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Perfect Agile Coaching

Imagine if it was possible to for an organization to reach a state of self-sustaining, freestanding agility after just 5 coaching days.

Just FIVE.

What might that mean for the spread of agility throughout the world?

I met Chris Rufer, Paul Green and Doug Kirkpatrick last May when I presented a session on Gaming Happiness At Work at the Self-Management Symposium. One of the things I learned was that MORNINGSTARCO uses this concept of stepping-stones. Here are the steps:

  1. For a given task or job, define perfection. For example, at MORNINGSTARCO, for maintaining machinery that processes tomatoes, “perfect” is defined as a maintenance cost of ZERO for processing an INFINITE volume of material.
  2. Next, figure out your current performance numbers. For example, for machinery that processes tomatoes, the current score might be “one dollar of maintenance expense, on average, for  every 10 tons of product processing.”
  3. Now define a stepping-stone goal, in the direction of perfection: How about trying to get the maintenance cost down to 92 cents per 10 tons of processing, instead of 1 dollar?  89 cents maybe? That’s a stepping stone. 89 cents. Its a small, achievable goal, in the direction of improvement…in the direction of perfection.

In golf, “perfect” is eighteen hole-in-ones. That’s it.  “18” is the perfect golf score. Now, no one can actually achieve that. This actually does not matter. What does matter is that the ideal– the perfect—  is very clear.

Every golf pro is thinking about 18 as the ideal– as perfection. And they make small moves to get closer and closer. Thinking about perfection when aiming to improve is a very interesting idea. This idea from MORNINGSTARCO got me thinking about Agile coaching and perfection.

Perfection in Agile Coaching

What constitutes perfection in Agile coaching? How do we apply the MORNINGSTARCO stepping-stone concept to the execution of Agile coaching?

I think it has to do with client organizations reaching a state of self-sustaining, freestanding agility via the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM coaching engagement. What is that minimum exactly? Can a coach help get an org to a state of self-sustaining, freestanding agility with 30 days of coaching? 20 days? 10 days?

How about FIVE days?

I am actively seeking and working with clients who want to  explore this idea with me. We are working from the premise that “perfect” is no more than FIVE TOTAL DAYS  of coaching to reach a goal of org-wide self-sustaining Agility.

Is this definition of perfect even remotely possible to reach? We are finding out.

Currently, we in the Agile community consider it normal for a coach to set up camp at an organization and “embed” or “integrate” there for months on end. Sometimes even years. This makes absolutely no sense to me given the lack of genuine and lasting results these client organizations are actually getting.

So instead, I am working with clients, and doing many small experiments, in service to the idea of absolutely minimizing the number of coaching days required. To do this, radical new techniques have to be identified, developed and completely tested out. The old ways of doing things that are getting poor results have to be thrown out in favor of a all-new and radical approaches that can help get us there.

Current techniques are obviously deficient, because coaches are setting up camp, for YEARS in some cases, supposedly enabling an ‘Agile transformation’. These ‘Agile transformations’ are obviously NOT HAPPENING. Meanwhile, no one is sounding an alarm. Companies seem willing. Money is changing hands. Everyone is happy.

The problem of course is that there is no progress. In some of these organizations, dozens of coaches are working for years with results that are dubious at best. Something obviously has to change here.

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. That’s what Frank Zappa once said. We need to embody this idea. We need to throw out old assumptions, define perfection for the task of Agile coaching, and define and then achieve stepping stones in the direction of perfect. That’s exactly what I am doing with some of my clients in Boston and it is super-interesting to try out some of these new and radical ideas.

I plan to report the results to you, over the summer, as events unfold.

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Agile Coaching and Sports

Question: why do sport teams employ coaches past training camp? Aren’t the athletes professionals capable of their own learning?

This is a question I received recently when I explained that ’embedded” or “integrated” coaching (where a Agile coach is present 5 days a week for 3 months or more) is probably a very bad idea. For those of you new to the idea that embedded or “integrated” coaching might not exactly be good for team-learning, take a look at these links:

Embedded Agile Coaching Defined

Agile Coaching Values

So, why do sport teams employ coaches past training camp?

