The agile coach has become something to be expected in a successful agile environment. But what kind of coach is an agile coach? Several approaches to coaching have developed since the origin of the term in 1830 and with the term "agile coach" there now is another field to be developed. This talk explores the applicability of several kinds of coaching to agile coaching – not to say what's right or wrong, but to give more options for everyone working as or with agile coaches.
Target Audience: project managers, team leads, hr-managers, agile coaches, scrum masters
Prerequisites: some project experience
Level: Practicing
Extended Abstract
Coaching – as the name implies – is an important part of the work of every Kanban or Agile coach. It also has different connotations in other areas of life. Professional coaches are primarily trained to facilitate people in growing their potential for problem solving and finding their own solutions. To a certain extend that also applies to sports and executive coaching – extended by domain area knowledge.
A huge part of these approaches – be it from systemic coaching, solution focused coaching or even professional sports coaching – are also applicable for coaching in the context of Kanban initiatives. In this talk Michael Mahlberg provides an overview on different stances towards interaction: from consulting through teaching and mentoring to coaching. He shows how the conscious application of these stances and their related tools, like different questioning models for the coaching or mentoring stances, can make a huge difference. Especially in supporting the self-organization on Kanban or Agile change efforts.
After this talk participants will walk away with new ideas on how to use different stances of interaction in their day to day work and find hopefully even inspiration which of their coaching toolsets they would like to enhance.