Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn)) 1st Edition

This is a very helpful resource for Agile coaches. Some of the principles are old hat for students of leadership but the packaging is fresh and relevant to Agile teams. The most useful section for me is Agile Team Stages; I love the Shu Ha Ri model:"One good model for mastering anything (if that's possible) comes from martial arts. A martial arts student progresses through three stages of proficiency called Shu Ha Ri. Shu: Follow the rule. Ha: Break the rule. Ri: Be the rule. These stages also describe Agile teams as they first practice and then get good at Agile...A team can be in one or all of these stages simultaneously...Each person on the team inhabits one or more of these stages simultaneously, too..."The most common mistake I see Agile teams making is bending the rules before mastering the rules--what we call ScrumBut. "We do Agile Scrum but..." can get your team and your project in all kinds of trouble. This book will help you get back out.Good stuff, and recommended for new and experienced Agile coaches.

Having worked with many agile teams in the corporate world, I was excited to start my own business coaching agile teams. I was propelled and excited by the prospects of helping to grow teams in other businesses, making the world of software more positive and more successful. Although I had a lot of experience, I found myself myself with 1,000 questions about coaching. How do you coach advanced teams versus new ones? What's the best time to coach agile teams without getting in their way? How assertive should you be as a coach, versus letting them figure it out themselves? When is it appropriate to insert yourself into a conflict, versus letting them resolve it themselves? How do you inspire teams to do their best when it's all about the team, not about the coach? This book was just what the doctor ordered. Lots of perspective that's helped give me confidence about how to be an effective coach. Many things I already knew, many others that I didn't but rang true as I read them. Lyssa has put a lot of herself into the book, I can almost hear her kind words coming to me as I coach. I appreciate the help!Don

I picked up this book at the suggestion of another team member who has been working the Agile circuit far longer than I. I'm not sure what his reasons for suggesting the book were, but it's had a big impact on my approach to teams and other individuals in general.Each chapter in the meat of the book is a different coaching role or perspective: Mentor, Facilitator, Teacher, Problem Solver, Navigator, and Collaboration Conductor. Many of them revolve around the idea that the team is on their own journey towards their own level of performance. Rather than the coach drag the team towards the coach's vision of where the team should be, the coach's job is to help the team move from step to step sometimes leading, more often facilitating.A specific concept that Lyssa suggested that I had never consciously considered was the types of coaching that should be practiced at different times during the sprint or engagement. For instance, we might want to steer the team or introduce ideas or tactics in the middle of the sprint this is probably not the most productive role at this point. There are times to coach at the team level and times to coach at the individual level.The book is a little mushy or soft at times, so you might have to trudge through at various points. A lot of it is common sense after the fact, but having it said explicitly keeps it in the back of my head more than in the past.I recommend this book to all roles on teams, not just Coaches. Many of the ideas and content are the soft skills that make great teams.

This book has been recognized by Agile Thoughts podcast as an important contribution to the Agile community.Coaching Agile teams is loaded with chapters of techniques for working with your Agile teams without "screwing them up" by being heavy handed. The innovation of Agile in the software industry is to create minimal structures for a team to "fill" and get out of their way. This is IMPOSSIBLE to do if you've been managing teams in a traditional way. You can't suddenly come into work the next day and BE A DIFFERENT PERSON.So that's why the book. The book covers topics such as facilitation (as opposed to running meetings), conflict resolution (as apposed to conflict avoidance), when to use coaching, when to use training, how to coach, and so on. So this book is loaded with things that will change you if you work at it.

I can't believe I enjoyed reading this book as much as I did. Lots of great ideas from the author's experiences. I see this book as a must for coaching agile teams, especially to get from good to great!

Lyssa Adkins believes that every team can produce extraordinary results, and that you, as an agile coach, can be extraordinary in creating the conditions where a team can make itself great. It is her belief in you and what you're doing that makes this book great."Coaching Agile Teams" is full of valuable practices, models, and wisdom about how to transform a group of people into a high performing team, and transform your own work in the process. For both experienced agilists and those just starting out with Scrum or another practice, this book is an ideal resource for doing the good work with all of your collaborators.