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A Mike Cohn Signature Book
Коучинг agile-команд. Руководство для скрам-мастеров, agile-коучей и руководителей проектов в переходный период
Если ваши команды внедряют agile-практики, делают все правильно, но не получают максимально возможных результатов, если у вас уже есть опыт работы в качестве scrum-мастера или руководителя проекта и вы хотели бы стать agile-коучем, но не уверены, что эта роль вам подходит, — тогда эта книга для вас. Она детально рассказывает, как правильно обучить команду ценностям и принципам Agile, кто такой agile-коуч, почему он играет одну из самых важных ролей в получении нужного результата и что необходимо, чтобы стать профессиональным agile-коучем.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 14, 2010
685 people are currently reading
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews
November 19, 2015
If you are the right target, then this book is truly excellent. But this evaluation has a very important precondition, which you can find in the title - this book is about coaching.
If you are a technical leader, team leader, developer, scrum master, or any other software engineering role, then this book could be interesting for you, but you wouldn't probably consider it as a gem. It can teach you something, you can learn something and definitely, you will have better understanding in which context a software projects happen.
On the other hand, if you are someone who's target, or mission, is to grow people, nurture teams and especially agile teams, then the content of the book is invaluable for you.
The book is split in three parts. Logically, it starts with you - if you want to grow up people, you have to be grown up yourself. Chapters like Start with Self-Awareness, or Be a Model for Them are quite self-explanatory.
The next part focuses on a team and it brings you through topics like mentoring, facilitating, teaching, problem solving, conflict navigating and collaboration conducting. Those themes are described separately, but in the real life, a coach is a total of all those qualities.
The last part is about continuous journey - it will never end. Topics like failure, recovery and perseverance are the keywords here.
I finish with two quotes by Mike Cohn from the foreword:
If you are a technical leader, team leader, developer, scrum master, or any other software engineering role, then this book could be interesting for you, but you wouldn't probably consider it as a gem. It can teach you something, you can learn something and definitely, you will have better understanding in which context a software projects happen.
On the other hand, if you are someone who's target, or mission, is to grow people, nurture teams and especially agile teams, then the content of the book is invaluable for you.
The book is split in three parts. Logically, it starts with you - if you want to grow up people, you have to be grown up yourself. Chapters like Start with Self-Awareness, or Be a Model for Them are quite self-explanatory.
The next part focuses on a team and it brings you through topics like mentoring, facilitating, teaching, problem solving, conflict navigating and collaboration conducting. Those themes are described separately, but in the real life, a coach is a total of all those qualities.
The last part is about continuous journey - it will never end. Topics like failure, recovery and perseverance are the keywords here.
I finish with two quotes by Mike Cohn from the foreword:
"Watching a great agile coach is like watching a magician. No matter how closely you watch, you can't quite figure out how she does it."
"Becoming a skilled agile coach, like becoming a magician, starts with learning a set of techniques. From there it's a matter of practice, practice, and more practice."
June 2, 2014
This is a very nice book on group coaching and team building. In my opinion, it is not so much about Scrum or XP methodology: the reader is supposed to already be familiar with the agile approach (applied to software development or otherwise). The coach is described in his/her many faceted role: mentor, facilitator, teacher, problem solver, conflict navigator, collaboration conductor... However, the key takeaway, for me, is that an agile coach and a leader is someone who allows the teams to unfold these qualities for themselves. Thus, the leader makes the team, like the sea makes the land, by gently drawing back.
I loved the reference to the Shanghai Quartet, by the way!
I loved the reference to the Shanghai Quartet, by the way!
April 17, 2018
I acknowledge the significance of the book for the time of its publishing, but I find it largely lacking substance. There's very little practical information. It's mostly just expression of common sense backed up with the Agile paradigm. I also have a strong feeling the book was bloated by the publisher to be more voluminous (because "pages sell"). Many chapters could've been easily boiled down to a bulleted list without losing much meaning.
It is probably a good entry level booked, but for an experienced professional, you probably won't find a lot of new knowledge here.
It is probably a good entry level booked, but for an experienced professional, you probably won't find a lot of new knowledge here.
March 28, 2021
A must read book for anyone in the agile industry.
March 15, 2017
Good and deep and book on coaching self & teams to become high-performers. This is ultimate go-to reference for agile coaching with detailed examples, techniques and tips.
------------------- PERSONAL NOTES ---------------------
Healthy agile team works together in high-bandwidth, high-quality communication
Healthy agile teams experience peer pressure. On these teams, all team members have committed to complete the work of the sprint together. This makes the work (and the people) interdependent and accountable to one another
Help them improve their conversations so that they can come up with higher-quality ideas that translate directly to the products they build.
