BadAss Agile Coaching
ACGW-based Skills Masterclass
In January 2021, I wrote a blog post that, to be honest, had a more significant impact than I could have imagined in the agile coaching community.
It coincided with—
my publication of Extraordinarily Badass Agile coaching book;
the release of the initial Comparative Agility, Agile Coaching PI assessment;
and my growing frustration that the world of Agile Coaching was too focused on professional coaching skills.
I’ve always felt that certain areas need the occasional nudge from an influencer, and I’ve been nudging agile coaching hard since ~2019 - 2020. I’ve challenged the Scrum Alliance, iCAgile, and other organizations to rebalance their focus. I’ve worked with the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel team to provide inspiration and focus for their efforts.
And now, I’m excited to say this class has emerged as a means to continue that momentum to rebalance and refocus the profession and craft of Agile Coaching.
One final point: as of January 2024, there’s been a whirlwind of challenges in the community about the need for and value of Agile Coaches. There have been many layoffs and job/role eliminations. To go on record, I’m an optimist. I don’t believe the problem is a need for Agile Coaches and Agile Coaching skills. The problem has been the depth and breadth of most coach’s skills.
We don’t just need coaches; we need highly skilled, well-rounded, and Badass Agile Coaching and skills. That’s been our Achilles' heel. Fingers crossed, this Masterclass will help us do better Agile Coaching.
Ikigai – Purpose of the MasterClass
To expand the Agile Coaching skills of anyone operating in agile contexts.
To create a longer-term, collaborative cohort container where Agile Coaches can establish longer-term relationships and learn from one another.
To provide modeling and coaching stories & examples from multiple class Guides.
To anchor on the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel and Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching book as foundations for your Agile Coaching skills journey.
To move beyond superficial certification classes and one-stance coaching—diving deeper into sharpening and refining a broad set of Agile Coaching skills.
In essence, to bring Badassery to the profession of Agile Coaching.
Reimagining Agile Coaching
Existing coach training and certification programs seem to be ALL focused on team coaching and (professional coaching, mentoring, and facilitation) competencies. While these certainly have value, we believe the over-focus on these has led to insufficiently balance-skilled and enabled Agile Coaches.
Given that, in this Masterclass, we will have—
More focus on Self-Mastery dynamics and their impact to your overall coaching effectiveness.
More focus on Organizational (Leadership & System) Coaching skill development.
More focus on higher-impact & value Agile Coaching stances—Advising, Transforming, Leading / Modeling, Serving Product.
More focus on effectively communicating (Storytelling, crucial conversations, radical candor) as an Agile Coach.
More focus on the importance and impact of grounding your Agile Coaching on Ethics.
More focus on how to demonstrate, communicate, and confirm the Value you’re creating as an Agile Coach—or how to gain Skin-in-the-Game.
More conversational practice—both within each class and within your learning teams.
To the best of my knowledge, no Agile Coaching programs have this sort of pragmatic, advising-based, and value-driven focus.
Who is the Masterclass for?
The class is not for aspiring or beginner agile coaches. You should have a bit of experience under your belt and have some familiarity with the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel. However, there are no specific certification prerequisites.
This masterclass is for you if you are an Agile Coach and practitioner, and you want to—
Experience real-world scenarios and situations and how to become more effective in applying the appropriate coaching stance.
Be part of a masterclass, an Agile Coaching dojo, where you learn how to deliver more tangible value to your client, teams, and organization.
Deepen in the integration and practice application of your Agile Coaching competencies.
Be part of a connected, supportive, experienced Agile Coaching cohort and community to learn and grow in your coaching craft.
Class attendees could be—Agile Leaders, Scrum Masters, anyone operating as an Agile Coach, Product Managers / Owners, Business Leaders, and Agile Consultants.
Using the ACGW Competency / Skill levels, if you are a…
Beginner—this is probably not a suitable class for you. It might be helpful to begin with iCAgile team coaching classes as a beginning.
Advanced Beginner, Guide, and Practitioner—You are a perfect candidate.
Catalyst—this is probably only suitable if you want to unlearn some things and relearn.
One of the keys to the Masterclass is your curiosity, humility, and open-mindedness. We believe you will find value and growth in the class if you are centered on these three.
Pivoting your Learning Journey
There is a potential result or action that will emerge from this class that we want to warn you about…
It will probably cause you to—
Ponder, reflect on,
Rethink, reconsider,
Refactor and Pivot.
In other words, change!
Your current Agile Coaching learning journey. To become more deeply T-shaped or Pi-shaped in your domain coaching skills.
It will challenge some of you to reimagine your learning journeys. For others, to strengthen and recommit to your learning journeys. For others, to be a significant pivot in your journey, refocus on other competency areas and personal growth. And for perhaps a few, you might decide that agile coaching isn’t for you.
But we hope every attendee will emerge from the class…different somehow.
Content & Focus
Introduction – Intent, Badassery
Frameworks (ACGW, ACCF, and Dojo format)
Self-Mastery 1
Self-Mastery 2
Coaching conversations
Planning
Leading stance
Advising stance
Coaching stance
Guiding Learning stance
Communicating your value
StoryTelling, Ethics, and Self-care
Systems coaching
Close—Reflection, Goal-setting, and Appreciations
Masterclass Cohort Dynamics
We’ll limit attendance to 20 individual learners.
