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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ACGW—The Importance of Self Mastery

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ACGW—The Importance of Self Mastery

I’ll get right down to it. I think the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel figure needs to be updated. Not in a drastic way, but more to emphasize the importance of Self Mastery in all aspects of an Agile Coaches daily journey in skills and competency development. 

This post is inspired by one that Joel Bancroft-Connors wrote about the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel on LinkedIn and several replies from Huy Nguyen. Here’s the first—

As I've said before, the self-mastery thing in the middle can sometimes dwarf the rest. There's a lot more that goes into that little circle - and it's easier said than done. Everything gets limited by the person embodying the change - especially if they've never dealt with their own issues before.
Good luck with that. And I’m being serious.

I’m reacting to Huy’s point about the importance of, size of, and understanding of self-mastery in the context of the Wheel. He’s right, self-mastery is the most important, least understood, and hardest to navigate competency.

When mentoring fellow agile coaches, I always start with exploring their self-mastery. And, it’s not self-mastery in a vacuum or as an independent competency, but instead related to each of the Wheels’ other competencies.

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Mindset of the Agile Coach as…

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Mindset of the Agile Coach as…

Self-Mastery is the hub of the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel. As such, it serves as a central connection to all of the competencies with the Wheel. In other words, each competency has self-mastery as a foundational layer when operating within that competency. 

That being said, when I think of Self-Mastery within the context of the ACGW, I also think about the unique mindset that each competency requires. It’s not one mindset across all competencies but unique aspects that emerge for each competency.

Below, I wanted to explore what I think of as essential mindset aspects for each of the primary coaching competencies—

Self-Mastery

  • Checking ego lessness

  • Checking coachability

  • Checking self-awareness

  • Checking community engagement

  • Checking self-care

  • Checking your continuous growth

  • Showing Up – Realizing that every other stance is grounded by YOU.

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Leaning In & Out as an Agile Coach

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Leaning In & Out as an Agile Coach

My friend and colleague Joel Bancroft-Connors have been doing a fantastic job contributing to the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel community project sponsored by the Scrum Alliance.

While I heavily reference the Wheel in my Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching book, I haven’t been paying detailed attention to its ongoing evolution.

One area I noticed the volunteer team added was to group specific competencies into categories of neutral versus active. And, when someone asked me about them, I hadn’t a clue what was intended. Here’s a question/answer dialogue that provides some additional context—

When asked—

What is meant by distinguishing between “neutral” and “active” competencies on the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel self-assessment guide?

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My Coaching Journey

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My Coaching Journey

My Colleague and friend, Chris Stone, posted an article on LinkedIn that shared a figure of his interpretation of The Agile Coach Hype Cycle. He asked me—How did your journey look? 

And it made me think…

Of my journey. Had I followed the steps that he had laid out? Where was I currently on my journey? And where might I be going?

A Look Back

I’m going to share some meaningful events and milestones in my journey—certainly not all, but reflecting on my journey to reflect forward.

Late 1990s

  • Introduced to Lean thinking, Extreme Programming, and Scrum.

  • Early direct experience while working at Micrognosis & Bell & Howell.

  • Aligning with earliest Scrum stories and practices.