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