Individuals shape into a team when they learn first about one another as human beings and then grow from that understanding into a sense of who they can become together.
“The team” has yet to emerge. It will be whatever this collection of bright, complex, curious, willful, powerful people wills it to be. It is the first product they create together
Teams need goals at multiple levels: What’s in it for me? What’s in it for us as a team? What’s in it for my company? What’s in it for the world? A shared vision encompassing these varied and rich dimensions will survive the shifting winds of conflict and change
Invite the highest-ranking person you can find to paint for the team a vision of the product to be created by them
More than likely, this person sponsors, or pays for, the project. The one holding the purse strings has great influence. Use it.
PROBLEM SOLVING
Take the problem to the team. No one should make decisions without consulting the people who have to live with the result.
- A problem is brought to your attention, or you detect a problem.
- Pause (really, take a pause), and reflect on the problem to see it clearly.
- Take the problem to the team.
- Allow the team to act (or not).
the next time you see a potential problem, hold yourself back from addressing it, and see whether it becomes a real problem.
Hold yourself back, and if the problem becomes real later, deal with it then. If you truly cannot do this, then bring the potential problem up with the team, and ask whether they’re worried about it. If they aren’t worried, drop it. They know better than you.
welcome problems because they bring with them the chance for the team to overcome, grow, and become stronger together
To detect problems at the process level, use health checks. A health check, often in the form of a questionnaire, lists required elements and qualities that jog our minds to help us remember the basic ingredients of agile
To expose lurking problems, inspect the products the team created together. With a dispassionate eye, consider the things they created and ask, “Did the team produce real value?” and “Is the quality something they should be proud of?”
When you address the problem with team, ensure that you balance problem solving with their ability to sprint. Raise only those problems midsprint that must be attended to immediately. Let the others wait until the retrospective. And let some wait even longer. Sometimes a problem is just not ripe or can’t be seen clearly enough yet.
Thinking of an agile team as a system, perhaps as an ecosystem more than a machine, reveal the system to itself through observation that invites exploration. As the coach, you simply state what you observe and then allow silence
Once you detect problems, design a retrospective that will likely raise them. Choose activities that invite the team into different ways of thinking about how they’ve worked together.
CONFLICT NAVIGATION
one of the hallmarks of highly collaborative (read: high-performance) teams is that they use conflict constructively. They live in a world of constructive disagreement
As their coach, you help teams navigate conflict. You show them a method
To determine the level of conflict in a team, an agile coach must spend solid time with the team members. This means direct observation over a period of days or weeks to see the conflict in its natural environment
While observing, pay attention to these three things that help assess the level of conflict: Hear complaints, feel the energy, and focus on language
Listen compassionately, take in what the complainer is saying, and make it clear you care so much that you are spending the time needed to see the full scope of the conflict.
Notice how the team room feels when you first walk in. Is there a hum of earnest and coordinated effort? Are people in motion together, in conversation, at the whiteboard, or at their computers?
Agile teams—even new ones and even broken ones—can often navigate conflict by themselves. Even if it’s not perfect or the “complete” job you could do for them, if team members navigate the conflict well enough, leave them alone
The Tao of Holding Space: “Everything you do for the group is one less thing they know they can do for themselves”
The way a team performs will likely influence people’s perceptions of their interpersonal interactions, not the other way around
use structures to indirectly navigate conflict. Through them, you don’t address the conflict head-on as a problem that must be solved. Instead, you bring the conflict up and then address it in the context of teaching or reaffirming agile—a practice, a value, a mind-set, a vision—with the team
the best time for teaching the team a new framework comes exactly when they need it most—in the middle of the problem itself
Unsolvable Conflict
Dr. John Gottman’s 30-year research into what makes marriages work and fail offers this:
69% of issues in marriages are perpetual (1999). They do not go away. There is no way to solve them. In the extreme, you can divorce and remarry with the likely result that you will have traded one set of perpetual issues for another.
Relationships on agile teams are intimate. The reality of unsolvable conflict is as valid in this context as in a marriage
Take the first step by teaching the team that unsolvable conflict exists and is expected and normal. Tell them that the way to live successfully with unsolvable conflict is to increase the number of positive interactions between them to help navigate the conflict when it arises.
Injustice can be eliminated, but human conflicts and natural limitations cannot be removed. The conflicts of social life and the limitations of nature cannot be controlled or transcended. They can, however, be endured and survived. It is possible for there to be a dance with life, a creative response to its intrinsic limits and challenges.
—Sharon Welch
Several parallel research efforts, going back as far as 15 years, independently deduced the positivity/negativity ratio in individuals, teams, and marriages. For marriages, the “magic” ratio is about five positive interactions to one negative interaction. For teams, it’s three to one for high performance and five to one for the most high-performing.
