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AGILE COACH:CRUCIAL FOR TRANSFORMATIONS

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INHOUD

Why Agile Coaching? 3

What does an Agile Coach do? 5

The toolkit of an Agile coach 9

Training by Gladwell Academy 10

Career move: Become a Coach 12

We probably don’t need to introduce you to the Agile way of working itself. Those principles of flexibility, the informal corporate culture, the flat organigrams and self-managing teams… Agile has been an eye-opener for most of the global business community and the public sector for years. Even the most venerable business giants are trying to master the flexibility of a start-up these days. Simple it brings better results and it works much more smoothly.

Consumers and everyday citizens are actually applying rather Agile principles in their ways of treating business as well: people expect and accept that their products will be regularly updated, they expect short response times from service, increasingly refusing to be kept waiting on corporate bureaucracy… the Agile way is here to stay.

IMPACT FROM AGILE And yet, the fact that the concept is known does not mean that it is easily applied. Working Agile has an immense impact, and multiple pitfalls await as well. At all levels of the organization, people must get used to the autonomy that Agile requires of them. Employees are inclined to wait for orders; managers find it difficult to prepare themselves. We learn patterns of following and leading from childhood: at school, in the family - it takes effort to learn alternatives.

WHY AGILE COACHING?

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SCRUM MASTER VS AGILE COACH “Why do we need an Agile Coach? We already have a Scrum Master for every team, right?” Sure, the most known role in an Agile organization is the Scrum Master. He or she is mainly involved in the Scrum processes of one team: Can everyone in my team move forward? How do these sprints relate to our backlog?

SWEEPER-KEEPER The Agile Coach, however, doesn’t deal with just one team. He or she works on the adoption and embedding of Agile principles throughout the organization: at the individual, team, department and management levels. As a ‘sweeper-keeper,’ the Agile Coach is always where the Agile work needs a push: at the start of new teams, in the transition to Agile work, in conflicts, or when expectations fail to materialize.

He or she is the expert when it comes to the principles, the philosophy of Agile and the application of Agile in the business strategy - where the Scrum Master acts on a tactical and operational level - and limited to a single team.

As an Agile Coach you are always working at different levels in an organization. Roughly, we can say that your work takes place on three different levels: with individuals, teams and management.

COACHING ON THREE LEVELSA. INDIVIDUAL LEVELAt the individual level, you are mainly concerned with helping people familiarize themselves with Agile reasoning. People are inclined to think primarily from the angle of their own function and tasks for example, and to view that content as unchanging. Rather, you teach them to think about how to best add value to the end result, as seen both directly and indirectly by the end custom-er. You teach people to keep their eyes open to new opportunities and changed conditions. You spend time listening to the challenges they experience, and you help them find an approach. This is significant: to avoid ‘spelling it out’ for people, you help them supply new ideas themselves.

The first module ‘Foundation’ of the Agile Coach training by Gladwell Academy concerns itself with coaching individuals.

B. TEAM-LEVELThe most important unit in Agile is the team: goal-oriented, situational, agile. As a coach you help a team to start out: get comfortable with themselves and gain the self-confidence needed to get the job done. This includes coaching the Scrum Master and the Product Owner. What are their expectations? What do they see as their task, as the intended result? Do the various perspectives rhyme?

You also come to aid in conflict situations. The likelihood of change inherent in working Agile means that stakeholders and their interests also change regularly: this will give rise to (limited) sit-uational conflict. Conflict is in itself not a problem in the Agile philosophy: they occur naturally and, provided everyone behaves constructively and professionally, they are usually easy to resolve.

The second module ‘Practitioner’ of the Agile Coach training by Gladwell Academy is mainly con-cerned with coaching teams.

WHAT DOES AN AGILE COACH DO?

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Don’t spell it out - help people find ideas

of their own

WHY AGILE COACHING?

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C. MANAGEMENT-LEVELNo matter how necessary management finds the transformation to working Agile from a rational point of view: that same management may sometimes stand in the way of working Agile – for emotional or habitual reasons. Leaders may find it difficult to ‘let go’ of teams - feelings of power and control are involved, and feelings of trust and uncertainty as well. Also, ingrained management habits – a dependence on reporting and meetings, micromanagement, ‘CC compulsion’ - can all stand in the way of the teams’ autonomy.

Finding the right balance between freedom of action and control is the mission of management during a transformation to working Agile. Here you can play an important role as an Agile Coach - provided you actually secure it.

Coaching management during Agile transformations is mainly an affair for senior coaches with a good dose of experience. The third module ‘Advanced,’ is mainly concerned with this. The decades of experience incorporated in sister company BlinkLane Consulting, assisting transformations in all kinds of corporate and public environments, gives this module a great deal of practical relevance and authenticity.

