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

Balance

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Self-Organization is a Nuanced Balancing Act

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Self-Organization is a Nuanced Balancing Act

I was reading a post by my friend and colleague Mike Hall the other day. It was entitled—Teams Should Choose Their Agile Approach!

I read it based on the title alone and found it insightful and well-intentioned. But that being said, I’m not sure that I agree with the absoluteness of it or the extremeness of it. Not that Mike used extreme language, but the intent of the approach was extreme, at least to me.

It seemed like Mike was saying that—

Under all conceivable circumstances, conditions, and contexts—teams should be fully autonomous in defining their agile operational dynamics.

And it made me think of a client story from quite a few years ago.

I met with this client. He was an organizational leader, general manager, of a large engineering group. To put it into Scrum terms, his organization was made up of ~100 Scrum and Kanban teams. They had been using both frameworks for about 18 months and he called me out of utter desperation.

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Agile Coaches need MORE than Coaching Skills

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Agile Coaches need MORE than Coaching Skills

I earned my CEC (Certified Enterprise Coach) certification with the Scrum Alliance in 2012. I’d applied in 2011, so it took me about a year to go through the process at the time. If my memory is right, I believe I was about the 43rd CEC at the time.

I did a search of CEC’s and CTC’s on May 26th and it showed 118 and 156 worldwide respectively. That’s ~300 coaches. The growth of CEC’s over an ~8-year period was ~10/year.

I had been serving in leadership and agile coaching roles for quite a few years prior to that. I’d also been part of a couple of fairly successful agile transformations at the organizational level. So, while I was confident in my coaching capabilities, I was excited to go through the process as a way of validating my journey, experiences, and skills.

Back then, the focus was on the breadth of your stances.

Work Balance Matters

Work Balance Matters

More than a few years ago, I visited a client in Greensboro, NC. I did a little consulting there, but it really wasn’t a longer-term gig.

What stood out to me, after all of these years, is that folks could bring their dogs into work. And everyone seemed to do just that.

  • There were dogs roaming free in the halls.

  • There were dog play areas.

  • There were dogs at their owner’s desks.

  • And those that didn’t have dogs were playing with others dogs.

  • And yes, there was the occasional “doggie accident” ;-)

It was a wonderful environment. Instead of feeling like an office space, it felt like a home that I was visiting. A comfortable home where the family loved their pets.

Another example, kids