One of the most frequent pains of an Agile Coach is making sure the team is moving into the right direction. Sometimes we are dealing with different types of maturity, each one going towards a different goal, there are different backgrounds and different experiences that sometimes stand out, but that we need to align with the same goal. Although some roles such as Scrum Master and Product Owner have well-defined roles, and rituals that are well known and widespread in the market, Agile Coach sometimes finds itself lost in the world of possibilities and ways to guide the team.
During the time I lived and worked in the Netherlands, I had two mentors who had a great impact on me: Hans and Pascal, the first was an educational mentor, but who gave me a practical case and a job to solve. The second was a professional mentor, which gave me a theoretical case, with lot's of studies involved for its resolution. What they both had in common was that neither of them told me how I should solve the problem, or what I should do to solve it. Quite the contrary, they just told me why they chose that challenge and how it would help my development.
Hans is a very peculiar man, he is in his 50s, lives 17km from his job, and goes on his bike every single day to work. He is head of department, and makes a point having lunch with the students every single day. During all the time I spent with him, I'm sure I said a lot more than I heard. His questions were accurate, and his communication extremely active. The problem he offered me was something new: how to design a water supply network for a city that is shrinking in size.
I didn't know anything about hydraulics, while he was a master at the subject, I knew nothing about water supply, and he had years of experience. During our first conversation he told me "I'm dying to learn from you how to solve this problem" I replied saying that I had no idea where to start, and he smiled saying "I don't either, isn't that exciting?" .
Hans probably spent 8 to 12 hours teaching me some basic concepts, but they were broken down into little pieces. He never told me the whole thing, he always left me with waiting for the next move, I always knew that next time he would bring something new, something to add. The fun part was that he knew the stage I was at, and with each encounter he showed me a new step I could take in search of my solution.
The same happened with Pascal, much younger than Hans, and why not, much crazier. Pascal always showed up to meetings extremely disheveled, and his head was swarming with ideas—perhaps that's why he had so much trouble with hairstyles. In Pascal's case, the challenge was to implement service management for a family of 5 people: the most unlikely place to apply ITIL process flows and good practices, even the number of people wouldn't make sense for the use of good practices, It's like appling lean construction for the replacement of a residential floor. You can, but will feel like a cannon killing a fly.
Again I didn't know where to start, and although Pascal was already used to applying this same exercise with several consultants, he made a point of explaining to me that there was no correct answer, but that he was more concerned seeing "how out of the box I could think." It was an exercise to work out analogisms, and we started to schedule regular meetings with the sole purpose of improving my development and knowledge about the problem.
Finding a name for regular meetings can be quite a challenge, but one day he called me for coffee and asked what was on my mind. I said that I felt like I was flying, seeing a lot of different possibilities, and that every time we had our conversations I got back down to earth, reconnected with my purpose, and set off again for another journey into the problem. Hence the name of our meetings: Touch Base.
When I started working as an Agile Coach, I brought the same routine with me, a time to connect with the team. Working with several agilists it was clear that each was on an extremely new path, and that there were several possibilities and ways to explore the problem. Unlike typical boss-employee conversations where the focus is on seeing the status of deliveries, touch base is a peer-to-peer conversation where the agilityr returns to base for a refueling, it's a time to reconnect and care personally.
Hans and Pascal were not agility professionals, but came from an extremely horizontal culture (Dutch culture), which is so horizontal that it even doesn't has monuments to worship its heroes, and the wage difference between a C.E.O and an intern is relatively low.
Although they are not agility professionals, they were coaches I take as a reference for life. With them I realized that an Agile Coach needs to be able to practice empathy with the team, unlearn what they know, putting themselves on the side of the Agile, and understand what difficulties they are going through.
Hans and Pascal had a totally different culture from mine, and they acted in my own cultural transformation, with them I learned that it is important to hold anxiety and give the right time so that each person on the team is able to actually learn the changes we are proposing , more than that, it is important that they feel part of the solution, and that this solution comes from them, because then they will be even more willing to keep the change alive.
I also learned it's necessary to give the team the right tools to explore, sometimes those tools come up with questions, sometimes they come from a perception. The truth is that more important than a magic formula, it is necessary to actively observe if the team is managing to go out on "exploratory trips" and taking risks in innovating and bringing something new. That's why it's important that the Agile Coach brings a new perspective to the team, a new point of view, and that the team can explore that perspective.
Sometimes returning to base is a refueling, is an energy the team needs to go through a difficult time, sometimes it is knowledge to deal with a complex challenge, sometimes it is simply a companionship and a place to let off steam.
Over time I started to follow a tip from Kim Scott in her book: Empathy Condor, when I work with a team of up to 5 people I try to set aside up to 50 minutes a week to talk to the team. When the team is up to 10 people, this time drops to 25 minutes. When working with more than 10 people (which is not ideal), this number drops to 25 minutes every two weeks. For some it may seem like a lot, but if we stop to think that the role of a leader is to serve their team, we realize that it's even not enough to tune in to what's going on with their team.
In practice I have found that with Agilists 25 min every two weeks has been enough, first because it usually coincides with the sprint period (for two week sprints) or the middle of it for 4 week sprints. Allowing time for activities to take place as needed.
In short, Touch Base became my scrum "fifth ceremony" , with a 50min Time-Box, which could take place weekly or biweekly. Where I try to understand 3 things:
1- How the he or she is feeling;
2- What tools are they using and which ones they can use;
3- How can I make this person's life easier;
Furthermore, the suggestions come out in a homeopathic way, which causes a certain anxiety for people who are more analytical and direct, like me, but at the same time offer lasting results in the long run.
Incorporating this ceremony into their daily lives greatly enhances the team's maturity, bringing lasting results for prosperity. It is the key to achieving the sustainable development of our teams and connecting personally with them. That's why I recommend a touch base for your next sprint.
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