To boost the positivity/negativity ratio on teams, help them avoid misunderstanding buildup and use a shared vision.
A shared dream, or vision, gives teams a beacon they can use to light the way back to their best selves and their best expression as a team when unsolvable conflict has caused them to wander off the path
COLLABORATION
Cooperation features the smooth flow of work-in-progress from one team member to another and between the team and the wider organization. When cooperating, the team moves itself toward their shared commitment through daily fine-grain coordination of everyone’s efforts
Collaboration needs cooperation as its base, but it adds the essential ingredient for yielding innovative, breakthrough, astonishing results: emergence.
When a property of a system cannot be traced back to any of the individual parts in the system, it is called an emergent property. Your personality is an emergent property of your brain. It cannot be traced back to individual neurons. —Jurgen Appelo
Being able to collaborate (and cooperate) is not a talent doled out to a precious few at birth. Both arise from learning a set of skills, all of which can be practiced until they become second-nature
To collaborate, each person must start from a place of personal responsibility to learn how to cooperate and contribute to the team
Expect team members to come prepared for the collaborative day ahead and help them brainstorm ways to get there; then hold them to doing so
To be a good collaborator, one must not subordinate one’s individuality. Coming up with ideas and dreams that lead to collaboration and innovation requires that team members assert their individuality
Artful making [collaboration] requires building up individual ego in group members, while tearing down vanity.
Vanity is that inner need to appear before others as we appear to ourselves, or as we’d like to appear to ourselves. Vanity makes you worry about another’s opinion of your haircut.
Your ego is who you are, your sense of yourself as an individual, and if it’s strong enough, you can live with anyone’s opinion of your haircut
Design activities that help them look back at the way they worked together from different angles so that they can look at the past sprint anew and discover their unrecognized assumptions.
Strive to bring out different angles so that people can excavate their assumptions. With the assumptions laid bare, it becomes possible to see new ways of working, maybe even breakthrough ideas for creating products that make a difference.
A team’s collaboration muscle allows them to engage in the messy and joyful work of collaborating. To create a strong muscle, they need exercise. And to make sure they’re exercising safely and that they’re pushing themselves just the right amount (not too much and not too little), they need a coach
One of the first collaboration skills to build makes it acceptable for team members to speak out about things that make them feel vulnerable or uncomfortable
Agile teams with the greatest chance for generating surplus ideas are comprised of people who are different from one another, who come from different backgrounds, and who have different slants on the ways they think about the world
Just as a symphony conductor draws out the flutes and shushes the trumpets, in team conversations an agile coach draws out the quiet ones and shushes the dominating ones
Fist of Five starts off with a nonverbal “vote” featuring people putting their fingers in the air, one through five, to indicate their level of agreement with a statement just spoken
Use Fist of Five at both the product and process levels as the team conducts their collaboration conversations. Think of the product as the results of their conversation and the process as what they do in conversation with one another to yield the product.
Collaboration works when one gives away one’s own ideas to the group and allows that idea to be just a piece of a bigger idea yet to emerge
Teach Them to Seriously Play
Games yield collaborative results that everyone can support
Serious games deserve serious attention. They can circumvent many of the problems with product requirements, including collecting sufficient information across customers, partners, and internal stakeholders to make product decisions. Not only are the games relatively lightweight exercises, but they also use a lighter touch to resolve many debates over product decisions (Keitt and Grant 2008)
COACHING
Getting good at agile coaching means practicing. And failing. And getting up again to practice some more
One-on-one interactions and team retrospectives are the times when an agile coach sows the seeds of change
You need to value the individual as the person that they are, respect their opinion, and learn more about their individual beliefs and personal goals. Concentrate on creating the type of relationship you need to have with people in order to initiate change and have the influence you want.
Among them, I learned that being a coach requires a discipline of introspection, having the confidence and desire to examine one’s state of mind and attitudes
To coach, one must be in sync with the emotions of a team and have complete resonance with their problems and opinions. The art of listening becomes particularly important
You get to help establish an environment where every team member is allowed to work to the best of their abilities and produce remarkable solutions that really answer business needs.
To really coach, your sense of success must truly lie with the team’s increasing abilities and your impact on them.
when the team figured it out themselves, the lesson stuck. I helped teams understand the dynamics that made them successful (or caused them problems), and creating that awareness helped them to figure out how to celebrate their differences and create the unique Team Entity identity that makes them high-performing.
