Coaching Agile Teams? Here’s Six Useful Principles to Keep in Mind

“So what should we do?”

When you coach teams on their agile journey, it is too tempting to provide quick answers to questions like these. You’ve seen it before. You’ve solved it. And you feel people rightfully expect you to have THE answer.

Maybe you do, except it exists in a unique context different than where your team is now. And giving the answer is much like giving a man a fish over teaching him how to fish (you know what follows next).

Take It to the Team

Most of the time it works better if you take the problem back to the team. Let them understand the problem and their context, and decide on best course of action; usually team ownership and responsibility of outcomes follow, good or bad.

Accountability sticks when you mindfully work towards getting to a solution, rather than passively receiving directions from another.

As a coach, you can support them by asking questions and facilitating the conversation that maximize the team’s mutual learning. If necessary, provide options — and the thinking behind those options, but let them decide for themselves.

Six Coaching Principles

If like me you’re coming from years of Management 1.0 or 2.0 experience, taking matters to the team and facilitating the conversation (rather than unilaterally controlling decision-making and driving towards results) will be habits too hard to build.

What helped me through that journey was reminding myself of the coaching principles from Lyssa Adkins’ book, Coaching Agile Teams.

Below is my sketch of these principles; I hope it helps you appreciate the habits to build so you can effectively coach teams and leaders towards agility and self-organization.

What challenges are you facing when coaching agile teams? Let’s talk!