Systems Entry: Creating a Super Setup
Let me guess - you’re in an agile coaching engagement right now with no clear agenda or timeline for the coaching. You hang out at the back of team meetings and try to add value by interrupting with powerful questions. There's no apparent rhyme or reason to your interventions and the team is making little progress. You’re kind of just...there. After a while, no one really knows why, and everyone, including yourself, wonders when you’ll leave.
Sound familiar? Don’t worry! This unfortunate occurrence is extremely common for new and experienced agile coaches alike. In this session, you will learn to identify your current coaching approach and how to use systems entry to break out of unhelpful patterns once and for all.
Outline/Structure of the Workshop
- Introductions - 2 mins
- Exercise - 5 mins
- Introduce five common coaching patterns (the couch surfer, the mother hen, the team member and the navy seal, the super coach)
- Participants identify with one of the patterns
- Show of hands - where is everyone at?
- Why systems entry is the most important skill for an agile coach - 3 mins
- Teach the following six-step systems entry strategy
- Clarify which system(s) you’re coaching - 3 mins
- You’re coaching a team (system), not a group of individuals.
- Decide which system(s) you are coaching
- Coaching parallel systems is OK. Embedded systems is a conflict of interest.
- Align the sponsor and the client system - 2 min
- You’re not representing your sponsors' goals, you’re representing your clients. If your sponsors' goals are important then the first system you coach is the two of them together.
- Get agreement that they are your client, you’re serving their agenda and agree on how information will be shared between the client and sponsor.
- Ask for permission - 3 min
- Ask them what their goals for coaching are and how they will measure progress
- Ask for permission to do an assessment
- What to do if they say no
- Assessment - 3 min
- Observation, survey, team interview and one-on-one interviews
- Coaching Plan - 3 min
- Create a coaching plan and present it back to the team and mirror back the assessment. It's their agenda but it's your plan!
- Create a coaching agreement - 3 min
- Teach the Superheroes Academy Coaching agreement
- Closing - 2 mins
Learning Outcome
- Identify your current coaching approach.
- Recognize that systems entry is the most important skill for an agile coach to have.
- Create a systems entry plan to use with your team.
Target Audience
ScrumMasters and Agile Coaches
Links
Blog
https://www.superheroes.academy/blog
Speaking
Chrysalis 11th Annual Gala Fundraising Event - May 28, 2019 - event Sponsor and MC
https://chrysalis.ca/event/2019-gala-fundraising-breakfast-may-28/
Global Scrum Gathering Austin - Get buy-in now! - May 18, 2019
https://events.scrumalliance.org/austin-2019
Product Calgary Meetup - Value Stream Mapping Workshop - April 19, 2019
https://www.meetup.com/ProductCalgary/events/260268981/
Bucharest Agile Coaching Meetup - April 15, 2019
https://www.meetup.com/Bucharest-Agile-Coaching-Meetup/events/260283837/
Bay Area Agile Leadership Network - March 13, 2019
https://www.meetup.com/BayALN/events/259404752/
Calgary Agile Methods Users Group - March 7, 2019
https://www.meetup.com/Calgary-Agile-Methods-User-Group/events/258921078/
IIBA - Lean into Agile - Talk on Value-Stream Mapping - October 23, 2018
https://calgary.iiba.org/event/iibar-calgary-chapter-professional-development-day-2018
Calgary Agile Methods Users Group - Experiments in Empowerment - April 7, 2016 https://www.meetup.com/Calgary-Agile-Methods-User-Group/events/229401892/