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by Adrie Dolman (Author), Natalie Bowler-Geerinck (Translator)
With the current dire shortage of real agile coaches, we need more than just superficial knowledge - we need experts. Many books merely describe agile theory, methods, and processes but for a successful agile coach, having a mental model of their own is crucial.
Successful agile coaches see the organization as a system and assume the role of a system developer. They facilitate an organic process that breaks through old patterns, paving the way for the agile organization. All this is done according to the system approach, built up based on the mental model and the meaning assigned to it by the people who are part of the system.
There are no shortage of resources on Agile coaching in the world, but many of them assume that you're doing two things: developing software and using Scrum exclusively. What Adrie has created here, however, is a deeply practical guide for any and all Agile coaches, leaving such unhelpful assumptions at the door.
Adrie is diligent in avoiding prescription and leaning into description, but I can guarantee that the following pages will nonetheless be enormously practical for agilists looking to build up their coaching capabilities. Despite having spent many years of my own in the trenches working with Agile marketing teams, I found myself highlighting entire sections for reference. I'm already looking forward to sharing the illuminating charts and diagrams with my own team of coaches to help guide their individual growth.
And yet this book isn't just a simple how-to or a compilation of exercises. Adrie shows us the full arc of Agile's evolution, tracing its origins far beyond twentieth century software development and back into the minds of pioneers of the scientific method hundreds of years ago. He skillfully connects this history to how coaches need to show up for their teams, freeing them from dogmatic adherence to practices that may or may not apply to the kinds of work their teams are doing.
From Francis Bacon to Steve Denning, Adrie deftly tracks how Agile came to be the defining method for getting stuff done in the twenty-first century. What's more, he plucks out important takeaways from all its phases to guide Agile coaches whose working life is far more complex, uncertain, and ambiguous than the one Bacon found himself in.
Being an Agile coach is one of the most severely challenging and deeply rewarding jobs on the planet. Sometimes it feels like both of those things in the course of a single meeting. At times being an Agile coach is akin to trudging through the desert with no supplies, trying to reach an uncertain destination while herding a reluctant pack of cats. Resources like this one are an oasis on this difficult journey.
If you're an experienced Agile coach, rejoice. Here's a careful, considerate fellow practitioner who's opening his toolkit to share ideas with you.
If you're looking to start on your Agile coaching journey, great news. Someone who's spent years traversing that path has come back to offer guidance.
Agile coaches of all kinds will find value in these pages. For those, like me, who spend our days bringing Agile outside the realms of software development or IT, you won't encounter overwhelming references to releases, demos, bugs, or code bases. Anyone who tries to nurture the Agile mindset and its corresponding ways of working should stop messing around with my introduction, and dig into this outstanding resource right away.
Andrea Fryrear
Agile Marketing Coach & Trainer, Co-Founder AgileSherpas