What is the minimum? Perhaps 6 to 9, as we’d need at least two whole practice groups!
Private classes will be more flexible on size dynamics.
We’ll meet for 2 hours, 1x per week, for 12 sessions over three months.
That’s 24 hours of in-class contact time.
There will also be opening and closing sessions, so 28 total hours.
This doesn’t include time spent with your learning group. We imagine your overall weekly time investment to be ~5 hours.
Each session will do a deep dive into one critical coaching concept. Then, you’ll get to practice a coaching scenario, thinking of and leveraging that concept idea into your coaching. Over time, you’ll continue to build layered experience into your coaching conversations.
In the Masterclass cohort, you’ll join a 3- to 4-person group for offline learning, discussion, mentoring, and practice.
Primary class time (non-breakouts) will be recorded for each Masterclass cohort’s use only. Group recordings are up to each practice group.
Individuals can miss three weekly sessions over the Masterclass but are expected to catch up with work in their practice groups.
There will be pre/post-session exploration work to perform in your practice groups.
a Different Kind of Coaching Conversation
In the EBAC book, we provided a framework for the arc of coaching conversations. Very often, too often really, this conversational arc connects to Professional Coaching, powerful questions, and having a conversation centered in that stance.
I might have overemphasized that myself in the book and short-shrift the balance required in having arc-based conversations in all of the other stances.
In the Masterclass, we will remedy any shortcomings. We will emphasize not Professional Coaching conversations but Professional Agile Coaching conversations. These will be centered not only on questioning and listening but on providing advice, options, challenging your clients, and establishing your value.
Masterclass Guides
Your badass coaching Masterclass Guides (facilitators, teachers, mentors, coaches) are—
Bob Galen (content author and lead Guide)
Peter Fischbach (Guide)
Both Peter & Bob will typically be in each session.
I also plan to invite “special guests” to some sessions occasionally. A few people that initially come to mind include—
Dana Pylayeva, Rhiannon Galen-Personick, Jennifer Fields, Ann-Marie Kong, Joel Bancroft-Connors, Michelle Pauk, Mark Summers, Teddy Carroll, and Josh Anderson, …
Available Masterclass Formats
The public Masterclass cohorts will run “as advertised,” with slight content variance or customization.
The private Masterclass cohorts can run as planned or be moderately customized for each client. They are a fantastic way to increase the skills and impact of your Agile Coaching Communities of Practice or Agile Coaching teams. The schedule timing makes it a very digestible learning experience for busy companies.
Personal Coaching
As part of each Masterclass cohort, attendees will be eligible for 2, 1-hour professional journey coaching sessions to be scheduled with one of the Guides.
This is intended to complement the Masterclass and help you improve personally. One will occur early in the class to establish your initial learning journey and another near the end.
We will leverage the free Comparative Agility - Agile Coaching PI assessment in these coaching sessions. We will also emphasize that you actively engage with the online PI assessment community.
Tools
Zoom – we’ll be using Zoom for our primary collaboration sessions.
Miro – there will be a Miro board to support the entire cohort.
Dropbox – will contain all shared materials
TBD (Slack, Trello, WhatsApp, etc.) can be used for Triad and Cohort off-line collaboration. This decision is up to each Cohort/Triad.
Tools for Personal Insights
StrengthsFinders (self-paid, individual assessment)
Leadership Circle Profile (included with Masterclass)
For public classes – we will use the free, individual assessment.
For private classes – we will use the aggregate Leadership Culture assessment (additional cost based on # of attendees)
Masterclass Certification
You will receive a Badass Agile Coaching Masterclass certificate or badge of completion. This is not a certification and will be granted in perpetuity.
We’ve decided not to connect to any of the existing coaching certifications so that we’re not burdened by anyone else’s learning objectives and focus.
Disclaimers
This course is not centered solely or primarily on the Professional Coaching stance. We will emphasize that you must leverage other competencies comfortably and capably in most Agile Coaching contexts.
The public classes are not guaranteed to run as they need a minimal number of students in the Masterclass cohort to ensure a viable learning experience. A go or no-go decision will be made two weeks before the class begins.
2024 Schedule & Costs
If you think this Masterclass might be a game-changer for your Agile Coaching skills but don’t have the funds, we don’t want that to be your sole impediment. We’re open to discussing special discounts and payment plans to enable you to participate.
Please send Bob a note with your situation, and we’ll schedule a chat.
Individual costs are $2,500 USD
Bring a “Partner” costs are $4,500 USD for two participants.
DEI and other discounts are TBD
The first cohort is scheduled to begin on April 2nd and run through July 2nd, 2024. The live sessions will be on Tuesdays from 12:30pm - 2:30pm EST; Registration
The second cohort is scheduled to begin on August 13th and run through November 12th, 2024. The live sessions will be on Tuesdays from 12:30pm - 2:30pm EST; Registration
Questions?
Cancellation Policy
Generally, once registered, we expect you to honor that commitment, and your registration is non-refundable.
If something unexpected comes up, you can either transfer your registration to a colleague OR move it to a later masterclass. Of course, every case is unique, and we’ll consider refunds on a case-by-case basis.