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.