Walking Their Talk, Sustainability, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sustainability

I saw this wonderfully courageous and informative post by Sabine Canditt the other day where she wrote about Sustainable Scrum. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sustainable-scrum-responsible-choice-sabine-canditt-x0gef

After just completing a The Week program facilitated by the amazing Ann-Marie Kong, it touched my heart.

That said, I wanted to highlight one comment reaction/interaction between Sabine and Erich Bühler 

Erich said—

Thank you for bringing this approach into the world! Scrum does provide an iterative approach for teams to create value, but its scope is limited to the product level and struggles with dynamics across the whole organization for several reasons.
Without updating the underlying business and financial model at a strategic level, Scrum alone cannot transform organization-wide sustainability.

Sustainability
Short-takes, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sandy’s Take
Sandy’s Take
Short-takes, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
Coaching, ACGW, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

I talk a lot about the first step in coaching any client (individual, system, team, etc.) is to build a relationship, gain empathy and understanding, and then gain an idea of where/how to help initially. So, do NOT start to coach until you’ve done some relationship-building. 

But what does a coaching relationship, or a professional relationship in general, look like? What are aspects of that? Here are a few things that come to my mind—

  • Making + taking the time.

  • Explaining what you do—what is Agile Coaching.

  • Building some empathy; walking in their shoes; understanding where they are coming from.

  • Meeting them where they are.

  • Listening; reflective listening; building metaphors together.

  • Connecting with their language, not yours.

Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships
Personal Thoughts, Short-takes
Robert Galen
Privilege Awareness

I recently replied to a LinkedIn post by David Pereira. It was a wonderful post, and I applaud David’s boldness and courage in sharing it. 

Here’s a post comment from Stefan Wolpers—

While I agree fully with your personal stance regarding professionalism, David Pereira, some people will shy away, given the current economic climate. Some of the previously aggravated people may seek an opportunity to settle scores.

And here’s my comment—

I love the clarity (No BS) here. Clarity for David and clarity for those who want to work with and who don't want to work with him.
That said, David has the unique privilege that allows him to adopt this clarity. Many don't.

This post is not about David per se. Instead, he inspired me to write it.

Privilege Awareness

Colleague Reactions

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Supporting Roles

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Supporting Roles

I saw this article on LinkedIn by Travis Klinker and I thought I’d share it here in its entirety— 

Perception is reality.

I often say this when people share their disagreement with feedback they have received. Regardless of the situation, one person's perception is their reality at that time and without acknowledging that person's reality it can be very difficult to constructively move forward. Given this point of view, I've been reflecting on the perceived value of the roles that support continuous improvement.

The past year's choices by many companies to abandon their Agile efforts (or shall I say the supporting roles, such as coaches and scrum masters), makes me question the value they place on continuous improvement. The very roles that elevated these companies appears to now be devalued.

I believe that continuous improvement is a personal choice, but my experience has shown that without the supporting roles, continuous improvement rarely continues, much less thrives in an organization. So, it leaves me pondering the choices that are being made by companies when they are under extreme pressure.

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ACGW—The Importance of Self Mastery

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ACGW—The Importance of Self Mastery

I’ll get right down to it. I think the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel figure needs to be updated. Not in a drastic way, but more to emphasize the importance of Self Mastery in all aspects of an Agile Coaches daily journey in skills and competency development. 

This post is inspired by one that Joel Bancroft-Connors wrote about the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel on LinkedIn and several replies from Huy Nguyen. Here’s the first—

As I've said before, the self-mastery thing in the middle can sometimes dwarf the rest. There's a lot more that goes into that little circle - and it's easier said than done. Everything gets limited by the person embodying the change - especially if they've never dealt with their own issues before.
Good luck with that. And I’m being serious.

I’m reacting to Huy’s point about the importance of, size of, and understanding of self-mastery in the context of the Wheel. He’s right, self-mastery is the most important, least understood, and hardest to navigate competency.

When mentoring fellow agile coaches, I always start with exploring their self-mastery. And, it’s not self-mastery in a vacuum or as an independent competency, but instead related to each of the Wheels’ other competencies.

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Leaning In & Out as an Agile Coach

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Leaning In & Out as an Agile Coach

My friend and colleague Joel Bancroft-Connors have been doing a fantastic job contributing to the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel community project sponsored by the Scrum Alliance.

While I heavily reference the Wheel in my Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching book, I haven’t been paying detailed attention to its ongoing evolution.

One area I noticed the volunteer team added was to group specific competencies into categories of neutral versus active. And, when someone asked me about them, I hadn’t a clue what was intended. Here’s a question/answer dialogue that provides some additional context—

When asked—

What is meant by distinguishing between “neutral” and “active” competencies on the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel self-assessment guide?

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My Coaching Journey

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My Coaching Journey

My Colleague and friend, Chris Stone, posted an article on LinkedIn that shared a figure of his interpretation of The Agile Coach Hype Cycle. He asked me—How did your journey look? 

And it made me think…

Of my journey. Had I followed the steps that he had laid out? Where was I currently on my journey? And where might I be going?

A Look Back

I’m going to share some meaningful events and milestones in my journey—certainly not all, but reflecting on my journey to reflect forward.

Late 1990s

  • Introduced to Lean thinking, Extreme Programming, and Scrum.

  • Early direct experience while working at Micrognosis & Bell & Howell.

  • Aligning with earliest Scrum stories and practices.

