Agile Coach Articles

Ideally, the Scrum team will consist of up to 10 people, but larger teams do exist, which can make c…

John McFadyen shares his top tip for addressing impediments in the Daily Scrum. Traditionally, teams…

The Daily Scrum is an opportunity for the developers to realign and ensure they’re on track to…

Get your Daily Scrum back on track! In this video, John McFadyen shares his top tip to respectfully …

The start of the year feels like a natural point to set goals, both personally and at a team or orga…

How do you make goals specific? In this video, John McFadyen shares his recommendation for making go…

It can be easy to be over-optimistic when setting goals, leading to targets that aren’t attain…

Goals can be great to give us direction and keep us accountable. But in such a volatile world, you m…

What do you do when a goal becomes obsolete? The nature of today’s business climate means that…

The Sprint Review is an important event in Scrum, a chance for the Scrum Team to gain feedback on th…

How do you support your Scrum Team after receiving negative feedback in the Sprint Review? John McFa…

This week’s top tip is how to conduct a Sprint Review when the Product Owner can’t make …

The purpose of the Sprint Review is to gain feedback. Sometimes it’s positive. Other times it&…

The Agile Top Tips theme for December 2022 is the Sprint Review, so we started by asking John his to…

The Sprint Retrospective is often a great source of ideas, but how do you take these ideas and turn …

This week’s top tip topic is how to facilitate a virtual Retrospective. Post-it notes on a wal…

Sprints won’t always go to plan, but how do you facilitate a Sprint Retrospective when this is…

This week’s top tip topic is how to prioritise continuous improvement items. If, like our team…

We’ll be sharing regular top tips around a different them for each month. The theme for Septem…

Is velocity a good proxy for productivity? Welcome to part 4 in our scrum master interview questions…

What is ScrumBan and why is it a popular option for agile teams? Welcome to part 16 of our agile coa…

How does an Agile coach help create a highly motivated, self-organising team? Welcome to part 15 in …

What are the differences between coaching and mentoring? Welcome to part 14 of our agile coach inter…

What is Agile coaching? Welcome to part 13 in our Agile coach interview questions series where John …

Why do organisations and teams need an agile coach? Welcome to part 12 of our agile coach interview …

What role does management play during the Agile transition? Welcome to part 11 in our agile coach in…

What types of strategies have worked well for an Agile transformation? Welcome to part 10 of our Agi…

What are the top 3 challenges when transitioning to Agile? Welcome to part 9 of our agile coach inte…

Why should an organization adopt an agile way of working? Welcome to part 8 of our agile coach inter…

How would you, as an Agile coach, manage overlapping iterations? Welcome to part 7 in our agile coac…

How would you deal with a team that resist the Agile methodology? Welcome to part 5 in our agile coa…

What is the hardest part of managing an Agile transformation? Welcome to part 4 of our agile coach i…

What do you do if your scrum team hate retrospectives and devolve into blaming one another? Welcome …

Which agile processes have you used in the past and which ones do you find most effective? This is a…

How does an Agile coach go about choosing the length of a sprint? They don’t. It isn’t their job. Th…

What exercise do you recommend scrum teams to run in a sprint review? I don’t recommend that they ru…

How much of a role should an Agile coach play in a sprint review? It depends. I would start by first…

What are the common mistakes you see in sprint reviews? The sprint review is a great opportunity for…

How do you help your team improve their sprint review presentation? In my opinion, you should get ri…

What do you do when your sprint review has negative feedback from stakeholders? What do you mean by …

How does an Agile coach approach sprint review planning? Does the Agile coach need to be there? I wo…

What is your biggest regret as an agile coach? I’m not somebody that believes in regret. Professiona…

How do you earn trust from a new team when you are a contract agile coach? So, the contract element …

What is the ‘go to’ exercise for a sprint retrospective? It used to be ‘Mad | Sad | Glad’. Many moon…

What are the 3 things that generally trip you up as an Agile coach? This is an interesting one. Ther…

How do you sell a concept to a team and a client as an Agile coach? Your first step is to stop think…

What is the one thing you must do before starting any engagement as an agile coach? It’s contract. I…

One thing I know now, as an Agile coach, that I wish I knew when I started out. That is a tricky one…

Agile coaching myth 5: You need an Agile coach. I used to think this was true. Maybe that was my ego…

