4 Signs Your Agile Coach is a Fake

Today’s business world is saturated with Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, and certifications. Everyone is “going Agile” (if they haven’t already). Companies across the globe are engaging Coaches to guide their organizations and teams.

Why are some gaining immense value with Agile, and others frustrated and failing? Not to say it’s all contingent upon the Coach – company culture, structure, and leadership have a hand in it too. But without a great coach, what happens to nearly every team?

They lose.

Have you ever encountered an “Agile Coach” who can talk the Agile Talk, but in practice, they’re clueless?

In this post, we’ll share red flags that show whether your “Coach” is actually a Fake! You’ll learn how to spot a dodgy coach, and how to know when you’ve hit the jackpot and found a great one.

Red Flag #1: Your Agile Coach is obsessed with Buzz Words

“They won’t realize I have no idea what I’m doing if I use lots of Agile words.”

While we expect people to be honest on their resumes and at interviews, that doesn’t always happen. I don’t want a coach with an impressive resume and credentials galore if they can’t deliver results.

There seems to be an army of “coaches” these days who’ve never actually been on a team – of any kind – let alone an Agile team. They try to mask it by “sounding smart” and being vague about their experience. They are obsessed with Agile buzz words, and constantly use Scrummy language.

A great coach doesn’t need to show off their vocabulary. They know it’s just “the way we do our work.”

Take Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso. Ted successfully coaches a professional soccer team, and he doesn’t even know the rules of the game.

How, you ask? Keep reading to find out.

Red Flag #2: Your Agile Coach is extremely prescriptive

“This is how it’s done. Any other way is simply wrong!”

A Fake Coach sees their beliefs about Agile and Scrum as absolute truth. They are not to be questioned or altered in any way. They know the rules (or at least think they do), and treat everything as set in stone.

A good coach understands that the Agile Manifesto and Scrum Guide provide guidelines. Yes, there are prescribed roles, events, and artifacts. But how we incorporate these practices is up to the team.

One size does not fit all. No two Agile or Scrum adoptions look the same! People have a significant effect on how everything plays out.

Ted Lasso’s at it again with a radically different approach to managing the AFC Richmond team. They don’t have to function the same way as the team with the most wins.

Ted helps the team discover what’s best for them.

Wait a minute…I thought the coach had the final say?

Let’s dig into that a bit more.

Red Flag #3: Your Agile Coach always has an opinion…and they are always right

What are some other words for “coach?”

Trainer, instructor, teacher, mentor, educator.

I don’t see manager, executive, supervisor, director, or administrator on that list.

So why does your coach impose their opinions and ideas on everyone else?

A Faker masquerading as a Coach always has an opinion…and they believe they are right. They tell people what to do and how to do it. They focus on specific outcomes, putting their own goals over those of the customer and team.

What does a good coach do differently?

They ask questions. A lot of them!

To be great, a coach doesn’t need to know everything about how to do the work. I’ve coached four software development teams, and my technical skills stop at very basic SQL and HTML. Don’t even ask me the difference between C# and Python.

In all these situations, my teammates – the developers – knew what they were doing, and I trusted them to do it. The value I added wasn’t technical. It was focused on people.

The same can be said of Ted Lasso. He’s a soccer coach who doesn’t know the definition of “offside.” But the team, assistant coaches, and staff are experts. Ted asks questions, takes input from everyone, and keeps his ego in check.

We all have egos, there’s no denying it. But on a team, what’s more important – “me” or “we?”

Red Flag #4: Your Agile Coach doesn’t understand teamwork

Consider the synonyms for “coach” mentioned earlier – trainer, instructor, teacher, mentor, educator. Think about the mentors, teachers, and leaders who have most impacted your life or career. What made them positive or negative influences on you or your team?

In your worst experiences, did you feel psychologically safe? Was everyone on the team treated with respect? Was it ok to try and fail? Did you, your teammates, and the coach all have clear expectations? Did people work together and support each other?

Probably not.

A great coach makes people feel safe, and knows that failure is simply an opportunity to learn. They make sure all voices are heard. They understand the complexities of team development and dynamics.

Coaches help people work together, learn together, and improve together. They acknowledge the value each person brings. They are highly invested in other people’s success.

Like Coach Lasso says, “…success is not about the wins and losses. It’s about helping [the team] be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.”

So, is your Agile Coach the Real Deal, or are they a Fake?

I bet you already know the answer to that question.

If the red flags described in this post sound familiar, don’t panic! The Internet is full of misinformation, and “copying without knowledge” happens every day. Your coach may not even know they are too involved, too prescriptive, or that they sound like an Agile dictionary. If they do know and are still doing it…you might want to find a new coach.