Aren’t the athletes professionals capable of their own learning?

In my view it is absurd to compare the role of say, a Division1 basketball coach, to an Agile coach. The roles have little if any overlap. For example, is an Agile coach duly authorized to define various team rules, like a pro sports coach is? Is it ever OK for an Agile coach to yell at a team member like a college basketball coach might yell?

It is hard to imagine a scenario where that would be healthy in any Agile coaching context. The role of Agile coach has far less authority than a sports coach. This is self-evident.

Or is it? “Embedded” or “integrated” coaching, where the Agile coach is present every single day, positions the coach as “the authority”.

Is this healthy or even useful?

Is embedding a Agile coach full-time …in an organization ….simply trading one kind of authority-related dysfunction for another?

 

Agile Coaching Five Days a Week, FULLTIME for Three months or More: In Service to What?

Agile Coaches are familiar with the patterns of naive and vulnerable client organizations that are new to Agile. In my view, Agile Coaching pros have an obligation to help clients understand what is best for them. This always includes helping the client take 100% responsibility for their own learning. This usually means the coach must refuse opportunities to play a larger role.

Being there, 5 days a week, full time, for 3 months or more can be lucrative and hard to resist. As coaching professionals, we do our best (and live up to our potential) by serving the learning of the client organization. This includes challenging the client org to take 100% responsibility to reach a self-sustaining state of Agility, without the need for an external coach.

Stating that pro and college coaches play a big role after training camp and that therefore, Agile coaches can do the same is at best misguided. At issue is authority. In sports, the coach is authorized to substantially define the team by defining and enforcing rules. (Example: Examine the book Wooden On Leadership .)

After some basic training, is it EVER right for an Agile coach to define team rules? No. Teams must define their own rules– and culture. Agile coaches have far less authority than pro or D1 sports coaches, many of whom can choose to rule autocratically. Would you want your Agile coach acting that way? I hope not!

Coaches that overstay and “embed” or “integrate” into team life (usually as the ongoing Scrum Master)  are in a position to reduce team learning. This happens when the team does not learn to answer it’s own questions, does not try enough experiments,  and does not engage in enough risky learning.

The following table enumerates some key differences between two roles: pro sports coach, and Agile coach. As you can see, it is an apples-to-oranges compare:

Coach & Team Characteristic: Sports Teams IT Teams Notes
Coach has authority to define rules and therefore define the culture X The best sports team coaches DEFINE the culture of the team. See Wooden On Leadership for details
Coach has total authority to reward and sanction behavior X
Coach has broad influence over who has membership on the team, and who plays X
Coach typically defines basic team rules and enforces them X
Coach specifies the practices and has ultimate authority on how practice and practices are selected and executed X
Coach is typically compensated in part based on team performance X Agile coaches get paid not matter what. IN sports, if your team underperforms,  you are GONE
As a norm, Team defines their own intentional culture based on shared values which may be explained and suggested by coach X It’s absurd to imagine any Agile coach defining and then enforcing a team’s cultural norms
As a norm, Team works from principles typically suggested by coach, that support & express underlying values X
As a norm, Team has opportunity to change practices periodically based on retrospection X Self-governing teams define who they practice and how they execute. This is at best extremely rare in pro & college sports.
Team can mature to the point of no longer needing a coach; a “watcher” or Facilitator or Scrum Master can announce what is happening and stop short of issuing guidance like a coach X
Team’s goal is results as measured by specific progress (wins, frequent delivery etc X X

 

As we can see, in terms of authority, the pro sports coach has near-absolute authority to do the work of defining the rules and influence overall team culture.

In authority terms, these two jobs are not comparable, even though they both use the term ‘coach’ in the job description.

Who Is Ultimately Responsible for the Team’s Learning ?

Teams are. Teams are responsible for learning continuously. No one can do it for them.

Software teams must  take 100% responsibility for the culture design of their own team, and for their own team learning. That’s hard to do when an Agile-authority figure, installed by management, is present 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, functioning as an authority figure, telling the team at every turn what it “should” do. Particularly when the ‘coach’ takes up the Scrum Master role for more than a few weeks, the presence of a fulltime coach crowds the team and discourages team initiative and engagement.