------------------- PERSONAL NOTES ---------------------
Healthy agile team works together in high-bandwidth, high-quality communication
Healthy agile teams experience peer pressure. On these teams, all team members have committed to complete the work of the sprint together. This makes the work (and the people) interdependent and accountable to one another
Help them improve their conversations so that they can come up with higher-quality ideas that translate directly to the products they build.
Individuals shape into a team when they learn first about one another as human beings and then grow from that understanding into a sense of who they can become together.
“The team” has yet to emerge. It will be whatever this collection of bright, complex, curious, willful, powerful people wills it to be. It is the first product they create together
Teams need goals at multiple levels: What’s in it for me? What’s in it for us as a team? What’s in it for my company? What’s in it for the world? A shared vision encompassing these varied and rich dimensions will survive the shifting winds of conflict and change
Invite the highest-ranking person you can find to paint for the team a vision of the product to be created by them
More than likely, this person sponsors, or pays for, the project. The one holding the purse strings has great influence. Use it.
PROBLEM SOLVING
Take the problem to the team. No one should make decisions without consulting the people who have to live with the result.
- A problem is brought to your attention, or you detect a problem.
- Pause (really, take a pause), and reflect on the problem to see it clearly.
- Take the problem to the team.
- Allow the team to act (or not).
the next time you see a potential problem, hold yourself back from addressing it, and see whether it becomes a real problem.
Hold yourself back, and if the problem becomes real later, deal with it then. If you truly cannot do this, then bring the potential problem up with the team, and ask whether they’re worried about it. If they aren’t worried, drop it. They know better than you.
welcome problems because they bring with them the chance for the team to overcome, grow, and become stronger together
To detect problems at the process level, use health checks. A health check, often in the form of a questionnaire, lists required elements and qualities that jog our minds to help us remember the basic ingredients of agile
To expose lurking problems, inspect the products the team created together. With a dispassionate eye, consider the things they created and ask, “Did the team produce real value?” and “Is the quality something they should be proud of?”
When you address the problem with team, ensure that you balance problem solving with their ability to sprint. Raise only those problems midsprint that must be attended to immediately. Let the others wait until the retrospective. And let some wait even longer. Sometimes a problem is just not ripe or can’t be seen clearly enough yet.
Thinking of an agile team as a system, perhaps as an ecosystem more than a machine, reveal the system to itself through observation that invites exploration. As the coach, you simply state what you observe and then allow silence
Once you detect problems, design a retrospective that will likely raise them. Choose activities that invite the team into different ways of thinking about how they’ve worked together.
CONFLICT NAVIGATION
one of the hallmarks of highly collaborative (read: high-performance) teams is that they use conflict constructively. They live in a world of constructive disagreement
As their coach, you help teams navigate conflict. You show them a method
To determine the level of conflict in a team, an agile coach must spend solid time with the team members. This means direct observation over a period of days or weeks to see the conflict in its natural environment
While observing, pay attention to these three things that help assess the level of conflict: Hear complaints, feel the energy, and focus on language
Listen compassionately, take in what the complainer is saying, and make it clear you care so much that you are spending the time needed to see the full scope of the conflict.
Notice how the team room feels when you first walk in. Is there a hum of earnest and coordinated effort? Are people in motion together, in conversation, at the whiteboard, or at their computers?
Agile teams—even new ones and even broken ones—can often navigate conflict by themselves. Even if it’s not perfect or the “complete” job you could do for them, if team members navigate the conflict well enough, leave them alone
The Tao of Holding Space: “Everything you do for the group is one less thing they know they can do for themselves”
The way a team performs will likely influence people’s perceptions of their interpersonal interactions, not the other way around
use structures to indirectly navigate conflict. Through them, you don’t address the conflict head-on as a problem that must be solved. Instead, you bring the conflict up and then address it in the context of teaching or reaffirming agile—a practice, a value, a mind-set, a vision—with the team
the best time for teaching the team a new framework comes exactly when they need it most—in the middle of the problem itself
Unsolvable Conflict
Dr. John Gottman’s 30-year research into what makes marriages work and fail offers this:
69% of issues in marriages are perpetual (1999). They do not go away. There is no way to solve them. In the extreme, you can divorce and remarry with the likely result that you will have traded one set of perpetual issues for another.
Relationships on agile teams are intimate. The reality of unsolvable conflict is as valid in this context as in a marriage
Take the first step by teaching the team that unsolvable conflict exists and is expected and normal. Tell them that the way to live successfully with unsolvable conflict is to increase the number of positive interactions between them to help navigate the conflict when it arises.
Injustice can be eliminated, but human conflicts and natural limitations cannot be removed. The conflicts of social life and the limitations of nature cannot be controlled or transcended. They can, however, be endured and survived. It is possible for there to be a dance with life, a creative response to its intrinsic limits and challenges.