Anyone who wants to learn can and will! And if they don’t, now you have the tools to spot your very own Ted Lasso in the crowd of mediocre “coaches.”

If you’re interested in learning more about Agile, coaching, or Scrum Mastery, check out our coaching services and upcoming courses here! 

Apple TV+ Ted Lasso

What are strengths?

Maybe you have heard of talents, strengths, StrengthsFinder, CliftonStrengths.  Maybe you have even taken the assessment.  But, what does it all mean, really?

CliftonStrengths, formerly StrengthFinder, is an assessment that takes about 30 minutes or so to complete.  The results of that assessment produce a report that is unique to you.  This report gives you either your top 5 talent themes, or your full 34, depending upon which report you choose.  I recommend the full 34 report as it is much more powerful to know where all of the talent themes land for you.  

You might say, why is it called CliftonSTRENGTHS, when you said the report measures your TALENTS…what’s the difference?  A talent is a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that CAN be productively applied.  A strength on the other hand, is the ability to CONSISTENTLY produce a positive outcome through near perfect performance in a specific task. 

In other words, a talent is about potential and strengths are about actualization.  The assessment can’t measure your ability to consistently produce a positive outcome, but it can measure your naturally recurring patterns of thought and behavior.  It is up to you to spend time learning and practicing your talents for them to become strengths.  

For example, I have a talent in communication.  When I was working as an attorney and writing every day, writing came as naturally as breathing.  But here I sit, 2 hours into writing this blog and I continue to work at it, because it’s not quite what I want.  I have not been practicing my communication through the written word in quite some time, so it is not a strength right now.  It is, however, still a talent, and if I keep writing these blogs for you, I will hone that talent and develop it back into a strength.

So, by now hopefully you’re thinking about how you learn more about your talents.  Well, there is a lot of information in the full 34 report about your top 10 talent themes.  To get even more information, you can go to the link sent from your assessment results to read more reports or watch videos on each talent theme.  Then you can work to utilize these talents intentionally on a daily basis to turn them into strengths.   If this interest you, be on the lookout for my next blog on what to do once you know your talents.

If you don’t understand or want a guide through this process, you can seek out a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach to help you. To find out about our Gallup Certified Strengths Coach and our services, please visit collaborativeleadershipteam.com or email info@coleadteam.com. 

Are You a Credible Agile Leader? Not if you Enable Excuses.

An ongoing blog series about Agile and Leadership

“Whoa! I don’t enable excuses” you may be thinking. “I don’t even accept them” may be your follow up thought. You’ve heard the old saying ‘you reap what you sow’. The organizational structure currently in place is the root cause of the behavior and the results you are experiencing.

Let’s explore one of the more popular examples of this. As a leader you may lack the ability to Focus, one of the Scrum values. Instead of weighing the pros and cons or trusting an empowered Product Owner to make these decisions and order the work, you declare “It’s All Priority!”.

The reality of what you said is there is no priority. Priority means one thing is before something else. Which means people who have this lack of direction now are in a position of having to guess. Can you feel your credibility as a leader diminishing?

Since everything is priority- spread the people doing the work across all these items and don't allow them to Focus and get work to Done. And call them projects or tasks or teams and tell people they are 25% “allocated” to this thing, another 15% to that thing, etc. Decades old data which continues to be upheld proves this isn't effective and won't achieve faster results. In fact, it’s slower because of the context switching that people are experiencing. They need to remember where they left off on one project or task to ramp back up and get back to work on that. Only to get interrupted or told they should be focusing on a different project or task. One of the original data sets is provided here:

How credible do you feel knowing your employees not only have this data, they live it every day in your organization? The reality is you have handed every single person that is time-sliced a built-in excuse.

You ask them for information on project 1 and they tell you “Oh let me get that for you in a minute, I’ve been busy on project 2”. You ask someone for status on project 2 and they tell you they have been busy with projects 3 and 4. Who knows what is happening? With this chaotic approach to doing work there is zero transparency and a bunch of ready made excuses.

Understand why your credibility as an “Agile Leader” is pretty low and ready to fix it? The good news is it takes only 2 things:  dedicate teams and order their work.

That’s it. 

Want No Excuses and higher visibility into results? Never want to use the words Agile or Scrum again? No problem. Bring work to the team in a force-ranked order. That means something is #1. Then something else is next. This way there are NO EXCUSES. Work is either done or it’s not done and we focus on removing/working through the impediments to getting it to done. Yes, Agile approaches such as Scrum enable getting work done but only if used as directed. If you don’t make the structural changes required, the behavior doesn't change and it’s excuse time.