Sports coaches and Agile coaches similar? Yes. But- when an Agile coaches take up too much authority, the results are predictable: reduced team learning, reduced engagement, greatly reduced self-organization,  and suboptimal productivity. For this reason, Agile coaches must look for every opportunity to increase the learning of the organization as a whole, with strong intent to vacate or otherwise evolve the current coaching role as soon as possible. It’s hard to do that when present 5 days a week, for 12 or more weeks while also often occupying the pivotal Scrum Master role.

A far better pattern is to teach a new Scrum Master, one who is internal to the coached organization, and for the external Agile coach to be present on a part-time basis. This places responsibility for learning and improvement on the coached organization itself, which is where it belongs. This is a healthy pattern that encourages healthy and authentic Agile adoptions.

 

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Agile Coaching Values

Agile Coaches are familiar with the patterns of naive and vulnerable client organizations that are new to Agile. In my view, Agile Coaching pros have an obligation to help clients understand what is best for them. This always includes helping the client take 100% responsibility for their own learning. This usually means the coach must refuse opportunities to play a larger role.

Being there, 5 days a week, full time, for 3 months or more can be lucrative and hard to resist. As coaching professionals, we do our best by serving the learning of the client organization. This includes challenging the client org to take 100% responsibility to reach a self-sustaining state of Agility without the need for an external coach.

These Agile Coaching values and principles listed below are a good and solid basis for guiding coach-client relationships and interactions. These values and principles are listed in the familiar ‘agile manifesto‘ format.

The content- the values and principles- are optimizing towards the continuous, progressive and ongoing organizational learning of the coached organization.

NOTE: These values and principles listed here are re-posted with permission from www.FreeStandingAgility.com.

 

In serving our clients, we have come to value:

Creating Independence over generating billing
Championing Learning over avoiding risk
Building Relationships over building transactions
Inviting Participation over assigning responsibility

 

We use these Principles to guide our work with clients:

Voluntary engagement of everyone involved in organizational change is an essential requirement for success.

Coaching every single day in an organization creates a serious risk of client dependency and is to be avoided, consistent with common sense and good judgement with respect to client needs.

Organizations are responsible for their own learning. Arms-length, time-boxed working agreements between clients and coaches are essential.

Coaches must look for every opportunity to increase the learning of the organization as a whole, with strong intent to vacate or otherwise evolve the current coaching role as soon as possible.

Coaching requires the willingness to identify any cultural impediments to continuous improvement, and to communicate these to the people in the organization who have the authority to address them.

The primary task of a coach is to help improve the effective results and working lives of the people employed in the organizations they serve.

The ability of an organization to respond to change is the primary measure of progress.

Leaders in an organization must continuously signal positive encouragement, and create safe space for others to think and learn, if positive culture change is to be lasting and effective.

 

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Embedded/”integrated” coaching

Here is the definition:

Embedded Agile Coaching: Agile coaching that has a “coach” personally present, full-time, at the client site, for 3 business months or more, where the coach is often (but not always) observed taking up the Scrum Master and/or Product Owner role for substantial amounts of time.

Embedded coaching 5 days a week sets up at least the following potential dysfunctions:

  • Excessive projection of authority on the ‘coach’ by the client, leading to the coach inappropriately accepting responsibility for the client org’s learning.
  • A client desire to see the coach ‘doing something’, leading to the misguided idea that having the coach function as Scrum Master for all the teams is a useful and good idea. (It’s not.)
  • Diminished client learning, caused by the ‘coach’ becoming an authoritative fixture in the organization, the one who provides answers.
  • A tendency for the coach to support Mandated Collaboration

 

 

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Agile Enablement: Now in a Spray!

“Agile enablement is all we do” is a phrase used by some firms that sell Agile as a product. The basic idea here is that this one firm with a designed, “proven” approach can solve all your Agile problems– can be your “panacea”– so long as you write a big check.

