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

Showing value

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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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Putting the ME Back into Agile Coaching

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Putting the ME Back into Agile Coaching

 I want to share two quick stories…

First story…

I was mentoring the Agile Disciples USA group a while back, and I presented an idea, theme, and set of slides around the notion of agile coaches needing to be more assertive when it came to—

  • Communicating their value,

  • Showing their value,

  • Demonstrating their value,

  • Claiming their value,

  • Declaring their value, and

  • Owning their value.

in their organizational contexts.

You might have thought I suggested harming a puppy with the reactions in the Zoom room. Reactions like—

  • But we’re servant leaders; it’s not about us;

  • We can only measure our impact thru those we coach;

  • It’s up to our coaching clients to sing our praises, not us;

  • I don’t want people to think I’ve got a big ego or am full of myself;

  • Value determination comes from our clients.

You get the picture. And I certainly understood where they were coming from and honored their humility and selflessness, but I wondered if they were missing something important.