Agile delivery has conquered the world. Agile is everywhere. The industry dinosaurs have introduced Agile over the years. Public organizations have Scrum teams. It’s onmipresent.
Many active in the Agile space have discussed we have reached a saturation point. “Everyone” is doing it, so we should expect a decline in demand to introduce people to Agile.
That doesn’t mean Agile Coaching will become less relevant. On the contrary, introducing Agile is only one step towards effectiveness in creating value.
Right now, many organizations have multiple Agile teams, working in a development department or perhaps (even) a product department. Other organizations may even have Development, Operations and Product working in an Agile way (DevOps for example). Today, many Agile teams limit their view on product delivery and product creation.
Today I will explore the future of Agile Coaching and how the next step will see the coaching become more substantial.
Creating valuable products
Agile started as a journey to find better ways to create software. Over the past twenty years, it has expanded to include products or services. The prime example of a product-centric approach is Scrum. After all, Scrum centres around teams creating a product of value.
However, the majority of Scrum teams are software development teams. They (only) build the software part of the product. This often is the core functionality. However, a product is more than the core functionality:
The user looks at the complete product experience. They will not be happy when the software runs perfectly fine while customer support is dreadful. And the technology may be great, but if sales do overpromise, users may still be angry.
Agile Coaches will help organizations understand the concept of the complete product experience and coach them towards Business Agility. This means that everyone involved in creating the product experience should be aligned and collaborate towards a common goal.
This means that Agile Coaches will help organizations to:
Identify who all play a role in creating the product experience.
Understand how the organization creates, adds or improves aspects of the product from conception to user verification.
Remove silos and foster collaboration.
Help leadership understand their role in bringing focus by establishing inspiring goals to rally behind.
Coach leadership to foster a culture of creativity, entrepreneurship and collaboration.
Improve the time-to-value/time-to-learn/time-to-pivot (whatever they prefer).
Help build a new organization that enables people to collaborate and create value effectively and efficiently.
Any organization embarking on this journey will have a great opportunity to stand out and be better than those who limit Agile to the core product and the people working on it.
Agile culture
Another main area for Agile Coaches is to help foster an Agile culture. Over the years, organisations have embraced self-management, cross-functional teams and empowerment en masse. However, the introduction of an Agile culture is one thing. It’s another to make it stick. What is left of an Agile culture after 5 years, when the hype is gone?
Leaders
The thing is though, culture is key. Without empowerment, Agile teams are powerless and ineffective. Also, once people have experienced the benefits of working on a self-managing team, they don’t want to return to the old times of command and control.
People expect self-management to continue or to grow. The consequence is that leaders in the organization must embrace this Agile culture. They must know what it entails and how they can nourish it.
A litmus test for any organization is how it deals with rough times. Many organizations do away with Agile as it is seen as unsuited for the rough times when painful decisions are required. But this is a huge mistake. When an Agile way of working is part of the company culture, people will not recognize their leaders when they switch into command and control mode. This will highly impact the trust. Agile Coaches can play an essential role in coaching leaders through rough times.
HR
The Agile culture also impacts Human Resources (what a dreadful name though). Here are important examples for HR to focus on:
Recruitment and Onboarding need to emphasize an Agile culture
Collaborative hiring by ensuring teams take part in (or lead) the hiring process.
Performance Management moves away from individual to team appraisals
HR replaces annual performance reviews with regular, real-time feedback.
Fostering employee engagement and empowerment.
Learning and Development focuses on all the facets of what it means to work in an Agile organization.
HR promotes a mindset focused on flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Fostering Agile leadership.
Another aspect to note is coaching the organization to have a flexible and adaptable organisational design to ensure being able to respond to changes and new insights that WILL come. After all, the world is changing ever faster. The way an organization responds to these changes is a key factor in success.
Still the same name?
In my opinion, the future of Agile Coaching is bright. Organizations will need coaching to expand Agility and foster an Agile culture. The focus will be less on implementing tools and frameworks and more on building a sustainable Agile organization.
Will this still be called Agile Coaching? I assume so because what I described is what I expect from an Agile Coach. But I’m unsure. Maybe the term is too much tied to implementing Agile (practices). Regardless, there’s plenty of work ahead and a world to change.