Coaching

Coaching is about building high performance teams and a high performance organization. Our goal is to help develop the people in your organization so they are able to deliver outstanding business results.

Why is Coaching Needed?

Agile represents a fundamental shift in thinking. It is estimated that 75% of companies do not get the expected benefits from Agile that they expect. As a result, most organizations rely on coaching to accelerate the learning to improve corporate results and ROI. Of course there are alternatives to coaching that offer a lower ROI.

Pair Coaching

Many organizations already have an internal coach or champion. We offer our Pair Coaching service to support your needs. For larger transition projects we use a pair or team of coaches to maximize delivery value and reduce risk.

Certified Scrum Coach

Michael is one of about 50 Certified Scrum Coaches in the world. You get world-class expertise right in your back yard. It sure helps to have an expert when you are looking at organizational change.

Typical Scrum Transition Phases and Timeline

Below is a baseline model for a single team/product transition to Scrum. Actual needs will be clarified through the assessment process and refined depending on actual progress. This explains what coaching services are provided and the rough timelines for them.

Assessment (3-4 days)

Observe and review the entire process, people and business context so we have a shared understanding of where we are currently. This involves:

Group interviews of individual contributors.
One on one interviews with key staff.
Visualization and assessment of current work practices to uncover organizational and technical issues that impact Agile adoption.
Understand organization culture and staff motivation

Together with your team we review the results and plan the next steps. The model is to “Measure twice, cut once” so that we can have an effective start to the transition.

Training (2-3 days)

Transitioning to Agile involves a shift in thinking as well as learning a new process. Everyone involved in the development process will learn the basics of Scrum through fun, interactive learning. We’ll use a series of simulations and exercises mixed in with presentations about various aspects of Agile.

Project Launch (2-4 days)

In this phase, the team identified during the Assessment will kick start an Agile project. The focus is on forming a healthy team while working on the project vision, identifying work items (stories), estimating work effort and creating a prioritized plan of work.

Early Iterations (6-10 weeks)

Actual work is where learning meets reality. Transitioning is hard work that takes effort over an extended period of time. In the beginning the coach directs the team in following the process and embracing Agile values. Over time, the coach does less directing and more guiding as the team and internal coach become more capable. Coaches will reinforce existing understanding and provide additional focussed training based on needs. Throughout, the focus is on delivering working software regularly.

Sustain

Now the team is performing well and there are internal coaches/champions that are able to carry momentum. Focus is on continuing to support internal coaching, identifying and helping repair fallback to pre-Agile habits. This is also a time to explore options for spreading Agile across the organization.

Technical Practices

For a sustainable product, it is critical that team members learn industry standard technical practices including: Test-Driven-Development (TDD), refactoring, continuous integration, automated acceptance testing, etc. These can be undertaken right from the start of a transition to Agile or over time.