Agile Coach

In same way a football coach will take a team and give them the tools to become exceptional, so an Agile Coach will likewise take a company, a team or individuals and give them the tools to excel at what they do. How they do this will depend on where the coachee is on their journey.

Teaching

Teaching is a mostly one-way interaction, with the Agile Coach sharing their knowledge with the coachee of the basics of a subject. This a very effecient way to teach people the basic principles of the Agile journey and the rules and values around agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban.

The first stage is to understand the rules of the game you're playing.

Mentoring

Where the coachee already knows the rules and may have some experience, then Mentoring allows the coach to be guided by the needs of the coachee. By using their greater depth of experience, the coach can share some of their own experiences or offer advice to the coachee. Mentoring is very much a two-way interaction with the coach and coachee both sharing their experiences and giving/getting advice or guidance on next steps.

Coaching

The last stage of the coaching journey is for the agile coach to coach the coachee. In this stage the coach won't give the coachee advice or recount their own experience. Coaching is all about the coach helping the coachee find their own answers and find the solutions that work best for them.

The true power of coaching, unlike Mentoring or Teaching, is that it's not limited to the ability or experience of the coach. There are literally no limits to the level that can be achieved by the coachee - as ultimately they are only constrained by their own limits.

Agile Coach Responsibilities

Below are some of the responsibilities that we, at Real Agile Delivered, believe come with the role of Agile Coach:

• Hold a vision of where the organisation needs to be on the next step of its agile journey
• To assess and teach/mentor/coach scrum masters to help them become the best version of themselves - and to enable them to be able to do the same for their teams
• Identify organisational issues and influence change in the organisation
• Nurture any good ideas that are raised and help them to progress - when they may have otherwise been lost
• Hold scrum masters to account - providing them with feedback
• Encourage a safe space in the organisation and encourage experiments and learning
• Make sure the company finds its best way of working, be that a common agile framework or something that suits the work and culture better
• Encourage constant change for the betterment of the company, its employees and it’s customers