Agile coaching myth 4: It takes a long time to see results from agile coaching This is an interestin…

Agile coaching myth 3: All teams are coachable. This is an interesting one. It’s something that I ha…

Agile Coaching myth 2: The Agile Coach needs to be an expert in all agile frameworks This is one of …

Why take Scrum training? Scrum may appear simple at first, but it is deceptively difficult to do wel…

Agile Coaching Myth 1: Coaching is only for teams that have problems. All teams have problems and op…

What would an Agile coach consider as important metrics to measure? I’m going to put my consultant h…

How does an Agile coach gain buy in for a pilot project from leaders within the organization? I’m go…

How does an agile coach facilitate sprint planning? This answer may be a bit different to how a scru…

A powerful question is a question that evokes or draws out a reaction, an insight, a fact, or an opp…

As the world becomes more complex, many managers and leaders are turning to certified coaches to hel…

Assumption is defined as ‘a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof &#…

Organisational culture is one of the most powerful, and misunderstood, concepts around. Leaders and …

TLDR; Everything changed in 2020, even the Scrum Guide got an update, but the Agile Manifesto didn’t…

I’m lucky enough to find my job professionally satisfying. That’s because I think the line of work I…

SAFe® is an acronym for Scaled Agile Framework® and was introduced in 2011 by co-creators Dean Leffi…

Objectives and Key Results – OKRs – are a well known goal-setting technique; there&#8217…

In a recent conversation with Tyrrell Basson from Manchester University, we explored the topic of ‘e…

An ancient part of our brains that existed to keep us alive in a world of danger has evolved. But ra…

In the previous article ‘There Are Sabre-Toothed Tigers In Your Office‘, we discussed ho…

I’m a bit of a rugby fan and often find myself wanting to run out with the lads, moving through the …

The last time we suffered a global pandemic that brought the world to its knees was in 1918. A littl…

Ken Blanchard described it as “the breakfast of champions”; Bill Gates said, “We all need people who…

In my previous blog post, “Where are all the managers in Agile?”, I discussed why agile doesn’t need…

“Belief is so often the death of reason” – Lord Varys, Master of Whisperers – Game of Thrones …

Once upon a time, circa May 2016, the world was a comparatively predictable place. For the most part…

Part of our Covid Hack series of articles Many of the corporations we work with are inherently desig…

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a collaborative, coaching-style workshop that brings together the team…

During the pandemic, our revenue streams dried up – literally overnight. The Covid-19 fairy wa…

When I last posted something, before life changed significantly for all of us, I was coming to terms…

Many Agile coaches and trainers often speak about the unicorns of Agile. Spotify. Netflix. Amazon. A…

The Case for Business Agility As an Agile coach, consultant and trainer, I pretty much live in a wor…

If ever one wanted the ultimate portrait of a VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex, and a…

Agile Coaching? Hmm, yes I know what you’re thinking, “what does that mean and how is that an actual…

User Story Mapping is a great technique to help teams explore their product scope and plan how they …

There are lots of ways to help introduce the concepts of Scrum to teams and to give them a chance to…

The bootcamp is planned, the travel arrangements made and suitcases packed. Now, the hard work start…

When we were asked if we could help another organisation start on their journey to agile, I was keen…

The recent announcement from HMRC that IR35 and Off-Payroll Tax would come into effect on the 6th of…

On my professionalisation journey to Scrum Alliance Certified Team Coach, I am collecting badges and…

Continuous improvement is a core agile principle. The retrospective is an important event in all agi…

This is a blog about coaching; specifically, lean and agile coaching, though it applies to leadershi…

As leadership guru Steve Denning has written, Agile is “not about doing more work in less time:…

The values and principles of the Agile manifesto are designed to remind you of one thing above all: …

Anyone whose profession involves advising others needs to be concerned about ethics. In a more gener…

All coaches reading this will probably agree that the following outline, provided by Jonathan Moss, …

Communication in all its aspects is of vital importance to effective coaching. Getting the most out …

A considerable part of a coach’s job is to challenge clients. If they do not stretch, if they do not…

In the early 1980s, Peter Hawkins developed the CLEAR model, and thus slightly pre-dates the GROW mo…

The FUEL model is a coaching tool that consists of four components: Frame the conversation: Set the …