COACHING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE AGILE TRANSFORMATIONIf you want to understand the dynamics of an Agile transformation, it is best to look at the process in four phases. The Agile Coach has a different role in each.

PHASE 1: THE EXPERIMENTThis is the most elementary phase. One or more teams - either spread across the organization, or all in one department - start working with aspects of Agile. Often a ‘scrum team’ is set up: the most well-known work form of Agile. Working in sprints, working with a backlog, a Scrum Master, et cetera.

The Coach mainly helps teams on their way; he or she learns to use the Agile rituals in a meaningful way and guides people through the introduction to their role in the Scrum team.

PHASE 2: FORMALIZATIONAt this point, the experiment is catching on and the number of teams is growing. A ‘team of teams’ is created, but often within a single ‘silo’ only: an ‘IT Development team of teams’ or a ‘Marketing & Sales team of teams’. The question now arises, how can you control these new organizational forms? And is there a proper way for the various teams to work together? In order to address these types of questions, frameworks such as Scaled Agile (SAFe) or Large Scale Agile (LESS) come into play.

The Agile Coach helps to shape the scale-up strategically. By gaining knowledge of SAFe or similar framework, the Coach can guide his or her colleagues in applying it. The Coach identifies problems and helps the organization find a way out. From the self-organizing teams of developers, to Scrum Masters and product owners, to the team of teams and to the environment beyond, the Coach offers support and advice to accelerate the organiza-tion towards more and better quality as well as faster value delivery.

PHASE 3: FRICTIONThe organization’s still-dominant conventional way of working is starting to pinch: the contradiction between old and new can lead to a real directional struggle. The disad-vantages of functional silos as an organizational principle are widely felt. There is talk about structuring the organization around value chains: chains of value-adding steps

WHAT DOES AN AGILE COACH DO?

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that focus entirely on what the customer is prepared to pay for. These chains, however, inherently run through the conventional organization and they require new priorities.

This step is a structural rearrangement and it requires a lot of help from the Agile Coach. We also call this ‘jumping the chasm.’ The eventual redesign invites resistance from all layers of the organization: where those in the value chain soon see the bene-fits, people in supportive positions especially may feel uncertain and without direction. The Coach helps to neutralize these feelings.

PHASE 4: RESTRUCTURINGIf the change has been embraced at a strategic level, then questions arise at the tac-tical level. Monitoring functions such as Accountancy, Control, Quality Management have important questions: how do we keep those value chains under control? Sup-porting functions (HR, legal, business development) may ask: how do we best serve the value chain? What competences should drive our hiring process? How should we assess performance?

The Coach as an external advisor tries to make himself less and less necessary here. Moreover, in organizations we see a self-reinforcing momentum for change, and the emergence of new Coaches from within the actual organization.

THE TOOLKIT OF AN AGILE COACH

TYPES OF INTERVENTIONSWhen you act as an Agile Coach, this is called an ‘intervention’. Interventions happen in the case of conflict, but the case might also be a change taking place, an initial phase or a retrospective (the evaluation with a team after the end of a project). As an Agile Coach, you build a toolkit you use to help individuals, teams and management move forward. Some examples from the Agile coach trainings are:

STRENGTH FINDERThe Strength Finder is an exercise that allows you to apply a person’s natural talents, training courses and experience to the requirements of a project. Your coachee (‘the one you coach’) will quickly get an idea of the most suitable role or working method for him or her, and of which competences may need attention.

GAMESTORMINGGamestorming is a term for a collection of brainstorming techniques. Where the goal of brainstorming is to generate as many ideas as possible, with gamestorming you try to manage and challenge that ‘idea storm’ through playful methods.

STYLES IN COACHINGDuring the first module ‘Foundation’ of the Agile Coach

training, we look extensively at your own personality and

natural competences. Coaching is interpersonal work, and

your personality will deeply affect it. We distinguish several

different styles in coaching – with some overlap here and

there:

1. CO-ACTIVE COACHING

Co-active coaching is an approach put together by CTI

International. The Co-Active Model balances self-aware-

ness, a keen agility with relationships, and courageous

action to create an environment where individuals can

be deeply fulfilled, connected to others and successful in

what matters most.

The “Co” in Co-Active suggests relationship, connection,

intimacy and collaboration. Thus, the “Co” in us is curious,

listens deeply, hears nuance, holds space for others,

intuits and nurtures.

The “Active” in Co-Active stands for power, direction,

action and manifestation. So, the “Active” in us is cou-

rageous, has clarity and conviction, takes charge and

achieves goals.