—Sharon Welch
Several parallel research efforts, going back as far as 15 years, independently deduced the positivity/negativity ratio in individuals, teams, and marriages. For marriages, the “magic” ratio is about five positive interactions to one negative interaction. For teams, it’s three to one for high performance and five to one for the most high-performing.
To boost the positivity/negativity ratio on teams, help them avoid misunderstanding buildup and use a shared vision.
A shared dream, or vision, gives teams a beacon they can use to light the way back to their best selves and their best expression as a team when unsolvable conflict has caused them to wander off the path
COLLABORATION
Cooperation features the smooth flow of work-in-progress from one team member to another and between the team and the wider organization. When cooperating, the team moves itself toward their shared commitment through daily fine-grain coordination of everyone’s efforts
Collaboration needs cooperation as its base, but it adds the essential ingredient for yielding innovative, breakthrough, astonishing results: emergence.
When a property of a system cannot be traced back to any of the individual parts in the system, it is called an emergent property. Your personality is an emergent property of your brain. It cannot be traced back to individual neurons. —Jurgen Appelo
Being able to collaborate (and cooperate) is not a talent doled out to a precious few at birth. Both arise from learning a set of skills, all of which can be practiced until they become second-nature
To collaborate, each person must start from a place of personal responsibility to learn how to cooperate and contribute to the team
Expect team members to come prepared for the collaborative day ahead and help them brainstorm ways to get there; then hold them to doing so
To be a good collaborator, one must not subordinate one’s individuality. Coming up with ideas and dreams that lead to collaboration and innovation requires that team members assert their individuality
Artful making [collaboration] requires building up individual ego in group members, while tearing down vanity.
Vanity is that inner need to appear before others as we appear to ourselves, or as we’d like to appear to ourselves. Vanity makes you worry about another’s opinion of your haircut.
Your ego is who you are, your sense of yourself as an individual, and if it’s strong enough, you can live with anyone’s opinion of your haircut
Design activities that help them look back at the way they worked together from different angles so that they can look at the past sprint anew and discover their unrecognized assumptions.
Strive to bring out different angles so that people can excavate their assumptions. With the assumptions laid bare, it becomes possible to see new ways of working, maybe even breakthrough ideas for creating products that make a difference.
A team’s collaboration muscle allows them to engage in the messy and joyful work of collaborating. To create a strong muscle, they need exercise. And to make sure they’re exercising safely and that they’re pushing themselves just the right amount (not too much and not too little), they need a coach
One of the first collaboration skills to build makes it acceptable for team members to speak out about things that make them feel vulnerable or uncomfortable
Agile teams with the greatest chance for generating surplus ideas are comprised of people who are different from one another, who come from different backgrounds, and who have different slants on the ways they think about the world
Just as a symphony conductor draws out the flutes and shushes the trumpets, in team conversations an agile coach draws out the quiet ones and shushes the dominating ones
Fist of Five starts off with a nonverbal “vote” featuring people putting their fingers in the air, one through five, to indicate their level of agreement with a statement just spoken
Use Fist of Five at both the product and process levels as the team conducts their collaboration conversations. Think of the product as the results of their conversation and the process as what they do in conversation with one another to yield the product.
Collaboration works when one gives away one’s own ideas to the group and allows that idea to be just a piece of a bigger idea yet to emerge
Teach Them to Seriously Play
Games yield collaborative results that everyone can support
Serious games deserve serious attention. They can circumvent many of the problems with product requirements, including collecting sufficient information across customers, partners, and internal stakeholders to make product decisions. Not only are the games relatively lightweight exercises, but they also use a lighter touch to resolve many debates over product decisions (Keitt and Grant 2008)
COACHING
Getting good at agile coaching means practicing. And failing. And getting up again to practice some more
One-on-one interactions and team retrospectives are the times when an agile coach sows the seeds of change
You need to value the individual as the person that they are, respect their opinion, and learn more about their individual beliefs and personal goals. Concentrate on creating the type of relationship you need to have with people in order to initiate change and have the influence you want.
Among them, I learned that being a coach requires a discipline of introspection, having the confidence and desire to examine one’s state of mind and attitudes
To coach, one must be in sync with the emotions of a team and have complete resonance with their problems and opinions. The art of listening becomes particularly important
You get to help establish an environment where every team member is allowed to work to the best of their abilities and produce remarkable solutions that really answer business needs.
To really coach, your sense of success must truly lie with the team’s increasing abilities and your impact on them.
when the team figured it out themselves, the lesson stuck. I helped teams understand the dynamics that made them successful (or caused them problems), and creating that awareness helped them to figure out how to celebrate their differences and create the unique Team Entity identity that makes them high-performing.
