Agile Coach as an employee

[Ashish Mahajan]

Hello

I just want to know from the group if any one has worked as an Agile Coach as a full time employee with the company.. How has the experience been as compared to be a Consultant for some time and then move on  or work with a Agile consultancy company working for different clients..?
What do you prefer if you have a choice and why?

Ashish

[Tim Ottinger]

Not as such. I have done dual role.

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[David Koontz]

yes, and it's a great question and interesting to compare/contrast - more interesting might be the reasons one choose either path, because both are readily available...

I've done both.  My frustration with Full Time Employee - FTE is "they" don't listen to you - a loss of referential power (expert or referent)

(see KaTe's blog: http://controlyourchaos.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/scrum-masters-toolkit-french-ravens-5-6-forms-of-power/ )
As a true consultant you receive this expert/referent power largely because they pay you more $$$.

At an individual level it has more to do with benefits in the USA employment system... and access to health care / insurance when one has pre-existing medical conditions.

As a FTE the gig may last much longer - but the pace and learning will be slower.  As a consultant with a firm, the pace will be fast, you will spend 25% of your life in transit, and have many different experiences to learn from  (not the same experience every week for one year - e.g. same shit different day).

[Morgan Ahlström]

For me working as a consultant has tremendous value since I get to see a large number of different organizations and learn from them at the same time. What I miss out on is often the opportunity to follow through and follow up on teams that I get to work with.

BR

Morgan

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[Ashish Mahajan]

Thanks Tim,David and Morgan. Appreciate it.

[Christopher Avery]

My bias:
As long long long-time consultant, I have never seen a client corporation I wanted to join. I will lend my abilities to any corporation who wants them.

Part of this choice is that my career is a life-style issue and my business/company offers a lifestyle no employer could match.

If lifestyle were not the issue, I think I would still not want to be employed in a company I was supporting in a change effort (unless the role were Chairman/CEO). Why? For the referent power and freedom issues noted above.

How quickly we go native, even as an outsider. My internal partners on change projects routinely prioritize continued employment over change leadership. They argue "living to fight another day" over "coming to work everyday ready to be fired for what you believe in."

Christopher Avery

http://www.linkedin.com/in/christopheravery
http://twitter.com/christopheraver
http://www.facebook.com/christopher.avery2

[Tim Ottinger]

Congratulations on being so settled.

I have always bounced between employee and consultant. It is hard on your trip to disappear into practice but it is good for your skills and empathy.

I'm probably done with that now that I'm of a certain age, because I'm less interested in a "real job" and far more interested in the things I can learn and apply as a consultant/teacher. My rep has never been more important to me and with it comes opportunity to do good on the world.

[racheldavies]

Hello Ashish,

I worked as an independent consultant/coach for 9 years. Frustrations were that I often couldn't spend enough time with teams to get to deeper issues because budget was limited, it also can be a bit lonely as you keep saying goodbye and moving on. I took a full-time job as an Agile Coach at a company with well-established Agile practices around 1.5 years ago and really enjoy it. I do a lot more 1-to-1 coaching now.

Hope this helps,

Rachel Davies
co-author "Agile Coaching" book

[Pierre Neis]

Here my 5 cts:

- I'm independent coach by now hired internal for some customer's : lot of freedom, more money, huge risks

- I was Internal Coach for Consulting Group: more secure, good money, less freedom

- I was Internal Coach for a company: more secure, average money, constructive and more operational activities 

I didn't saw huge difference. Agile is a Social Network and I guess that the rate of internal Agile Coaches will increase in time according adoption within organizations.

      

Pierre E. Neis
Senior Scrum Coach
Lean Agile Coach
Change Architect

19 place Bleech |L-7610 Larochette | Luxembourg
M: +352 661 727 867

email:  pierre@wecompany.me
web:    http://thescrumcoach.wordpress.com/
           http://www.wecompany.me
Meet with me: http://meetwith.me/pierreneis

Contact me: pierre.neis

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