Good luck getting your resume looked at by a human.
What a disaster.
If that wasn’t enough, the situation is even worse than it seems.
Not all those “coaches” are equal. Some people have years of actual agile experience, and others are command-and-control project managers with no agile experience whatsoever, except for the 2-day Certified Scrum Master course they took last week.
When everyone claims to be an “Agile Coach”, it makes it almost impossible for dedicated people like you to stand out.
It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a job, or if you already have one and are trying to help lead your team as a coach. You’ll be lost in the noise, even if you have a sincere desire to coach your team and organization.
So the question is:
Why should someone (your current employer, or your prospective one) trust YOU are the real deal, not just someone who calls themselves an “Agile Coach”?
And even more importantly…
There’s a single source of knowledge I point people to when they ask me about Agile Coaching.
It doesn’t matter if they’re a brand new Scrum Master, or a seasoned agile pro looking to improve their coaching skills. I always send them to the exact same place.
Lyssa Adkins’ book Coaching Agile Teams.
If you search Amazon.com for “Agile Coaching”, there’s a single book that’ll stand out in the results.
It’s Lyssa’s book, with 637 reviews, that’s gained it 4.7 out of 5 stars.
“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”.
“Coaching Agile Teams builds an effective framework that organizes existing ideas and practices.
Further, it extends existing ideas in thought-stimulating ways.
Finally, the book is well written and compelling to read, and the ideas are practical and accompanied by experiential examples”.
Jim Highsmith,
Signatory of the Agile Manifesto
“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.
In this book, magician/agile coach Lyssa Adkins takes us behind the curtain and shows us the tricks of her trade. What’s even more amazing is that there is no sleight of hand or cards up her sleeve.
What you’ll find are simply wonderful techniques for guiding teams toward ever greater success”.
Mike Cohn,
Author of Agile
Estimating and Planning
Not only did she write the “Bible” on Agile Coaching, she also co-founded the Agile Coaching Institute (ACI) in 2010. ACI has developed over 10,000 people in the knowledge and skills needed to be genuinely competent agile coaches.
In short: If you want to improve your Agile Coaching skills as quickly as possible, there’s no better way to do it than to work directly with Lyssa Adkins.
The bad news is that she retired from teaching individuals in 2019.
This was at the very beginning of the pandemic, before anyone else was hosting virtual events. Joining me for the event was a giant leap of faith for Lyssa. It could have very easily been a disaster.
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t a disaster.
Over 14,500 people registered for the live 5-day event, making it the biggest agile event in history.
It was a raging success.
We learned a lot during those 5 days, including:
It turned out that gathering thousands of agilists together during a really intense time created some very magical moments and a ton of energy.
After the summit, I wanted to make sure we didn’t lose the energy we’d created as a community together during those 5 days, so I invited people to join the Agile Mastery Inner Circle.
Hundreds of people joined.
In this new community, far away from the noise of Facebook and LinkedIn, we met weekly for Lean Coffee sessions, ran live monthly workshops with guest presenters, and more.
I used it as another opportunity to improve our approach to online community building and content delivery. I got lots and lots more experience and made new discoveries.
That’s when I asked Lyssa if she’d like to be involved with the book club on Coaching Agile Teams I was planning to host for the Agile Mastery Inner Circle.
During our conversations we had a realization…
We realized that ANYONE can host just a “book club”. It doesn’t take any special skill. In fact, Lyssa included a book club guide in her recently published audio book of Coaching Agile Teams.
But if Lyssa herself was going to be involved, why would we run just a “run of the mill” book club?
After all, we’d have direct access to the Author. An author with decades of experience teaching and mentoring people on her content.
There are 3 things EVERY real agile coach I’ve met has. You can’t get them from a book (even Lyssa’s book, as fantastic as it is). Getting these things is hard. So hard in fact, people spend years trying to get all 3. Bad news: Most folks fail. Don’t worry though… I’ve got a shortcut for you.
Have you ever read a book and thought “
I certainly have.
When I started my agile journey (well over a decade ago), I felt stuck. I knew for sure that this “agile thing” was going to help my team and organization, but I was overwhelmed by all the options and possibilities. Most importantly, I didn’t want to do anything wrong.
I was petrified I’d lead my team in the wrong direction and do actual damage to them, my organization, and our customers. The responsibility was overwhelming. Thankfully I found…
For me, having a mentor meant having someone more experienced than me to validate my ideas. When I was faced with a challenge at work, he didn’t offer solutions, but did help coach me towards safe experiments I could try. He would also let me know if what I was about to attempt had a high probability of hurting something or someone.
He didn’t do the hard work for me, but he made it safe enough for me to move forward, and helped me if I got stuck. Picture how relieved you’d feel, as I did, to know you are going in the right direction with all those people depending on you. Imagine how free you’d feel knowing that you were doing the right thing for your team. Having that sort of confidence makes everything you do so much easier.
It’s a game-changer.
As you no doubt know, this kind of skill isn’t something you can get from just reading a book. It comes from years of actual experience, which is why mentors are like a cheat code to whatever game you’re playing at work. With a mentor, you instantly up your game by standing on their shoulders.
A mentor, no matter how amazing, is just one person. Having a community of like-minded agilists introduces you to even more ideas, and perhaps most importantly, gives you a genuine sense of not being in this alone.
After all, being a change agent is hard and lonely work. Having the support of a community is essential. While you may have a group of agilists at work, there’s a lot of value in a community that’s specifically NOT working at the same place as you.