May 10, 2020
An absolute MUST for everyone working with teams (not just agile ones). Lyssa Adkins offers great insights on group dynamics and provides various tools, techniques and a general mindset change one needs when working in today’s ever-changing environment.
September 12, 2024
I’ve learned so much from this book and will continue to do so - it will be my companion on my Scrum Master/Agile Coach journey. As I recently took a professional coaching course, I really appreciate the coaching aspect of agile coaching that the author emphasizes, to empower and support the team to solve their own problems. That is servant leadership and how I would like to work myself. So thank you for a great guide in how to do this! I also really enjoyed listening the the audio book performed by the author herself!
November 21, 2012
It offers a broad view of the various hats you need to put on as a coach. Sometimes you are a mentor, sometimes teacher or facilitator, or maybe you are solving problems with and enabling collaboration within the team. You might be working with the entire team, or maybe just with one team member. It also provides advice on how to deal with Product Owners and team sponsors.
No matter the hat, you should always trust the team and take every issue to them. These are the two ideas I felt more pregnant throughout the book, and ones I will definitely remember in my work as a coach.
No matter the hat, you should always trust the team and take every issue to them. These are the two ideas I felt more pregnant throughout the book, and ones I will definitely remember in my work as a coach.
February 9, 2017
This book was worth reading, but I'm not sure the whole thing was worth reading. At times, it seemed that the author had a quota to fill and at other times that she truly cared about a subject and just let the ideas flow. It's this strange mix of loquaciousness and clarity that makes this book both hard to finish and hard to recommend. If you have the time and truly care about the subject, it's worth a read. If you're just starting, it might be worth holding off for a while.
August 17, 2018
A boring book, some ideas are interesting but overall didn't like it.
March 24, 2019
Interesting ideas, combining the agile with sometimes more, sometimes less of systemic coaching. True to the ideal of servant leadership, the author emphasizes time and time again that competence lies within the team and the agile coach is just that - a coach. A coach's main goal should be to enable the team to self-organize, so the bulk of tips are about how not to interfere with the team (e.g., if they miss standup time, do not summon them to the daily standup).
Those who are looking for a lot of tools - this book is not for you.
As much as I liked all the input about coaching, there were some really weak points. The chapter on the role “problem solver” is totally misleading (the whole chapter talks about how not to do this), while the chapters on collaboration and conflict navigation fall rather flat, stay on the theory angle and do not offer much on how to deal with such situations in real life (conflict resolution examples stay mainly in the area of "they disagree on something" or "somebody in the team smells bad").
However, this is a really useful book to have on one's scrum master shelf.
Those who are looking for a lot of tools - this book is not for you.
As much as I liked all the input about coaching, there were some really weak points. The chapter on the role “problem solver” is totally misleading (the whole chapter talks about how not to do this), while the chapters on collaboration and conflict navigation fall rather flat, stay on the theory angle and do not offer much on how to deal with such situations in real life (conflict resolution examples stay mainly in the area of "they disagree on something" or "somebody in the team smells bad").
However, this is a really useful book to have on one's scrum master shelf.
December 31, 2022
Another Must-Read for any serious agile practitioners
After you have read and understood your first Scrum Master book, like “Scrum Mastery” by Geoff Watts or “Scrum, A Pocket Guide” by Gunther Verheyen - this is your second book. It will help you minimize the damage you do on your Scrum Teams until you get to a point where you understand the dynamics and value of being a coach. Thank you Lyssa! Unfortunate I read this too late in my journey - would have wished I read it 10 years ago… go read!
After you have read and understood your first Scrum Master book, like “Scrum Mastery” by Geoff Watts or “Scrum, A Pocket Guide” by Gunther Verheyen - this is your second book. It will help you minimize the damage you do on your Scrum Teams until you get to a point where you understand the dynamics and value of being a coach. Thank you Lyssa! Unfortunate I read this too late in my journey - would have wished I read it 10 years ago… go read!
December 30, 2022
Listen to your team. Watch what is emerging. This book encouraged me to recognize that nothing is static on any team. New forces apply--good and bad. Ideas come through the group constantly. I learned that the role of an Agile Coach is to harness what they hear, what they see, as they capture and welcome change and ideas to move the team towards more success and innovation and creativity.
February 7, 2022
I found this book by chance. I searched for new ways to communicate my agile ideas, and “coaching” sounds like it. And it was.
