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

Women in Agile

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Agile Books by Women

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Agile Books by Women

It recently struck me that I wasn’t that aware of agile books authored by women in our agile community. Sure, I was aware of a few, but I became curious about the number of female authors and the topics they explored.

As I began to search, I realized there were very few resources/lists on the topic. There was one list, written by Julia Dellnitz, that I found. It provided some European voices that I hadn’t been exposed to – https://www.smidig.de/agile-books-by-female-authors/ and a few others, but it was really the only one.

So, I became inspired to pull together this list and to see just how many women authors I could find in our space. Thank you for that inspiration, Julia!

I also found this link on Women in “Product” to follow – https://www.productplan.com/learn/women-in-product-to-follow/, that includes two of the authors on my list.

And finally, I found this on the Business Agility Institute site – Women in Agile and the Confidence Code – https://businessagility.institute/learn/women-in-agile-and-the-confidence-code/330

What I found in my search was a wonderful list of incredibly talented women who’ve written on a wide variety of topics. Now, I know that I’ve probably missed many wonderful authors. So, please feel free to send me a message or add a comment so that I can be more inclusive on my list.

But that being said, I do think it’s a deep and rich list that’s worthy of your consideration. And I want you to join me in CELEBRATING these wonderful women and their contributions to our agile community.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

We need more women in agile coaching!

This post is directly related to my post yesterday about The Privilege of my Agile Coaching.

At the end of 2020, many things are running around my brain. Among them are—

  • Diversity and Inclusion

  • Women in Agile

  • State of Agile Coaching

As I was sitting with my third cup of coffee the other morning, I became curious. (not an uncommon thing ;-)

More specifically, curious about the number of women who are Scrum Alliance CEC’s (Certified Enterprise Coaches and CTC’s (Certified Team Coaches). So, I went to the Scrum Alliance website and I counted them. 

I found that—

  • Of 125 total CEC’s, 17 were women (14%)

  • Of 174 total CTC’s, 28 were women (16%)

Keep in mind that it’s quite common for CEC’s to also have the CTC. So, there is some overlap in the numbers.

With that being said, are you surprised by the numbers? I was!  

It’s not clear to me what a “good number” would be. But these seem off in some way. I was expecting (hoping for) them to be higher. I’ve collaborated with such talented women in the agile community over the years, that it just seemed to me as if ~50% or more of the coaches should be women.

And since this is a snapshot, and I don’t have access to historical data, I don’t know if these are trending better or worse over time. I certainly hope better. 

I also wondered if I applied any other diversity lenses to the coaching community what might those percentages be? Would they be equally disappointing?

The Real Point

But the real point in my writing this is to focus on what can we (me, every CTC, CEC, the Scrum Alliance board, and every member of the Scrum Alliance) do to actively increase the diversity in our coaching ranks?

I’d really like this post to generate some energy, ideas, and momentum in this space. So, do you have any of those? And what can you personally do to make a difference?

That’s something I’m deeply thinking about as I enter 2021. Look for me to take more targeted action in this space in 2021…

Stay agile my coaching friends,

Bob.