High Five Agile Coaching Tips

I have worked with a great deal of individuals, teams, and organizations who all want to embrace “agile”, or at least think that they do. In general, the first challenge that most scrum masters and junior coaches face is how to transform or handle strong personalities or teams. I always tell my guys the same opening line: “I don’t do Agile…I do what works for my team.” I usually then get a blank stare or a look that lets me know they think I have lost my mind, but after a few more minutes of conversation, I usually gain more trust. Below are  some common tips that have worked for me throughout my career in Agile coaching. They are not listed in any order, but are proven strategies that have worked for me!

Understand your teams and the individuals that make up the team: Life and perspective are different for each individual person. A major key to reaching teams is your personal connection with the individual members. A good coach knows his players/teammates. He/she understands their pain points and builds a feeling of trust and support from the individuals. If people feel like you care and are actually there to help them, they will be much more open to supporting the team (or you as a coach). Peter Drucker stated that each person has a different way they receive information, learn, as well as communicate in his paper Managing Oneself (Drucker, 1999). As coaches, we need to identify this unique characteristic and meet our teammates, players, and clients where they are comfortable.

Safety First: As coaches we need to foster environments of safety and trust. Too often, coaches focus just on immediate results and miss out on opportunities for long term success and sustainability. My job as a coach is to first educate and then to help individuals and teams reach their best performance levels. NFL quarterback Peyton Manning had a horrible rookie year in the NFL. He led his team to a 3-13 record and threw 28 interceptions that year. His coach could have removed or traded Manning, but chose to allow Peyton to develop. This strategy worked and enabled Manning to go on to win 2 Super Bowls and become possibly the best quarterback to ever play in the NFL. Failure is key to the whole process and you must be there to support growth and transformation. When we are learning to ride a bike we may fall off, but the key is that we try to ride. Once we get the hang of riding sitting down, now we have to try to stand up and pedal…

Influence but do not Force: Another key to success is allowing the team itself to solve the problem. I am not suggesting you do nothing; I am instead suggesting you use your influence skills to get the team to choose the right solution. Always let them make the decisions and you gain buy in and ownership. That way they are invested in the transformation. In reading Takeuchi’s The New New Product Development Game, we learn that creativity is born by pushing people to the extreme and allowing them to find their way out. This is the true essence of teamwork, where the only people you have to rely on your team and have the autonomy to solve complex challenges together (Takeuchi, 1986)

Build Others: Pay close attention to your team members and ensure that you provide the proper motivation. Human beings are selfish. We all have heard of “WIFM”, which stands for what’s in it for me? As a coach, I have to identify peoples’ individual strengths and figure out ways to showcase those strengths to create motivation. An example would be: If you have a Software Engineer who is really interested in leadership, ask him to lead the team retrospective or ask for assistance during a presentation. This again provides a sense of ownership of the agile transformation, but also develops leadership skills that may not materialize without the right opportunities. I have seen an engineer who was against “agile” as he stated, turn into the biggest advocate because he felt as though he helped create the process. In The One Minute Manager Ken Blanchard put it this way “People who feel good about themselves, produce good results” (Blanchard, 1982).

Create a Process that’s not a process: In my experience the best software development happens when everyone is having fun. One strategy I have implemented is to create a process that really is not a process. For example, we had grooming and we met formally, we used story point poker cards, our Product Owner even presented intent, but that was it as far as process. We did not have a time limit on discussion, we did not raise our hands, we did not say 1 person at a time. Instead, we had some sessions where we pointed 6 stories really quickly and we had others where pointed none. The key was that we embraced and enjoyed our conversation. Everyone from the Product Owner to the developer felt as though we had a process that really did not exist. We were just good with what worked for us…

As a coach its very easy to feel as though we have to solve all the problems, so we tell people what agile is. Agile by definition is:  the ability to move quickly an easily, but too often we forget that agile also means smart, clever and smoothly. If I do my job, the teams of which I partner exemplify trust, conflict, cooperation, but most importantly shared ownership of delivery. I love working with different teams and personalities. Coaching is about continued learning and as a coach you should always learn something from your teams…