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

Coaching Stances

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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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Coaching Stances Applied

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Coaching Stances Applied

Agile Coach and provocateur Michael de la Maza posted the following on LinkedIn

Scene: Final round of interviews for an Agile Coaching position. Down to the final three candidates. Everyone is tense, but pretending not to be.

(curtain rises)

Client: We have a problem with people arguing. What would you do about that?

Agile Coach 1 (with swagger): I would step in immediately to prevent further damage.

Agile Coach 2 (confidently): I would ask the people who are arguing what they want to get out of the argument.

Agile Idiot (cluelessly): What is the problem with people arguing?

(curtain falls)

[Based on the life and work of Steven Davis.]

As of October 14th, 2021 the post had received 42 comments.

For example, Steve Peacock answered this way in dissecting the scenario—

Another "it depends" situation.