Agile coaches gathering

Last weekend was the agile coaches gathering in Bletchley, UK.

This was a small gathering of practising agile coaches. The event was run as open space with the subject matter focussing more on coaching than on agile.

The image below is the open space schedule, while details are sparse this may give you an insight into the variety of subjects being discussed.

I’ll try to offer some of my take away thoughts following the day below.

Effective coaching styles

In psychotherapy the term “stance” is used to refer to your approach to a specific situation. In this session we discussed the different roles a coach will play including trainer, consultant, mentor and coach (in the traditional sense).

A further conversation identified the strategy of using near and far coaches collaborating to achieve the benefits of an on-site coach while avoiding the drawbacks of a coach that becomes a part of the system under change.

Taking a user centred approach to coaching teams – Mike Sutton

This discussion focused on the personal aspect of coaching. That invisible line between work and life. Should an agile coach shy away from real stuff?

Our discussion revolved around the necessity to respect team members, be available to listen to personal stuff in order to ensure that individual goals are considered along with team and project ones.

Appreciative Enquiry – David Harvey

David had planned to discuss how AI was being applied but, by popular demand began by introducing where it had come from before inviting attendees to consider where they had applied these principles (deliberately or not).

The model presented was:

• Discovery
• Dream – how could it be?
• Design – how will we get their?
• Destiny – execution.

The obvious (by the name) focus on the positive can expose resources that are hidden and inaccessible with a more problem oriented approach.

Well formed outcomes – Mike Sutton

I arrived half way through this session as the group were reviewing the example they had walked through. The proposal here is that a proposed outcome can be reviewed against the following :

• Positive
• Own
• Specific
• Evidence
• Resources
• Size
• Ecology

This closed with a short conversation about the NLP technique of chunking in order to establish a true goal. The proposed question used to test an outcome was

What will that get you?

Leading self organising teams – Deborah Hartmann Preuss

In this session Deb walked us through some of the tools she has been using in her coaching:
Use of silence, how long are you willing to wait after asking; does anyone have anything else to say?
Active listening
Powerful questions

Dysfunctional promise making – Deborah Hartmann Preuss

Deb focussed here on the transaction that occurs between customer and team.

The risk here is that teams can forget that they have a choice of responses including but not limited to; decline, defer, clarify priorities etc.

The key to responding appropriately is to understand what it is the customer really cares about.

And finally, where new information presents it’s self, the team have a responsibility to re-negotiate.

Closing

Finally, in closing you would expect a retrospective and there were even a handful of pomodoro timers for those willing to fight for them