A Reflection on the Agile Coach and Other Demons

I’ve taken a few days to write this reflection on one of the perversions of our times. The Agile Coach who’s nothing more than a smooth talker or a snake-oil salesman. I can’t lie about it, that’s what I think. Agile Coaches have turned into a kind of cheerleader who knows a few pretty games with post-its, learns things like “happiness indicators” from a book, and doesn’t solve the business’s actual needs. Something like a Hippie Agile Coach.

What Is an Agile Coach?

The best definition I could find from another author was published on CIO.com, and it reads:

Agile coaches help train corporate teams on the agile methodology and oversee the development of agile teams to ensure effective outcomes for the organization. They are responsible for guiding teams through the implementation process and are tasked with encouraging workers and leadership to embrace the agile method. The agile coach’s ultimate goal is to arm agile teams with the right knowledge, tools, and training so that they’ll be able to use agile to its full potential.

Sara K. White, 8/8/2018 - https://www.cio.com/article/3294700/agile-coach-role-defined.html

Responsibilities of an Agile Coach

Sara’s definition lays out three big responsibilities for the Agile Coach:

1. Helps train
2. Oversees the development of agile teams to ensure effective outcomes for the organization
3. Encourages leaders and team members to adopt the “agile method”

Why Doesn’t the Agile Coach Deliver Sometimes?

Many of the self-proclaimed “agile coaches” have never led or coordinated projects, operations, or product management. In short, they have no experience coordinating human beings. They don’t know how to manage people and, as a result, dodge exactly that responsibility. What kind of standing to reflect or debate can someone have who’s never held a position other than team member, analyst, or programmer?

The blame isn’t the Coach’s alone. Many of these people take courses from other people just like them, with no field experience. At the end of these courses, they’re handed PDF files with the words “certificate” and “agile coach” on the same page. The truth is we’re overflowing with experts at collecting pretty PDFs with gold logos and trophies for “participating.”

People who’ve only ever held technical positions surely don’t understand organizational dynamics, and their brand of coaching looks more like a rebellion against the oppressive system than a responsible exercise in reflection.

Even though command-and-control positions are the antithesis of coaching, we can’t judge the dark side of the force without knowing it. There’s no night without day. Remember, even Yoda spent some time on the dark side .

Happiness and Productivity Aren’t Always the Same Thing

So here we are, with coaches who believe the only performance indicator that matters is happiness. And while we all want to be happy and part of a great team, nobody can keep a company running without business goals. If happiness is a subject you care about, I’d invite you to read the book The Book of Joy . Still, as a business owner, as a vendor, and as a client, the nature of the free market forces us to compete. Healthy competition forces us to keep our focus on “business value” too. And, in my particular case, on the constant pursuit of excellence and quality in my own work.

If we only focus on happiness, where are the results? Is every happy person productive? Someone who doesn’t understand how businesses work doesn’t understand their own contribution as an Agile Coach. The result: agile teams as anarchic units disconnected from the organization, and, of course, a model that isn’t sustainable in the long run.

How to Spot a Good Agile Coach

It’s very easy to spot an agile coach who’s NOT good! Here are a few tips.

Beyond the Agile Coach, There’s a Professional with Experience

If you come across an Agile Coach with an “arrogant” tone and an urgency to dismiss any attempt at organizational management, you’ve found a Hippie Agile Coach. The most ignorant practitioners fall back on a book or an author. They can’t connect their opinion to their own experience.

It’s funny how much they remind me of the “PMOs” who used to walk around with the PMBOK tucked under their arm, reading every word out of context. The same way, we’ll find Scrum Trolls, By-The-Book SAFe types, and PMP Fanboys.

Agile Coaching and Adaptive Leadership

An Agile Coach isn’t necessarily a life coach. They can be complementary skills and knowledge, but they aren’t the same thing. An Agile Coach is - in Sara’s words - a trainer, someone who brings perspective and experience, and an ally of organizational leadership.

Many Agile Coaches try too hard to “coach” and not hard enough to “help.” Although, in theory, the Coach should keep some distance from the team, I feel - a very personal opinion - that not rolling up your sleeves shows a lack of commitment to the transformation. We call this adaptive leadership, and it fits the reality and needs of the team.

The Real Role of the Agile Coach

Every team needs leadership. No exceptions to the rule! Taking a lukewarm, spineless position is a bad sign. I see it all the time in the consulting world - not just among Agile Coaches. An experienced professional isn’t infallible, but knows how to lay out their ideas and uses their judgment to form a position. Value judgments that, right or wrong, come from people with experience, who “act” and take a side. Remember that without action, there’s no “fail,” and without “fail” there’s no “fail fast,” no “fail safe,” no fail of any kind.

The Agile Coach should, of course, hold a somewhat passive position, one that some define or link to servant leadership. In principle the Coach isn’t the one making decisions, and that works fine most of the time - but what can we expect from the coach when the storm hits? In my opinion, it’s absolutely necessary for the Coach to take an active role and lead the team (even if alongside others).

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. [As a leader] you take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

Nelson Mandela

How to Deal with a Mediocre Agile Coach

This is a hard question - it all depends on how deep the “spell” has taken hold. Agility promotes, among other things, a good spirit and something as simple as “enjoying” your work. It also promotes good team dynamics and good performance. Here are a few guidelines to gauge how good the Agile Coach actually is:

1. The team recognizes the Agile Coach as a positive reference point - one who earns the respect and trust of the team. This holds even when there’s no consensus.
2. The Agile Coach knows and understands budget management, the cost of running the team or an iteration. They understand the financial cost of not delivering. It’s not about being a finance expert, but they can’t be oblivious to business dynamics either.
3. The Agile Coach is able to back up the Product Owner’s prioritization with data. They should support the PO through the prioritization process, the way “Jiminy Cricket” would support Pinocchio. Even knowing they can’t take sides, they encourage stakeholders to stake their own claims. Everyone should play a position and put their priorities on the table.
4. Beyond the emotional speech, they have data, metrics, indicators on the progress of the work. With the data, they make decisions, and help the team absorb those decisions. They participate.

I count myself a detractor of the philosopher-king Agile Coach who drives the team toward an unsustainable model with no results. Joshua Kerievsky put it well when he introduced the Modern Agile model (which isn’t so modern anymore):

What isn’t delivered can’t help anyone be more awesome or safer. In modern agile, we ask ourselves: “How could valuable work be delivered faster?” To deliver value continuously, we need to break large amounts of value into smaller pieces that can be delivered safely now instead of later.

Joshua Kerievsky, Modern Agile

An Agile Coach who removes themselves from the process of delivering results is a charlatan.