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

Personal Thoughts

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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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Coachability

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Coachability

In 2018 I wrote a post entitled—The First Rule of Agile Coaching – Be Coachable!

It’s one of the most popular and re-posted of my blog posts. And its core theme is the notion of a coach—

  • Consistently walking their talk

  • Having and growing their self-awareness

  • Having a continuous growth mindset

  • And ultimately, being coachable

But one of the things I struggle with is that, beyond the “be coachable” diatribes, I don’t have tangible tools to offer. Yes, I firmly know what it looks like to me, but it’s hard to share that (or explain or expect) that of others.

And then I stumbled upon a wonderful book…

The Book

I saw this post by Pete Berridge sharing his thoughts on Kevin Wilde’s book entitled—Coach-ability – The Leadership Superpower.

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Finally – Shining a Light on Badass Agile Coaches

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Finally – Shining a Light on Badass Agile Coaches

I’ve been a Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) since 2012. It’s one of two coaching certification levels, the other is Certified Team Coach (CTC), which are sponsored by the Scrum Alliance as part of their guide-level certifications. The other guide level is the Certified Scrum Trainer (CST). 

Over the years, I’ve been frustrated with the Scrum Alliance because they’ve done a mediocre-to-poor job of shining a light on the CEC & CTC coaching communities. As of this writing, there are 140 CEC’s and 237 CTC’s in the world, compared to 277 CST’s.

The Scrum Alliance has always leaned more heavily into supporting the CST’s. My guess is because of the part they play in granting certifications and driving revenue. But that being said, and I’m probably a wee bit biased, I’ve always felt that the coaches are equally as or even more critical to achieving the overarching goals of the Alliance than the CST’s.

I can hear you ask—but Bob, if you’re so frustrated, why have you continued with your CEC certification?

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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.

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Why do Agile Coaches have an Aversion to Consulting?

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Why do Agile Coaches have an Aversion to Consulting?

It seems to be an ongoing topic within the agile coaching community.  

Can an Agile Coach provide advice or consult with a client? The predominant answer seems to be no. Or something like—if you’re providing advice, then you’re NOT coaching. So, do you want to be a Coach? Or do you want to be a Consultant or Advisor? But you certainly can’t be both!

I’ve always wondered where this position comes from. If I’m advertising myself as an Agile Coach serving my clients…

  • Is it simply wrong to mix the two? Am I doing my client a disservice if I give them advice?

  • Or is it a skills challenge where many coaches find themselves under-skilled or uncomfortable delivering consulting advice?

  • Or, is it easier or less risky to professionally coach versus providing consulting advice?

  • Or is it something else altogether?

My initial reaction is that it might confuse Professional Coaching and Agile Coaching.  Thinking that they are the same. As I explored in my Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching book, they are not.

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Creating Teachable Moments as an Agile Coach

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Creating Teachable Moments as an Agile Coach

I was in a Moose Herd session the other day, and someone brought up the challenge of teaching as a coach. That people had to want to be taught. That they had to be curious to be taught. They had to be vulnerable to say—I don’t know, can you help me? And that if they didn’t adopt this empty vessel posture, it was nearly impossible to teach them.

Some of the phrases we shared around how to ask for or detect their receptiveness included—

  • Are you curious about this?

  • Can I teach you about agile estimation?

  • What do you know about agile?

  • I think you misunderstand the agile mindset; can I tell you what it is?

All of these are sort of binary, yes/no questions. I would argue that they put whoever you’re asking them of on defense. From a power dynamics perspective, you’re saying—I know, and you don’t. Can I bring you up to my level…yes, or no?

And I would argue this probably isn’t the best first way to engage someone in their learning.

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I’m a quitter too

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I saw this post from Bob Gower the other day about being a quitter and it inspired me to write this post. 

I’m closing in on a 40+ year career. 1981 – 2023

  • I’ve had ~ 15 jobs in those 40 years.

  • I’ve been laid off twice.

  • I’ve been ugly-fired once. Don’t ask.

  • I’ve quit, without having a backup job, ~5 times.

  • My longest run at one job was ~10 years; my shortest run was ~5-days.

  • I’ve demoted myself twice.

  • I’ve reorganized myself out of a job at least once.

  • I’ve hired my replacement at least 5 times.

Key Observations

  1. My tolerance for corporate bullshit was much greater early in my career.

  2. One consistent theme is that I’ve reflected on each and every job and the drivers for my leaving, and that’s made each step or pivot better for me as I’ve learned, adapted, and grown.

  3. I’ve learned to blame myself less and less for the driving forces behind my decisions.

  4. Looking back, I’m incredibly thankful for the entirety of the ride. It’s made me who and what I am. It’s also made me much more resilient.

Wrapping Up

I just want to thank Bob Glower for his courageous role model and inspiration. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken this powerful trip back to memory lane.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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You’ve Got a Friend

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You’ve Got a Friend

Carol King is one of my favorite artists from the 1970s and 80s and You’ve Got a Friend is one of my favorite songs of hers. So, it sounded like a good theme for this post. 

This article is inspired by all of the layoffs I see in the technology community—particularly the agilists who are finding many companies not valuing their contributions. There are also quite a few thought leaders in the community using this as an opportunity to (1) foretell the end of agile ways of working or (2) to explain how their new-fangled agile approach (Agile 2, SAFe, Elon, Flow, whatever) will deliver us from all the chaos.

I know quite a few of you are caught up in these challenging times, so I thought I’d share the following story and some related advice.

My story

It was the year 2000. I’d moved to North Carolina 4 years earlier and just joined Lucent (Bell Labs) as a Director of Software, leading a large team. I felt like I’d just won the lottery to find the job of my dreams. Then the telecommunications bubble burst in 2001.

Layoffs were rampant across the industry, tens of thousands of jobs were lost, and our entire optical networking facility of ~300 folks here in Raleigh, NC was let go. To say that I was devastated is an understatement. To add insult, I was selected to be on the leadership “closing crew” who helped everyone pack, leave, and turn the lights off in the building.

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The Power of Reflection

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The Power of Reflection

Taking the time each day to reflect on the past. Events, meetings, outcomes, discussions, emotions, reactions, triggers, feedback, virtually anything.

For example—

  1. Your last interview

  2. Your last (in person or virtual) meeting or an earlier meeting

  3. Your last lunch meeting

  4. Your last small OR big mistake

  5. Your last small OR big success

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Stop Training “Agile”

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Stop Training “Agile”

and by “Agile” I mean (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, etc.)

This post was inspired by another from Al Shalloway that I recently came across. In that article, I read the following—

First, should any certified Scrum trainer train a team in Scrum when they've been told by management to do Scrum? Technically, it's not Scrum since the team is being told what to do - violating Scrum's suggestion that teams should self-manage.

And it struck me how powerful the point was. Particularly since I believe the majority of agile classes, independent of the focus or certification source, are prescribed for the learners. They’re being told to attend, coerced, or forced to attend as part of some overall agile initiative.

This is a tactical focus and a huge mistake. You can’t become agile or get to an agile mindset by sitting through a class…any class! It just doesn’t work that way.