Agile Coach Competency

[Kylee Evancho]

TheAgile Coach Competency Framework was developed by Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd as part of their work at the Agile Coaching Institute (ACI). The framework has since been used as a reference model globally for Agile Coaches to explore the different competency areas (or stances) to take when supporting agile teams of all shapes and sizes.

This website has been created to discuss, explore and share the Agile Coach Competency Framework under Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) -nc-sa/4.0/

The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel is a tool for agile coaches, scrum masters, leaders, and anyone who wants to get better at helping teams and organizations grow and deliver sustainable value using agile/Lean principles and practices.

The growth wheel is an open alliance of coaches from around the globe who believe in the mission of "Professionalizing the world of Agile Coaching." They are doing this through the creation of a common vocabulary and framework around agile, agile coaching, and leadership.

Scrum Alliance has been a strong supporter of the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel initiative since its earliest inception. Scrum Alliance has a vision of a world where an agile way of working is so universal, it's simply called working. To achieve this vision the world needs inspiring changemakers and leaders.

The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel is the natural evolution of Scrum Alliance CEC Emeritus, Lyssa Adkins' Agile Coaching Competency Model on which many of the learning objectives for the Scrum Alliance's scrum master and product owner certifications are based.

Using the growth wheel as a self-assessment tool can help you to determine what is the next step for you in your scrum learning journey. Do you want to improve your team coaching skills? Then the Advanced Certified ScrumMaster course may be the right thing for you. The Agile Coaching Skills - Certified Facilitator program was created to help anyone interested in growing their facilitation competency to the next level. In the future, Scrum Alliance expects to pull more inspiration from the growth wheel to provide our members with paths to their desired career goals.

May 2023 marks the fourth major update to the growth wheel. In this update, all nine competency areas have been fully fleshed out with five stages of skill progression. The wheel is now fully online with future updates planned to be delivered in shorter increments based on usable increments of value.

The latest version of the growth wheel can always be found at AgileCoachingGrowthWheel.org. This includes resources for self-assessment and resource links to books and other learning that can help one grow as an agile leader.

And stay tuned here for future updates on how Scrum Alliance plans to leverage the growth wheel as a tool for our members to grow as the inspiring changemakers and leaders that are needed to change the world of work.

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The key word in both the framework itself and this post is this: competency. As Agile coaches, we cannot be competent in our work if we do not stand in self-mastery, if we are not continuous learners. Additionally, to support us in that learning and the practice of our work, we need the lived experience and practice of our work all while taking in the supervision and assessment of others more qualified. What I like about these additions is that they are of equal importance. One does not outweigh the others, and we need all of them to support and evolve the stances from the original framework.

And if I have stated any of this incorrectly or missed giving credit where credit is due, please let me know. Many people have worked to create and improve this framework, and I want to give credit where credit is due. Speaking of which, Linda N. photographed the starfish used as the cover for this article and all of my blog posts.

At Dandy People we work as Agile Coaches at our customers and support them in Agile change journeys over time. I started to create this poster to create a common understanding at our clients, as well as within Dandy so that we have a shared view of our core capabilities. I have used it many times with great success, the confusion of what we do is gone in minutes and we can get started to bring value to people! This poster has now been updated many times with great feedback from you all. The development has been in a collaboration with the experienced Agile leader Frank Olsen who is Chief Agile Coach at Simcorp, leading their LACE team. Thank you Frank for awesome collaboration!

The Agile Coaching Competency Framework

The framework that I find best describe the complexity of the role in a great way is the Agile Coaching Competency Framework by Lyssa Adkins and Michale Spayd at agile Coaching Institute. I have tweaked it a bit to be able to use it on a broader perspective then within software development. My hope is that it can be used by Agile Coaches across the organization. The way they explain it is that every Agile Coach should master at least one area within the 4 main areas.

Choosing a Coaching Stance

This 9 grid is based on the original paper from 1985, Principles and Dynamics of Matching Role to Situation. Douglas P. Champion, David H. Kiel, and Jean A. McLendon. This one has also been modified to better fit our way of working today when our stances may vary all the way from visionary Agile leaders to hands-on experts.

The Agile Coaches Group

The group of Agile Coaches work individually in their roles within different areas, but also together as a team with shared goals to take an organizational and long term strategic responsibility for improvements. The group is named differently in different frameworks, but the purpose is always the same; to work strategic and operational with process improvements and do coaching, training and mentoring.

Areas of Agile Coaching

In Agile organizations a leader is responsible only in one area. Either PEOPLE, PRODUCT, TECHNOLOGY or PROCESS. Agile coaches coach the people in all areas to improve value and flow continuously. This is something we often see as a subject of misunderstanding and fear to many traditional leaders where they previously in their line manager role might have managed both strategy, people and technology. This does not mean they will lose their job, or become less valuable, it just means they can focus more, become better leaders who are less stressed, enabling the organization to be more innovative and people-friendly. Agile Leadership teams often consist of 3-4 people working together to enable their people.

The posters is published under Creative Commons License, so please use it and share it as you like. If you are interested in doing a translation to any other languages please let me know and I will help you with the file and publish it here in the blog as well.

In the context of agile teams, coaching takes on the dual flavour of coaching and mentoring. Yes, you are coaching to help someone reach for the next goal in their life, just as a professional work/life coach does. You are also sharing your agile experiences and ideas as you mentor them, guiding them to use agile well. In this way, coaching and mentoring are entwined for the sake of developing talented agilists so that more and better business results arise through agile.

As Agile Coaches, we support the teams into their agile journeys and growth, using different methods and tools: teaching frameworks and practices (teacher), sharing our experience and learning (mentoring), asking insightful questions that help teams figure out ideas and solutions on their own (coaching), advising them on the path to take at a roadblock, where the need arises (consulting).

Here is a description of all the areas: -content/uploads/2011/08/Agile-Coaching-Competencies-whitepaper-part-one.pdf

The general idea is to rate yourself in each area, and then see where you have the most skills and where you would like to improve.

The one area I think is missing is Self. I believe that as an agile coach you should be eating your own dog food and have used the techniques you are teaching others. I also think you should be using the agile principles in your own life and really be living the values, not just talking about them. I did ask where this would fit in the ACCF diagram, and it was thought to fit under Agile/ Lean Practitioner. I guess I can see that. I again interpreted that to be knowledge in the agile / lean space and I see practitioner could be applying this to yourself as well.

IT experts are fond of Agile techniques, and Scrum is a methodology for incorporating Agile principles into software development and other initiatives. Scrum has three roles: Scrum Master, Production Manager, and Team Members. Scrum master skills include being observant, informed, flexible, persistent, lean thinking, complicated issue resolver, creative, and focused.

Agile coaches help companies become more adaptive, inclusive, and productive. They achieve this by implementing Agile techniques and encouraging a culture shift. As an Agile coach with an IC Agile coach certification, you will significantly impact your team or organization. Delivery teams are more likely to embrace the Agile approach as firms increasingly employ Agile product innovation to offer goods and services.

An internal coach or an external coach may both undertake Agile coaching. An external coach might be someone outside the group but from the same organization or an external consultant. An internal coach is somebody who collaborates with the same team. When guiding individuals, an Agile coach must consider several elements, some of which are listed below.

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