The Art of Coaching Agile Teams

Table of Contents

Format: Lecture / Experience Report
Duration: 60 minutes

Abstract

When teams move towards Agile the need for coaching is evident and well-recognized. However, the methods and tools of a coach are not as clear. Having a systematic approach in coaching can help you define what, when and how to help the team develop.

We will discuss the skills and practices of high performing Agile teams, ways of assessing a team's current state and the necessary steps to make progress in the right direction.

In sync with the team's progress also the role of the coach changes and takes a different focus. A skilled coach knows what tools to use and when.

The target audience of the session includes everybody that are interested of developing their teams, including Scrum Masters, coaches, managers and  team members.

The Learning outcomes are:

- understand what kind of skills and practices good agile teams have
- understand how those skills are interlinked and dependent on each other
- when and how to develop different skills
- the role of the coach in this process

Description & Outline

  • Introduction; Why coaching?
  • Skills and practices of high performance Agile teams
    What are the characteristics of a great team?
  • Development phases of a team
    Recognized phases on the team's development.
  • Steps to move from one phase to the next
    What are the important things in each phase? What do we need to
    focus on to move forward?
  • Assessing the current state of the team
    What are the most important things to dig into first? What seeds
    need to be sown now so that we will have the necessary skills
    when they are needed?
  • Methods for developing specific skills
    Hands on tips on what the coach can really do
  • The changing role of the coach
    The role of the coach is very different depending on the phase
    of the team. We will explain why, how and where it's different.

Biographies

Arto Eskelinen

  • Agile Coach at Reaktor Innovations
  • Certified Scrum Trainer
  • Coaches develpment teams and management in Agile transformations
  • 20+ years of experience in software development

Sami Honkonen

  • Agile Coach at Reaktor Innovations
  • TDD trainer and coach
  • 3+ years of experience on Agile transformations
  • 5+ years of developer background
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  1. Jul 22, 2009

    Ari Tanninen says:

    What is the target audience for your presentation? I am trying to understand w...

    What is the target audience for your presentation?

    I am trying to understand who in the agile community would be interested of coaching and why. The first target group I can think of is would-be coaches but those are surely a minority, and the second target group would be potential customers for coaching services which implies a bit of a sales pitch.

    Is your presentation focused solely on software development teams or do you cover other kinds of teams as well? Some companies run their marketing and sales department with Scrum, likewise others have "true" cross-functional teams including engineers, sales people, and so on. It would be interesting to hear about the differences of these kinds of teams and how you have to change your coaching approach.

  2. Jul 29, 2009

    Vasco Duarte says:

    The outline and description sections seem to be duplicates. Do you present sto...

    The outline and description sections seem to be duplicates.

    Do you present stories/case studies of the different good practices you will explain?

    It would be good to make the target audience more explicit as Ari says, but also to explain a bit more what you expect the audience to take away from the session, example: "recipes for successfully applying coaching" or "understanding of the principles and goals of coaching"

  3. Jul 30, 2009

    Arto Eskelinen says:

    Thank you for good comments. I clarified the learning objectives as well as the ...

    Thank you for good comments. I clarified the learning objectives as well as the target audience.