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

Agile Coach

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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.

Bringing and Being Ourselves

Bringing and Being Ourselves

There is the current notion in modern organizations of bringing our whole selves to work. That separating our lives from our profession isn’t a good idea, healthy, or even possible. 

Chris Murman recently posted an article that showed real courage and vulnerability in sharing who he is. He shared his emotional nature and how it has impacted his professional life.

I applaud Chris for this.

It takes an incredible person to share so much of themselves publicly. But if you knew Chris, you wouldn’t be so surprised.

From my perspective, there are different sorts of agile coaches for example—