2. PROVOCATIVE COACHING

Provocative coaching is a challenging, strong coaching

style that alternates stimulating confrontation with

liberating humor and perspective. The roots of this style

lie in provocative therapy, a movement in psychotherapy.

The idea is that people can take a challenge: it shakes

them awake and makes them resilient. If you want them

to succeed, don’t mollycoddle them; confront them with

themselves and prod them. Elements of reverse psychol-

ogy play a role: “You want the donkey to lead the way?

Then pull its tail’.

‘You want the donkey to lead the way?Then pull its tail’

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OPEN SCHEDULE AND IN-COMPANYThe training is available as an in-company

variant and as an open schedule for

registrations. Each variant has its

advantages: in-company training mainly

deals with recognizable situations and

challenges, while open enrolment invites a

wider variety of work origins. In both variants,

however, real practice offers the best case

material; what you do and whom you work

with largely determines your training.

CERTIFCATIONPOST-HBO CERTIFICATIONThe Agile Coach course has been certified by the Stichting Post Hoger Beroepsonder-wijs Nederland (SPHBO). The accreditation implies that graduates are included in the foundation’s register. This register can be consulted by personnel officers to verify testimonials. Stichting Post HBO Nederland is part of The Center for Post Initial Education in the Netherlands (CPION).

INTERNATIONALOn the international market, the certification of ICF (International Coaching Federati-on) predominantly applies; at this moment Gladwell Academy is still getting the training recognized here. In anticipation of this re-cognition, we already work with the ‘11 core competences’ as formulated by ICF.

3. POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY COACHING

A confirming, encouraging coaching style by definition.

The focus is on happiness of life and optimal function-

ing, on values and meaning. The coach increases the

aspects that are seen as positive; shows coachees what

they share in common. The coach should be optimistic

and constructive, and looking for harmonious solutions to

problems.

4. SYSTEM-ORIENTED COACHING

This style is based on the principle that behavior never

stands alone and is always a reaction to a ‘system’ that

people work and live in. Everyone’s behavior also in turn

affects the system, in a continuous exchange. How do

you relate - both consciously and unconsciously - to your

environment? How does your behavior go over with oth-

ers? how does their behavior affect you? How could you

change each other? These are system-oriented questions.

5. GESTALT COACHING

Gestalt-therapy is an old, at the time revolutionary move-

ment in psychotherapy. The German word ‘Gestalt’ means

‘whole’ or ‘construction’, and this style is therefore rath-

er holistic and inclusive. Anything may play a role in your

analysis: personality, behavior, environment, spirit. The

principle assumes that people are most comfortable being

what they are in the deepest sense, and above all aren’t

asked to be what they aren’t.

STYLES IN LEADERSHIPThere are many styles of leadership and they all serve

their functions, depending on the context. One of the ap-

proaches we use to analyze leadership in Agile transfor-

mations is the Leadership Agility Compass, as pioneered

by Bill Joiner.

He presents a spectrum of leadership styles, with the

message that a competent leader can navigate between

styles when the context demands it.

TRAINING BY GLADWELL ACADEMY

SET UP THE TRAININGThe Agile Coach training course is a 12-day post-graduate course, after which you may call

yourself an Agile Coach. The training covers three modules:1. FOUNDATION2. PRACTITIONER3. ADVANCED

MODULE 1: FOUNDATIOAt the start of the personalized coaching program you will taste and feel different styles of coaching to discover which style fits you. You learn to discover the coaching questions in the relevant context. You will explore yourself as a coach: the ‘I’ in coaching, but you also look at situations outside yourself: the ‘Other’ and the ‘Environment’. Duration: 5 days.

MODULE 2: PRACTITIONERThe second module expands your skill set further. Here we look at the Agile context and the dynamics of the coaching interactions. We specifically discuss various coaching interventions. Duration: 3 days.

MODULE 3: ADVANCEDFocused on the more experienced coach, we delve into appropriate leadership styles and group dynamics regarding coaching. Interwoven is the knowledge of the Agile context and experiences with leadership environments. This last phase provides different resources and connects your talent with your acquired knowledge. Duration: 4 days.

TRAINING BY GLADWELL ACADEMY

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*Intake (1 day) if inflow from this level

*ADVANCEDModule 3

Coaching in Agile Transformations

*PRACTITIONERModule 2

Deep dive in Agile Coaching

FOUNDATIONModule 1

Introduction Agile Coaching

4 days

3 days

5 days

Agile Coach Full Program

12 days

**Incl. Coaching on the job**opti

onal

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CAREER MOVE: BECOME A COACH

Do you see the role of an Agile Coach as a logical step in your own career? You

could be right. Not only in terms of content, because Agile clearly has a rich future

in business, but also as a ‘transversal skill’: Coaching is a skill that can be useful

throughout your professional life.