This is very misleading, since Agile is not a product. Some folks with a very creative sense of humor are bringing this to attention with “Agile In A Can“– in effect, delivering Agile in as a spray-on product. Imagine spraying Agile on your managers, your developers, or your task boards, like deodorant or cologne. You get the idea.

(NOTE: You can follow @AgileInACan on Twitter )

The notion you can write a big check and then get visible, instant Agile going is seriously misguided. Your organization must be committed to learning, UP FRONT, and take responsibility for that learning after a while being guided by an external coach. And in time, by going forward– without that external coach. This is your goal: self-sustained, “free standing” agility.

Some service firms out there are selling the idea that you need a coach present each and every day, 5 days a week, for at least 12 weeks. Otherwise, you may fail !

This is called “embedded agile coaching” or “integrated coaching”. It sets up an nearly-automatic, unhealthy dependency on your “coach”. The implication is, “We are the experts. We have loads of experience, look at our client list. We have the one true way, this is absolutely the right way to do it. You may fail otherwise. We are the experts, and we are here to help you.” Out comes the contract and when you sign it, you lock in legally to pay for five days a week for 12 weeks.

What this does is simple. It sets up the “coach” to be present 8 hours a day, every single day. After a while, it becomes very obvious to you, the customer: the coaching job is definitely not a full-time job, even when coaching 1,2, or 3 teams.

How to get the coach busy doing something? The obvious fix is to make the “coach” the Scrum Master for all the teams right? ….so the coach is “doing something”, and is “earning their keep”. Makes sense right? Not exactly. Now the dysfunction kicks in.

The coach is now the authority, the person your Agile adoption most depends on. What usually happens is, this person takes up the Scrum Master role while not really teaching this skill to others in your organization. This makes the “you will fail without us” theory a self-fulfilling prophecy. If that “coach” leaves, no one really knows how to be the Scrum Master.

This practice of “integrated agile coaching” is really just a gamed scenario for installing a billable person in your shop each and every day for 60 days in a row. At a high bill rate. To generate loads of revenue. That’s it. It’s about revenue generation. For them to keep it going beyond the contract term, you need to stay dependent.

Don’t think so? Consider this report that says many customers are reporting that “agile is a scam to sell services”. Are these practices I am describing fueling this trend?

Did the customers surveyed in this scathing analysis of agile  buy 5-days-per-week, “agile integrated coaching”?

Are you looking to buy some agile coaching? OK. Here is the pattern.

The rigged game presented to you by the  “agile coaching innovation” firm goes something like this:

The Goal: Maximize Revenue Generation

The Rules: The coach is going to set up camp in your shop 5 days a week for 3 months. You the customer must sign a binding contract for “integrated” coaching, which is 5 days a week, for a 3 month minimum (a legally binding, ironclad revenue guarantee. You cannot get out.)

Scoring: The game is scored by the minimum 3-month revenue generation and the ongoing creation of more dependency on the coach from the client. Primary device to do this: be there 5 days a week, and work to occupy/own the Scrum Master role on every team. (NOTE: A good coach will teach others in your organization this role, and vacate the Scrum Master role as soon as possible and without delay !)

Opting-In: You the customer are either in or out based on the 5-days-a-week-for-3-months contract. Did I mention the high bill rate? The insistence on this engagement structure as the terms of engagement tests your willingness to play the dependency game. If you go for the contract, that means you are willing play the dependency game. By signing, you are agreeing to much more than you bargained for…

And dependency IS the name of the game!

Here is a good article on agile coaching, from the Agile Journal. It is from 2009.

Look at what it says:

However a Coach works, and whatever approach they take they the Coach needs to avoid creating a learned dependency.  This happens when the team comes to depend on the Coach.  Coaches need … to withdraw when the time is right and let the team continue.

While many companies will have their own coaches on staff and some will work with teams day-in, day-out for months or even years, there is a lot to be said for…limiting the period of coaching.

Yes, some “agile enablement” service firms selling “integrated Agile coaching” are eager to set you up in their “agile enablement” game, a game that maximizes billing-revenue for them first, and enables Agile for you second.