Topic Incubator

From Agile Coaches Gathering

Use this space to let folks know what session topics you’re thinking about and see what they’re considering. What’s on your mind that would benefit from a discussion with your peers? Questions, information to share, inspirations, exasperations, ???

Contents 1 Enterprise Agile 2 Finding Coaching Gigs 3 Doing Coaching 4 Staying Up-to-Date 5 Growing coaches

Enterprise Agile

• Time to put the Project idea out to pasture? -- Bob Marshall
  Agile has reduced the batch size in batch-and-queue development, but can we do better - and move to a continuous flow model for software and product development? And does this line of argument point to what we might have suspected all along - that the idea of projects causes so many heinous dysfunctions that we really should look for some other organisational model?

• If Agile highlights organisational shortcomings, what to do then? -- Bob Marshall
  Many Agile coaches are now aware of the power of Scrum, etc. to highlight organisational and management shortcomings, outside of development projects themselves. But when this happens, the software development folks are rarely well-positioned to help senior management understand the issues, come up with solutions and take effective action. What can we do about this?

• Experiences gained in applying agile at Scale - It’s all very well for teams to use Agile methods, tools and techniques to benefit from better, cheaper and quicker delivery. However when it comes to Scaling Agile, the Values, Principles and Practices adopted by an organization are the ones the need most 'mending' - issues around people perceptions, governance, compliance, distributed team, taboos....the list goes on!! - Manav Mehan

Finding Coaching Gigs

• How do you find work? -- David Peterson

Doing Coaching

• Appreciative enquiry and coaching -- David Harvey

• Measuring the effectiveness of coaching - how do we convince ourselves and persuade others that coaching works? As budgets shrink and organisations look for evidence before spending money on expensive consulting, what can we do to generate that evidence? -- David Harvey

• Dilbert considered harmful -- David Harvey
  When conflict becomes a source of identity, bad patterns of team and organisational behaviour can get stuck. Let's talk about situations like this that we've encountered, build a set of case studies to work from, and consider ways to break the logjam that sets geeks against pointy-hairs.

• Using improvisation to improve communications -- Mike Sutton
  • (I have recently completed an Introduction to Improvised Theatre course, and wondered what interest there would be in an experiential session on discovering lessons applicable to pool covers coaching / consulting -- Andy D.)

Staying Up-to-Date

• Kaizen for Coaches (Mike Sutton)
  how to use this cool technique for continuous improvement to improve as an independent coach or as a community of coaches. What shape would such 'thinking time' take and what tips are there to make it work.

• Why Kanban (continuous flow) and why Scrum (iterations) and why Scrumban (both)? -- (dadi)
  I have just come back from the Lean and Kanban Conference in Miami, so I may be able to get this conversation started :-) -- David Peterson

• Should teams write down their method?
  Lean has a concept of Standard Work which is effectively a document, or a set of documents, or a cv writing service, that describes the standard way things are done. It's treated as a baseline for constant improvements (Kaizen). Some of the arguments are that (a) writing clarifies; (b) it's easier to see where you've improved if you know where you were in the past; (c) it's easier to talk about and share explicit knowledge than tacit knowledge. -- David Peterson

• Can a user centered approach improve how we coach and the results we get? -- Mike Sutton
  Mike, could you explain this more? What do you mean by a user centred approach? -- David Peterson

• Solutions focus vs. problems focus -- (dadi)
  I'd be interested in this. The gist, for those who didn't attend the talk at XTC a few weeks ago, is that the XTC presenter believed individuals and organisations focus too much on problems and risks. He recommended instead focusing on what's working and taking small steps in the right direction. A possible counter view is that if you ignore problems they'll build up, potentially to a point that you cannot make those small steps in the right direction. -- David Peterson
  I didn't see the XTC talk, but this also interests me , from a psychological point of view - perhaps there is an anchoring effect (the way the most dominant personality approaches a challenge dictates the focus choice the rest of the organisation makes). Would love to hear what discussion develops. Mike Sutton

Growing coaches

• What are the ways coaches can support other coaches? -- Mike Sutton

• How & how long to coach a new Scrum Master that doesn't seem to get it -- Plamen Balkanski
  This within the constraints of a company that would not hire/fire easily. At the same time the selected Scrum Master is the only one who wants to do the role.

• Coach's Career Track -- (Simon Kirk)
  How to grow coaches internally, from scratch, and give both them (the new coaches) and the person doing the coaching an idea of what to do, and how to set up a progression for the new coaches so they know where they're going.

• Why do we coach? --Peter Camfield
  By applying the question 'why?' repeatedly we may be able to uncover the motivations, expectations and deliverables that coaches have and how that ties in with the way [that parts of] the technology industry works today. I'd be interested to see what is common and what is unique about what we do.