Agile is very easy to understand but hard to get, which is misleading. What is easy is the frameworks. They are very well designed and easy to grasp. You can start a team with SCRUM in a couple of Sprints if you teach them the ceremonies and their goals and how to manage springboard and backlog. But that is just the early beginning. Getting rid of all the bad habits and working as an efficient Agile team is another story entirely. It is even more complicated if your team does not “believe” in agile. Either way, they are already convinced that it will work, or they will only be when they see it. But, if they are unwilling to give it a try for real, prepare for a bumpy road.
The book is excellent if you are interested in understanding more about the Agile concepts and go deeper in how to go across explaining the concepts to your colleagues. I love when the author clarifies the differences between “Cooperation” and “Collaboration”. Most people can not differentiate both words, which is key to understanding how a teams work.
Since I’m so passionate about this subject, I wondered if I should switch careers and start coaching other teams after taking the needed courses. It is not the first time I put this question on the table. But, even though I love it, I love even more crafting software. So I’ll stay growing the way I’m doing now. But if my team wants to go beyond in their Agile path, I’m now more ready to help with that.
One last thing. Even though the book explains many exciting concepts and is well written, I do not think it is a book for somebody who wants to start with agile. The book will probably confuse you more than help you if you are new to agile. I would say it is an advance level book.
Did I say that I’m a fan of agile? :)
See it in my blog: [josealobato.com](https://josealobato.com/lyssa-adkins-...)
Agile is very easy to understand but hard to get, which is misleading. What is easy is the frameworks. They are very well designed and easy to grasp. You can start a team with SCRUM in a couple of Sprints if you teach them the ceremonies and their goals and how to manage springboard and backlog. But that is just the early beginning. Getting rid of all the bad habits and working as an efficient Agile team is another story entirely. It is even more complicated if your team does not “believe” in agile. Either way, they are already convinced that it will work, or they will only be when they see it. But, if they are unwilling to give it a try for real, prepare for a bumpy road.
The book is excellent if you are interested in understanding more about the Agile concepts and go deeper in how to go across explaining the concepts to your colleagues. I love when the author clarifies the differences between “Cooperation” and “Collaboration”. Most people can not differentiate both words, which is key to understanding how a teams work.
Since I’m so passionate about this subject, I wondered if I should switch careers and start coaching other teams after taking the needed courses. It is not the first time I put this question on the table. But, even though I love it, I love even more crafting software. So I’ll stay growing the way I’m doing now. But if my team wants to go beyond in their Agile path, I’m now more ready to help with that.
One last thing. Even though the book explains many exciting concepts and is well written, I do not think it is a book for somebody who wants to start with agile. The book will probably confuse you more than help you if you are new to agile. I would say it is an advance level book.
Did I say that I’m a fan of agile? :)
See it in my blog: [josealobato.com](https://josealobato.com/lyssa-adkins-...)
February 19, 2021
The book is packed with information, experience and examples that made reading it quite enjoyable as much as inspiring. This been said, it is not a quick read, and it wont be a one time read either. This is a book to come back to whenever you are in a new position or encounter a new (or old) challenge. The structure of the book and its chapters serves the purpose (using it as a reference book) greatly.
Additionally, the audio version offers a bit more than hard copy or the ebook, so it is great to have the audio book along with the readableCoaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition medium of choice.
Additionally, the audio version offers a bit more than hard copy or the ebook, so it is great to have the audio book along with the readableCoaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition medium of choice.
August 19, 2013
This is a tough book to read.
Not because it's badly written (it isn't), but because every page forces you to re-examine yourself and your own approach to people and work. Every couple of paragraphs sparks intense reflection "Do I do that? Could I be doing that and not be aware? Should I be doing that? That would require me to change..."
It's a book that I can see I'll return to again and again as I go through a learning journey as a coach. Not sure that Kindle was the right format to do that with...
I also can't think of a book whose references I've chased up so assiduously - I've now got a significantly extended reading list.
As other comments have indicated: because it's written by a former PM, it's also a fantastic text for anyone else on that journey of recovery. PMI may not have realised just what they've recommended. Or maybe they did and are wiser than you'd think...
Not because it's badly written (it isn't), but because every page forces you to re-examine yourself and your own approach to people and work. Every couple of paragraphs sparks intense reflection "Do I do that? Could I be doing that and not be aware? Should I be doing that? That would require me to change..."
It's a book that I can see I'll return to again and again as I go through a learning journey as a coach. Not sure that Kindle was the right format to do that with...
I also can't think of a book whose references I've chased up so assiduously - I've now got a significantly extended reading list.
As other comments have indicated: because it's written by a former PM, it's also a fantastic text for anyone else on that journey of recovery. PMI may not have realised just what they've recommended. Or maybe they did and are wiser than you'd think...