RELEVANT FOR THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATIONAs a Coach you are a frequently consulted beacon of guidance throughout the

organization in change. A man or woman to confide in, a sparring partner, a coun-

sellor. You may be consulted wherever you work with Agile, or where experienced

teams face an obstacle. Because of the extensive vertical and diagonal experience

and knowledge that you acquire over time, your value for the organization will only

increase.

The above does require that you successfully position yourself so, and that you learn

to make yourself relevant. It requires the management of the organization in which

you work, the added value of Agile and the importance of coaching

‘SELLING YOUR SERVICES’ AS A COACHWhether you want to start as a freelancer or whether you’d want to bring an extra

competence to your work in a large organization, the role of Agile Coach requires

that you position yourself and your added value firmly.

This is why, in module 1 ‘Foundation,’ we pay a lot of attention to a few relevant

questions:

1. What is your story when people meet you?

2. What sets your experience in Agile apart from that of others?

3. What characterizes your personal approach as a coach?

4. How do you analyze a problem or a situation in such a way that your possible

role as a coach becomes evident?

I WANT TO BECOME AN AGILE COACH

CASE STUDY:

THETRAINERS

NATIONALE NEDERLANDENNationale Nederlanden has been a front-runner among major Dutch corporations for years when it comes to working Agile. The past year saw Gladwell Academy training several tens of Agile Coaches toward safely guiding Agile transformations in both divisions of Bank and Insurance. CIO DENNIS BRUSSEL COMMENTS:“Our people amassed a great deal of knowledge and skills concerning the role they’re about to fulfil. I have heard from various people about the positive energy experienced during. The training course is also challenging as I hear: that is entirely in order. Rather to see the question: ‘Can I handle this job?’ answered unequivocally now, than to find out only in practice.”

KEEP MOMENTUM “The ultimate goal is to keep momentum in the organization. That the train won’t grind to a halt when the single specialist falls away. Scrum Masters are specialists; so are Agile Coaches. What happens when our externally acquired expert returns home, and we don’t have any, ourselves? What if the Agile coach leaves?” “To keep Agile moving forward now as well as in the future, our Agile coaches aren’t just training Product Owners, Scrum Masters and Agile teams, but also, new fellow Agile coaches”.

OWN PI EVENTS “One concrete change for us will be that we will have PI-events organized by our own coaches. We bring about these Program Increment events of 2 days or so every quarter, for the entire bank. Our own people will soon be able to prepare and facilitate them entirely.”

Renate Cremerhas extensive experience in the

fields of human behavior, devel-

opment and growth through her

background as a labor and organ-

ization psychologist with speciali-

zation in Training & Development.

In previous positions she was active as an HR Business

Partner with HR processes and innovation. This experience

helps to understand organizational structures and complex

environments.

Renate is senior lecturer program manager of the Post-HBO

Courses ‘Train the Agile trainer’ and ‘Agile coach.’ Thanks

to her knowledge and understanding of human interaction

and behavior, she resonates with groups. Renate believes

in human potential and is a great supporter of ‘a life full of

learning.’

Abram Jansehas extensive experience with

the scaling up of Agile, inter-

active group training and Agile

change management with clients

worldwide from both the private

and public sector.

Abram)s main goal is to reduce complexity in organizations

down to human interactions and to improve the latter. To

achieve goals, he facilitates growth through visualizations,

serious gaming, gamification and online learning platforms.

Abram is valued for his authentic approach that makes you

think and changes how you act. The result? Abram creates

movement and tempo in learning.

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ContactGladwell AcademyBarbara Strozzilaan 2011083 HN AmsterdamThe Netherlands+31 (0)20 2402244info@gladwellacademy.com

gladwellacademy.com

ABOUT GLADWELL ACADEMYGladwell Academy trains professionals at the inter-section of management, IT and innovation. Data and technology have a growing impact on all aspects of working life; Gladwell Academy teaches people to master each of these and get the best their position, passions and roles.

At Gladwell Academy we’ve observed that the impact of technology and data powers an increase in people’s ability to self-organise, in all layers of professional life. Everyone is, in principle, directly and holographically connected, both to each other and to any relevant information. This removes much of the necessity for hierarchic structures and chains of command. The result ought to be a more self-starting and self-governing workforce, along with more joy and satisfaction from work. We wholeheartedly embrace and advance these developments, and we teach people to take charge actively and proficiently.