, see beyond the obvious, and have productive conversations
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That is your mentoring, teaching, facilitation, and coaching in action. design and modify organizational systems, structures, and processes for better products
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better decision-making, and better ways of working, and that is your agile expertise in action
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Generate great products and services by acting on the problems worth solving and why not innovate
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in their industry, which is related to the business mastery. Develop and adapt effective development practices
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that allows for the technology you use in your product to hold quality and speed as capabilities
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and your teams to be guided by excellence. It's technical mastery in action
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And gain resilience and adaptability in the face of change, big or small, planned or sudden
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and that is a transformational aspect. And the day to day, this is a set of skills
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allowing you to facilitate productive conversations, to develop teams, improving their dynamics and their performance, to enhance technical practices
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to help others navigate conflict, to coach leaders, and much more. If you are interested in the
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specifics of the day in the life of an agile coach, I have one video here in the channel and two blog posts
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I leave the links in the description down below Finally let close the loop I started talking about Agile Coach and mentioning that there Agile Coaching making a distinction between Agile Coaches and the skill of agile coaching And so agile coaching as skills is a set
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of disciplines that a person uses to help individuals and groups to orient themselves using
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agile thinking and agile practices to respond to change. Incidentally, people who are
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use those skills tend to be called agile coaches. And many are hired as such. I hold, you know
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the title of agile coach. I've been agile coaching in organizations myself. Unsurprisingly, though
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not everybody conducting agile change is an agile coach in title. But you bet they are using
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agile coaching skills. I don't believe you should get much for the title, but I do believe the
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disciplines in agile coaching can transform your career for the better. And that is a lot of
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because since the late 2023, I would say, organizations seem to be increasingly questioning the
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value of, you know, agile as a brand and frameworks and agile coaches and Screammasters
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And yet, you know, while they might question these titles and the roles, their need for
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organization adaptability, flexibility, aka agility, is stronger than I've ever seen before
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with agility becoming this inescapable skill set in coaching being such a highly transformative
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competence, especially if you want to reach leadership levels, getting your hands dirty on
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agile coaching at some capacity is in your future, my friend. Well, my hope is that now you can
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understand and situate yourself on what agile coaching is, what are the skills involved
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and how it helps organizations. Now, if you want to reset your understanding
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of Agile, I recommend that you watch this video right here. And if you are maybe new to the
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agile coaching space, you're already dipping your toes in it. I actually have a video here
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where you can gain awareness of the mistakes that new agile coaches make. I most certainly
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speak from experience on that one. And you know, you can learn from my mistakes. Thank you so
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much for watching and I'll see you on the next one. Bye for now
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