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Agile Coach as Personal Trainer

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Agile Coach as Personal Trainer

I was interviewing a personal trainer the other day. I asked them—

How should I measure your effectiveness and your value as my personal trainer to achieve the outcomes I desire?

And she responded with something interesting. She said, you can’t.

She followed up with—

My personal value and effectiveness must be coupled with your ability to partner with me to realize the results you seek. You see, at least how I see it, we’re in this together.

She went on to say—

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What type of coach are you

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I don’t necessarily like it when we type-cast people into categories or types. So, on the record, I don’t necessarily agree with what Jem Jelly is putting down in this post of — The 3 Types of Agile Coaches. I’ve written about my thoughts before here.

But that being said, and assuming positive intent, I’m channeling a few other types of agile coaches (without any attributes) to share with you.…see if any of them remind you of yourself or another coach—

  • The Well-Rounded Practitioner Coach

  • The Change Artist Coach

  • The Don Quixote Coach

  • The Craftsperson Coach

  • The Purist Coach

  • The Pragmatist Coach

  • The Professional Coach

  • The Consultant Coach or The Benjamins Coach ($$$)

  • The Hammer (everything looks like a nail) Coach

  • The Badass (need I say more ;-) Coach

  • The 2-day, 3-day, or 4-day Class Coach

  • The Self-aware-less Coach

  • The Me-me-Me Coach

  • The “Do what I say, Not what I do” Coach

  • The Life Coach

  • The System-less Coach

  • The “I can change Them” Coach

  • The Nice Coach

  • The “Why am I coaching?” Coach

  • The “Sharing clickbait on LinkedIn” Coach

Wrapping Up

Well, Bob, what sort of coach are you?

I’d have to say…wait for it…wait for it…

I’m a Badass Agile Moose Coach, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out what that means.

So, instead of overreacting to Jem’s post, I thought I’d get a bit playful with it. But also give everyone something to reflect on.

Stay agile, my friends,

Bob.

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Finding Allies & Building Alliances

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Finding Allies & Building Alliances

This is a wonderful professional experience share from Alenna Merihew that I have to share with a broader audience. She shared it in October 2023 on LinkedIn— 

Want to know who really holds the keys to your next promotion (after yourself)? Hint: Not your manager.

Assuming you have great performance reviews, the required capabilities, and your manager’s support, the biggest hurdle actually is a leader that sits one, two or even more levels above you.

I learned this the hard way when my first promotion was nixed by a senior partner in my office.

My mentor shared that in the annual performance review meeting the head of the office “James” (name changed) hadn’t supported me for the accelerated promotion.

I had met James only a handful of times during the year, primarily at team dinners. I was confused.

I naively asked, “What? Why? I’ve barely interacted with him. And there was other support from folks in the room, right?”

“Yes, but…” [pause] “…there wasn’t much we could do.”

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Silence

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Silence

My colleague and friend, Michelle Pauk, recently published this note exploring what silence might imply –

“Silence means consent.” But does it really? Silence can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it means…

·       I’m confused. I’m afraid I’ll look dumb if I ask a question.

·       I disagree, but I've learned there’s no point arguing.

·       I'm frustrated. I’ve tried to share my opinion before and no one listened.

·       I’m disengaged. I'm not even paying attention to this conversation.

The next time you’re tempted to declare what silence means for a group, try making an observation and asking a question instead.

“I’m noticing it’s very quiet. What should we make of that?”

You might be surprised by what happens next.

Next, Michelle posted this video supporting the topic.

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Agile Coach as Consultant?

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Agile Coach as Consultant?

The wise Nigel Thurlow posted the following on LinkedIn –

A consultant should never implement solutions or attempt to fix anything. In most cases they’ll simply create thrash and often make things worse.

They should instead light the way and teach others to “learn to see”. Once others are able to see the consultant can guide them on contextually relevant tools, techniques, methods, and approaches.

Hint: you should be an expert generalist and possess deep knowledge beyond frameworks. People solve problems, not frameworks.

Teach others how to fish. Help them see and solve their own challenges. Trying to fix companies will only result in frustration for both sides.

Caveat: leaders (the ones with big job titles) must be engaged and participatory otherwise the best that can be hoped for is a short-term placebo effect.

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Agile Coaching != Life Coaching...Really?

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Agile Coaching != Life Coaching...Really?

Brett Maytom posted some thoughts on LinkedIn, including an article entitled Exposing the Truth: Life Coaches Masquerading as Agile Coaches. As of March 2, 2023, there were 69 comments on LinkedIn to the post. 

Brett is a trainer with Scrum.org (PST) with over 20 certifications posted on his LinkedIn profile. Simply as a reference, I saw no certifications or training mentioned around any aspect of agile, professional, or life coaching, which I found interesting. He only references himself once as an agile coach in his experience history from 2014 – 2016.

In one of the comments, Brett gives some additional background context behind the article—

Context:
One ruffled my feathers last week, and what they were saying just had no business or product sense.

A few people in my network and local communities are like this. They only talk about agile in the context of a life coach for a few years now. I have tolerated it because I know them personally. I have now had enough of it.

Also, many companies promote life coaching courses, claiming they need this. People are getting suckered into that.

I attended an "agile coaching" course in 2014 (ish), which was more of a life coaching course. I was not impressed. Ken was on it too, and he walked out after the first half day. I should have too but I did not as I traveled to USA for it.