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
,

What would I tell my younger self?

,

1985 - 2006 - 2023

I began exploring agile ways of working in 1995-96, inspired by the Scrum paper shared at OOPSLA 1995. 

Someone asked me—

I want to capture advice from experienced agilists as to if they were just starting out now in agile, based on their experience, what would they tell their younger selves?

And in no particular order, here is my answer—

  1. The journey is a marathon, not a sprint.

  2. Build and activate your trusted partner (friend, colleague, mentor, and cheerleader) network.

  3. Remember, agile is an inside-out job.

  4. Mindset is a thing, an important thing!

  5. Certifications largely suck; experience wins.

  6. When in doubt, trust your teams.

  7. Reflect on your privilege.

  8. Leave something positive behind, a legacy.

  9. Agile is bigger than software; change the world!

  10. Respect people…including leaders and managers.

  11. Continuously build your personal brand.

  12. Take better care of yourself (self-care)!

  13. Take the time to build better relationships.

  14. Stay humble.

  15. And…always remember, you ROCK! Trust yourself and your gut.

I found this to be a great reflective question.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

,

Stay agile my friends

,
Stay agile my friends

I’ve used this tagline for quite a while. I’m thinking for over 10 years now. I don’t think I ever explained the backstory for it and will do so now. 

I was influenced by the old Corona beer commercial where the actor closed each commercial with the line—

Stay thirsty my friends

And it made sense to me to end each post with a similar bit of encouragement from an agile perspective.

I’m writing this because it seems like our current global context for agility has never been more challenging. Yet, the notion of

Stay agile my friends

Has never been more relevant. But what is my intention and meaning behind it? Amongst many things, it implies to me—

,

Neil Peart’s – 10 Rules for Success

,

Ok, ok, I have a confession to make. I am a Rush fan. They’re probably in my Top 10, perhaps Top 5 of all-time bands. Probably the best 3-piece band on my list. 

Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and Neal Peart played for over 35 years and have left a treasure trove of songs for our listening pleasure.

Neil was the drummer, and we lost him to cancer a few years ago. With that loss, the band is no longer playing.

I happened across this Youtube video that shared these 10 Rules of Success from Neil Peart. I’m not going to embellish them in any way, as I think they stand alone as helpful advice in general, but even more valuable to any Agile Coaches in my network. Here are the rules—

  1. Earn your audience

  2. Be restless

  3. Get out of your comfort zone

  4. Learn from others

  5. Create what you like

  6. Infect people with your fire

  7. Don’t read reviews

  8. Create for your ideal audience

  9. Find your inspiration

  10. Never stop experimenting

Please share your thoughts and reactions to how these might relate to your role as a Scrum Master, organizational change agent, leader, or Agile Coach.

I can’t wait to see the replies…

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

, , ,

ACGW—The Importance of Self Mastery

, , ,
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.

, , ,

Mindset of the Agile Coach as…

, , ,
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.

, ,

Leaning In & Out as an Agile Coach

, ,
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?

, , ,

My Coaching Journey

, , ,
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.

, ,

Agile Coach as Personal Trainer

, ,
Agile Coach as Personal Trainer

I was interviewing a personal trainer the other day. I asked them—

How should I measure your effectiveness and your value as my personal trainer to achieve the outcomes I desire?

And she responded with something interesting. She said, you can’t.

She followed up with—

My personal value and effectiveness must be coupled with your ability to partner with me to realize the results you seek. You see, at least how I see it, we’re in this together.

She went on to say—

,

Reflection Artist

,
Reflection Artist

I’ve begun to understand that reflection is one of my superpowers as an agile coach and human being.

I reflect on many things; for example—

  • Exploring my principles—asking myself, am I walking my talk? Am I modeling effectively?

  • Exploring my ethics and how I’m showing up as a human and a coach?

  • Check to see if I’m endeavoring to “do better” daily. How is that emerging for me?

  • Brainstorming my continuous learning backlog, which is mainly strengths-based, and considering whether I’m making sufficient progress.

  • How am I coping with my family’s ongoing health challenges? And am I taking care of myself as a caregiver?

, ,

What type of coach are you

, ,

I don’t necessarily like it when we type-cast people into categories or types. So, on the record, I don’t necessarily agree with what Jem Jelly is putting down in this post of — The 3 Types of Agile Coaches. I’ve written about my thoughts before here.

But that being said, and assuming positive intent, I’m channeling a few other types of agile coaches (without any attributes) to share with you.…see if any of them remind you of yourself or another coach—

  • The Well-Rounded Practitioner Coach

  • The Change Artist Coach

  • The Don Quixote Coach

  • The Craftsperson Coach

  • The Purist Coach

  • The Pragmatist Coach

  • The Professional Coach

  • The Consultant Coach or The Benjamins Coach ($$$)

  • The Hammer (everything looks like a nail) Coach

  • The Badass (need I say more ;-) Coach

  • The 2-day, 3-day, or 4-day Class Coach

  • The Self-aware-less Coach

  • The Me-me-Me Coach

  • The “Do what I say, Not what I do” Coach

  • The Life Coach

  • The System-less Coach

  • The “I can change Them” Coach

  • The Nice Coach

  • The “Why am I coaching?” Coach

  • The “Sharing clickbait on LinkedIn” Coach

Wrapping Up

Well, Bob, what sort of coach are you?

I’d have to say…wait for it…wait for it…

I’m a Badass Agile Moose Coach, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out what that means.

So, instead of overreacting to Jem’s post, I thought I’d get a bit playful with it. But also give everyone something to reflect on.

Stay agile, my friends,

Bob.