Small in-house communities like the one you may have at work have a lot of biases and power imbalances. These complex dynamics get in the way of your growth. While having such a group at work is important, most people find unique value in their external agile community.
But finding the right community? That usually takes a lot of trial and error. It can take months or years. If you’re currently still searching for community, you no doubt know this… All that wasted time searching for the right community is demotivating and frustrating.
What if you didn’t have to spend years searching for the right community? What if, today, you could instantly join a community that you felt at home in, and skip all the awkward painful searching?
Being introduced to my agile community by my mentor was one of the most remarkable things I’ve gained on my agile journey. I want you to find the same comfort I did way back when I met Lyssa and the other agilists I now count as friends.
These activities are carefully crafted to help you embody the key concepts she presents. Some of the activities are things you’ll practice in our online community together, some are things you’ll practice back at work (even if you don’t currently have a team you’re working with), and some of the practice will be focused specifically on you.
Our approach will help you grow the mindset needed to fully embody Lyssa’s approach to coaching. Sound overwhelming? That’s understandable. It’s a lot.
Remember: we’ve already had hundreds of people go through the program. We’ve structured things to help you stretch, grow, and improve without the overwhelm that often happens with this type of deep and meaningful work.
Lastly, you’ll have the opportunity to work with an accountability buddy regularly throughout the program, and attend weekly LIVE breakout sessions with others to help you get even more practice together.
By joining the Coaching Agile Teams Guided Study & Practice Group, you get ALL THREE essential things real Agile Coaches need right away.
Most people spend years attempting to find all 3 of these things.
The lucky ones may find 1 or 2 of them. But only extremely fortunate and well-connected people find all three.
Self-Awareness is The Key Skill
Practices for Self-Awareness and Self-Mastery
Coaching and Mentoring: Two Ingredients of Agile Coaching
Coaching People One-on-One
Coaching Product Owners
Coaching Managers and Other Agile Coaches
How to Facilitate the Stand-up and Sprint Planning
How to Facilitate Sprint Review and Retrospective
How to Facilitate Team Conversations
Looking for a place online to get your questions about Agile Coaching answered? Want somewhere to collaborate with others who are learning the same thing at the same time as you are? The Coaching Agile Teams Online Community is exactly what you’re looking for.
Our supportive, inclusive, no-pressure community is far away from the noise (and arguments!) of Facebook and LinkedIn. Join in on the conversation anytime from your computer or mobile device.
While there’s tons of value in being able to watch each week’s session at a time that works best for you, it’s still important to work LIVE with other agilists each week.
Join us for our weekly Accountability Check sessions live on zoom. You’ll get to reflect on what you’re learning and practicing with someone else who’s currently going through the program in these small breakout groups.
Besides the weekly live accountability sessions, you’ll also have the option to be paired up with another agilist that’s going through the program in your cohort for added support and community.
People take advantage of these relationships in different ways… Some buddies have picked a time each week to meet together, others have communicated only by email, and others have changed up their approach to supporting each other several times throughout the program.
While we may give some recommendations on how to work together, in the end it’s up to you and your buddy to decide what works best for you. Some buddy pairs have found it so useful to meet that they’ve continued to do so months and months after the program has officially ended.
Got a question for Lyssa that’s not covered in a Session? Run into a problem at work that you need her help with?
Get the chance to ask Lyssa your question LIVE during our these Q&A events.
Sometimes Lyssa will take the opportunity to run a mini coaching session with the person asking the question right then and there. Other times, she gives a quick training on the topic. Whatever her approach to the questions asked, you’ll certainly get tons of value out of these Q&A sessions.
Lyssa regularly charges organizations THOUSANDS of dollars for 1-hour Q&A sessions just like this, but these monthly sessions are included in the Coaching Agile Teams Guided Study & Practice Group!
Lyssa and Adam get together once a month to record a members-only podcast for the Coaching Agile Teams community. During the podcast, they answer questions submitted by members and discuss topics they think will help you on your agile journey.
The only way to get access to this private podcast is to join the Coaching Agile Teams Guided Study & Practice Group.
Lyssa was the first speaker I invited to speak at the Agile Virtual Summit back in June of 2020. Since then, she’s appeared at 4 of our live events. Her sessions (Coaching Agile Teams Deep Dive, Running Around Like Crazy? Use Agile on Yourself!, and more…) are fantastic, and clock in at just under 5 hours of content.
The only way to get access to all 5 of her sessions is to purchase the All-Access Passes for each of the summits, which currently costs $888, or join the Agile Mastery Inner Circle. Frankly, these 5 sessions are well worth the price on their own, but we’ve included them as a BONUS when you sign up for the Coaching Agile Teams Guided Study & Practice Group today.
Need to renew your Scrum Alliance certification? How about your Project Management Institute certification? Each hour you spend interacting with Coaching Agile Teams Guided Study & Practice Group content qualifies for 1 Scrum Alliance Scrum Education Unit (SEU) and 1 Project Management Institute Professional Development Unit (PDU).
On average, participants collect about 25 SEUs / PDUs during the 12-week program.
The Coaching Agile Teams Guided Study & Practice Group is hosted inside a small part of the Agile Mastery online community.
Not only does Agile Mastery host the Guided Study & Practice Group, we also host weekly Lean Coffee events, quarterly Open Space events, monthly Live Workshops on a variety of agile topics presented by well-known agilists, and more.
You get FULL access to EVERYTHING the Agile Mastery Inner Circle offers during the first 4 weeks of joining the Coaching Agile Teams program.
