Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
We've Moved
We've Moved
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

ACGW

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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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Agile Coaches - Becoming a Trusted Advisor

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Agile Coaches - Becoming a Trusted Advisor

As I think about the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel Advising (consulting, consultative) stance, I don’t think it’s initially something you automatically do as an agile coach. Instead, I think it’s something you are either invited to do or become over time.

That aspect makes it quite different than some of the other stances. For example, Coaching, Facilitation, or Guiding Learning includes the invitation and empowerment with the role.

I also think the Advising stance aligns with the Leader stance; in that, you must be more intentional in becoming an Advisor—

  • It’s something you step into and earn over time.

  • It has more risk associated with it than the other stances, thus requiring more courage and resilience.

  • And finally, it places more pressure on your Self-mastery and Leader stances.

This may be why many coaches struggle so much with the stance. Not only from a skills perspective, but many seem afraid of it—so they find excuses to avoid operating as an advisor. And they’re not necessarily wrong. 

To help empower more coaches to become comfortable with advising, I thought I’d share some ideas around elements supporting their evolution.