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 Coaching Value

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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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Measuring the Effectiveness of Agile Coaching and Coaches

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Measuring the Effectiveness of Agile Coaching and Coaches

I’m just now finishing up my agile coaching book and I’ve been thinking about aspects that I may not have adequately covered in it. Measuring agile coaches/coaching and the impact rose to the top of my mind. And as I considered my writing history in this space, it dawned on me that I had never tackled it directly and I began to wonder why?

I think it’s because I don’t like or agree or resonate with the idea of discretely measuring agile coach or coaching performance. Why? No, it’s not because I’m afraid to be measured or held accountable in some way. Mostly, it’s because I don’t think it’s relevant.

The very nature of agile coaching is helping others to experiment, to learn and adapt, to change, and to improve their results. It’s not about measuring the coach. It’s about the performance of who they are coaching that truly counts. That is measuring the individuals, leaders, teams, or organizations that are being coached.

For example, if I’m coaching a Product Team (Chief Product Owner, Product Managers, and Product Owners) in an agile instance do they…

  • Improve the ROI driven across products?

  • Connect more to their clients? Envisioning better?

  • Work more cohesively as a team and are better aligned (horizontally & vertically) across other functions?

  • Are they learning more effectively as a community of practice?

  • Are the leaders operating more as Catalyst leaders? (See Bill Joiner’s work on Leadership Agility)

If these and many other measures are trending positively and improving, then I might be a strong part of that improvement. But while I, as the coach, am part of the system, it’s the system that improves and it’s the system that should be measured.

But I do have a few thoughts on effective measures of the coach that might be separate from the outcomes they are contributing (or not contributing) to.