I'm talking about my context, which is a big product, huge amount of people involved in multiple sites (I know, not recommended, but hey this is reality). These kind of organizations are generating a good stinking pile of waste, impediments etc, which causes pain. When you are feeling too much pain, you are calling Doctor(s), which is in our case are Agile Coaches. Now the organization is expecting a quick cure for the symptoms, but reality is something different. The organization should start to walk a path of self inspection and proper Root Cause Analysis to find true problems and fix them. On that path a good Agile Coach is more valuable than gold, because he is going to be your guide through, sometimes even very black moments.
Still a Coach cannot solve you problems, you must solve them by yourselves!
Still a Coach cannot solve you problems, you must solve them by yourselves!
Thanks, Ismo, for a good blog post. I have seen the same happening (both as a manager calling the Doctor and later being such Doctor).
ReplyDeleteOne additional role for coach is also: "We need a coach to come and tell us we're doing OK". This happens after organization starts Agile transformation and gets stuck for the first time. That's difficult for a coach: usually (s)he is invited to say "You are doing great". If coach says anything else .. well, no invitation to second meeting :-( This also includes faking data, letting only well-behaving teams to talk with the coach and so on..
So, one expectation for a coach can be: Come and tell our stinking pile is actually nice looking pile of crap.