July 31, 2018
The book covers a wide variety of topics, from how to develop individually as coach to coaching teams in Agile principles and practices. It also talks about the different "modes" for an Agile coach, that is teacher, mentor and coach. And how to apply those depending on which stage of Agile understanding a team has reached. There is plenty of good references in this book as well, source material that I guess served as inspiration to Lyssa Adkins. Maybe the book doesn't go too deep in terms of explaining why the techniques that are presented could be useful, in that sense it is not a comprehensive book. But by covering a wide array of topics it can be your starting point as an Agile coach. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I can see how I will be coming back to it in the years to come to search for inspiration.
February 28, 2013
A well-considered, well-written book that is short on philosophy and rife with real world insights. According to Amazon, I've now bought this book 6 times. Truth is, I keep giving away my copies to friends and coworkers who are going through this transition because it really is just that good.
Of all the books I have on Agile and SCRUM, this is the one I end up going to most often - as well as the one where I've found the most answers to everyday problems.
If you are in this field, you need this book.
Of all the books I have on Agile and SCRUM, this is the one I end up going to most often - as well as the one where I've found the most answers to everyday problems.
If you are in this field, you need this book.
March 27, 2018
It's that book that tells you what an agile coach does. I honestly recommend it to everyone who is interested in becoming an Agile Coach, Scrum Master, or who want to include a people oriented management style in their projects or teams. The book helps to get started with your self development path, giving some good practices and ideas for start and an helping you plan your journey further.
It's written in a reader friendly style, offers a lot of examples and cases that help you reflect on the presented topics.
It's written in a reader friendly style, offers a lot of examples and cases that help you reflect on the presented topics.
March 13, 2017
I wish I had read it earlier! This book gives a lot of practical advice and a lot of ideas. It is based on Scrum, which the author states in the beginning, but most of the content is universally applicable. There are certain aspects I do not identify with, however, the book does not condemn you for having different ideas, you are often reminded that it is a description of the author's experience, not an instruction to be followed to the letter. Take it as such, and use it to grow yourself.
October 10, 2014
A must read for any Agile Coach and ScrumMaster. Although not an easy read, because mostly it's packed with many information, it give you an new insight into the coach role on agile projects.
After having read the book, I conclude that I will need to read again some sections in order to better understand them and know how to use all this knowledge at my job as an Agile Coach.
After having read the book, I conclude that I will need to read again some sections in order to better understand them and know how to use all this knowledge at my job as an Agile Coach.
August 16, 2021
VERY good book on agile coaching. While reading it I had the impression that I am just having a friendly conversation with the author, who shares with me the secrets of being a good agile coach.
The book is focused on practical and psychological aspects of agile coaching and doesn’t cover the theory. Would be better to start with the book if you have at least a basic knowledge of agile.
The book is focused on practical and psychological aspects of agile coaching and doesn’t cover the theory. Would be better to start with the book if you have at least a basic knowledge of agile.
September 14, 2021
Must read!
If you are into agile coaching, I strongly recommend this book.
It brings a very clear and complete content with important tips derived from hands on coaching experience. It also connects theory to practice and can provide insights dor both, beginners and experienced coaches.
Enjoy your reading session!
If you are into agile coaching, I strongly recommend this book.
It brings a very clear and complete content with important tips derived from hands on coaching experience. It also connects theory to practice and can provide insights dor both, beginners and experienced coaches.
Enjoy your reading session!
January 17, 2022
This book was great and really gave me insight into what it might be like to be an agile coach. I also had not thought of agile coaching as she described it; being a life/professional coach with the technical knowledge of scrum and agile. I really appreciated the charts and visuals. This will be a constant resource and textbook that I will cite for time to come.
July 17, 2011
What an eye opening book for anyone that has been doing agile software development and is in the position to be helping others get better at what they do. Seeing a whole new world of coaching out there is a great joy.
July 20, 2018
Decided to revisit this one as a refresher. Even after having read it years ago, it still reminded me with plenty of hooks to be more conscious of my coaching, my stances and approach.
Must read if you want to become an agile coach and help agile teams improve.
Must read if you want to become an agile coach and help agile teams improve.
July 23, 2023
A great reference about the do's and don't's of agile coaching and the role of an agile coach in the team dynamics. A great companion to return to when embarking on the journey to agile coaching mastery.
August 4, 2022
Excellent book! I really enjoyed each chapter and the practical recommendations from the author. It is a great book for those interested in agile coaching. i have many notes that I can reference later when confront with a situation as the ones listed in the book.
March 7, 2014
Awesome book. So much information for (advanced) coaches.
I will often reread a special part of the book depending on the team I currently work with.
I will often reread a special part of the book depending on the team I currently work with.
June 29, 2020
I liked the holistic perspective and all the ideas presented.
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