The agile coach of the future

Sutherland and Schwaber, the makers of the Scrum framework, primarily intended the Scrum Masters to use them as agile coaches for teams, Product Owners and the wider organization.

Unfortunately, few organizations have implemented the role in this way. Many organizations are introducing a separate agile coach for transforming the organization.

In doing so, they leave a large part of the existing and sometimes inefficient and ineffective governance unchanged and do not tap into the vital competencies of the Scrum Master.

Agile product management

In order to be successful in transforming a classic project management organization into an agile product management, it is worth considering using Scrum Masters as agile coaches of the organization.

As the management of an organization becomes more mature and the business stakeholders are more involved, the agile environment becomes more complex and the role of Scrum Master becomes more challenging. To meet these challenges as Scrum Masters, they need more knowledge to take the right approach in unpredictable circumstances, based on the following principles:

• Understanding the environment. What are the needs at the moment?

• Optimizing the whole. Understanding that creating an optimal result for one team is not for another team. What works for one organization may not be the needs of another.

• Built in consistency. By aligning terminology, behavior and processes with industry best practices.

• Supporting growth. By reinforcing agile behavior and behavior, the team gives the opportunity to turn disruptive changes into success.

Coaching with Scrum

To be able to coach it is essential to be able to listen well and to empathize with others. This requires empathy. You want to do everything to help others grow.

Working with Scrum in an organization means courage and a change in behaviour. Behavioral changes never happen by themselves. For this you need belief in the methodology, persuasiveness, and perseverance.

Scrum is new to many within the organization and one of its most important properties is the ability to explain the methodology in an understandable way. It is also important to give feedback so that the team and the organization grow.

Scrum Master the coach par excellence

The Scrum Master is the expert in the organization when it comes to the application of Scrum. The Scrum Master coaches stakeholders and is responsible for ensuring that Scrum is understood and properly executed.

When we apply Scrum properly, Scrum Masters will be the only agile coaches needed to make an organization successful. This insight comes from personal experiences. It should be clear that there is no fixed way of filling an agile coach in the most effective way. But the idea of using agile coaches at the organizational level while limiting the number of Scrum Masters to operational tasks at team level doesn't seem like a good idea.

Want to know more?

AgileInFocus.nl helps you to provide Scrum Masters with practical tools and tips to successfully use Scrum in your organization. We train practical skills that help the Scrum Masters to be a good agile coach. We recommend following the Professional Scrum Master training or requesting agile advice tailored to your organization.