Want to be coached on how to become a credible Agile Leader? Contact us at: info@coleadteam.com

Coaching "Up" - New ScrumMaster techniques

A common theme we hear among newly minted Certified ScrumMasters (CSMs) is their surprise that “coaching up” in the organization is part of their job. The official Scrum Guide (https://scrumguides.org/) is clear that the Scrum Master is a servant leader not only to the Development Team and Product Owner but also to the Organization.

What follows is usually the CSM gulping, nervously shifting their gaze or sighing.  When we ask them what’s wrong, they say things like “But I don’t know how to talk to a CIO, CEO, VP (fill in the executive blank).” “They won’t listen to me, I’m supposed to be neutral.”

The fact that the Scrum Master is neutral makes them the perfect person to talk to the organization’s leaders about the use of Scrum or Agile as a way to do work. The Scrum Master also escalates impediments to the Scrum Team’s success on their behalf within the organization.

Here are a few tips and reminders that may help:

·       Exhibit Courage: One of the Scrum values is Courage. Scrum Masters may need to summon up the courage to have necessary conversations with leaders. Remember the organization’s leaders are people too and why wouldn’t they want to know about something that is impeding a Scrum Team’s ability to deliver value to the organization’s customers?

·       Don’t Overuse the Scrummy Language: Scrum is far easier done than said. Leaders may or may not be versed in the vocabulary in the framework. Instead of saying something like - “The Development Team’s impediment to meeting their Sprint Goal is the company process” you could start with a question “If our procurement process is holding up the release of New Product X would you want to know about it?” Any leader vested in the organization’s success is sure to answer “Yes”. Follow with “Here are the details of exactly how that process is preventing our people from delivering that value as we speak.”

·       Be Brief in Messaging: A mistake many Scrum Masters make is approaching a leader in the same way they might approach a Development Team Member, a Product Owner or Subject Matter Expert. Depending on the level of leadership, sometimes they need items “bulleted” or rolled up. Come prepared to deliver your message in a few, short statements. If it makes more sense to ask a question as described in the previous tip and adapt accordingly that works also.

Collaborative Leadership Team recently joined forces with Michael Nir on this topic of how to influence when you do not have authority. Michael is a nationally recognized speaker and author who helps people learn how to have these conversations. Listen for Free to tips from Michael on our Ignite AgilityTM podcast.

To check out our upcoming course opportunities, head to our course schedule!

What is a ScrumMaster?

In a recent Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) course, a student new to Scrum was a bit confused by the repeated reference to the ScrumMaster as a “coach”.  “What do you mean coaching or when does this coaching happen?” was the question raised. Caught a bit off guard, or more importantly caught up in my own internal dialog of, “Well, doesn’t everyone who comes to a CSM already know this?” For a moment I was a bit dumbfounded. Then I realized that this is the very question that we need to spend more time answering.

Let’s just start with coaching. What do you think of when you think of coaching? Do you think of a sports team that has a coach? Do you think of losing weight and maybe hiring a personal trainer as a fitness coach? Do you think of accomplishing personal goals through engaging a life coach to help you stay focused? In any of these instances, the person that is in the coaching position does not do the work for the person being coached. The coach’s role is to:

·       Ask all kinds of questions – the obvious question, the dumb question, the hard question, etc

·       Make observations and play back what they are seeing, what they are hearing, what they are observing

·       Make recommendations, suggestions, provide alternative view points

·       Listen

·       Remind the coachee of the very goals that were set out to be accomplished and take stock of reality – is the goal being met or not with the actions the coachee is taking

Scrum is a different way to do work. It may sound simple to change to a new way of doing work, but many find the practice of Scrum difficult to accomplish. The official Scrum Guide is free to all and is available here.

The Scrum Guide is clear that a ScrumMaster does not only coach the team of people doing work or developing the product that will be used by customers, but they also have the responsibility of coaching the Product Owner and the Organization. The Product Owner gives direction about the product, and the greater Organization is comprised of other experts, users, customers and stakeholders about interacting with the Scrum Team.

That may sound like a big job, and it is!  This is why a ScrumMaster is a full-time job and not one that can be done effectively as part time. It’s not administrative at all. It’s about people. It’s about individuals and interactions. It’s about setting goals, accomplishing goals and more importantly, what needs to change if goals are not accomplished.

Think back to sports teams you may be a part of that had a coach. Or any sports teams that you watch. How many are successful without an effective coach? How many Olympic athletes achieve a medal without a coach? This idea is critical to a successful Scrum adoption. The ScrumMaster is the coach to the Development Team, the Product Owner and the Organization regarding making this change and when things get tough, not back-sliding into old habits or unsuccessful approaches that detract from the goal.

If you would like to learn more about Scrum or the ScrumMaster, refer to the free Scrum Guide. You can also join me for a Certified ScrumMaster course hosted by Hollstadt Consulting on Oct 2.

Author: Christian Antonie