Tag archives: awesomecoachoftheweek
14 December 2011
Author:
Olaf Lewitz
We honour Sergey Dmitriev as awesome coach of the week 50, 2011!
My first acquaintance with Sergey has been a failure: at the amazing XP2010 conference in Trondheim, Norway, we agreed to share a ride to the airport to get home, but then lost touch... No harm done:-) Shortly after, we connected on Twitter as we had found a common passion: we wanted to create the first ever AgileCoachCamp in Norway!
Community Compassionist
I had co-organised the AgileCoachCamp Germany and was in the middle of creating the first Play4Agile unconference, and was used to (what I’ve since called privately) the “German way of conference organising”: more than a dozen organisers, weekly ...
3 November 2011
Author:
Olaf Lewitz
We honour Ralf Kruse as Awesome Coach of the Week 44, 2011!
My first pair-coaching endeavour with Ralf was arguably the toughest setting I’ve ever been in for an agile transition. We started training teams who had basically been told by their management that all the specialisation they had accumulated over decades would be unneeded in their bright future, using Scrum... And this was an engineering company producing mechanically and electronically complex and innovative goods for a challenging small market. The setup couldn’t have been worse, and within a few days Ralf and I developed this image of standing back to back, shielding each other from the mud we were ...
10 September 2011
Author:
Olaf Lewitz
We honor Stephen Parry as Awesome Coach of the Week 36, 2011!
Stephen LeanVoices Parry is an unusual addition to our list, as he is not an agile coach. Stephen is a management coach working on the same goal as we are: business transformation. What I like about his approach is that he recognises the similarity and relationship of Lean and Agile. When he submitted his talk on “Creating an Integrated ICT Value Stream Using Lean and Agile Thinking” for ALE2011 which took place this week in Berlin, I was delighted to have such an experienced Lean expert at the conference, but at the same time... Wondered why he wanted to come ...
31 August 2011
Author:
Paolo Perrotta
We honor Brad Swanson as Awesome Coach of the Week 35, 2011!
You've got to love Brad. He's one of those all-round Agile coaches that excel at both sides of the art. He's naturally good at talking to people and tear down culture barriers, so you might be forgiven for thinking he's coming from management. Then, as soon as the conversation gets technical, you realize that Brad is actually an alpha geek, just as comfortable learning the latest programming language as he is managing corporate politics. If there were a "two for the price of one" sale for Agile coaches, this guy's face would be on the ...
25 August 2011
Author:
Franz Ivancsich
We honor Martin Kearns as Awesome Coach of the Week 34, 2011
I was very lucky to be present at a management coaching session where two very well known Scrum Coaches were performing: Andrea Tomasini and Martin Kearns. With this weekly post, we want to honor Martin Kearns.
Martin Kearns, the man
His vitae is impressive. - He is one of the first three CSC in the world and was also one of the first CST, he is breathing and sweating Agile. He is an irish guy living in Australia with his wife and six children (a family of the size of a Scrum Team). How he can manage to be a Scrum ...
19 August 2011
Author:
Ralf Kruse
We honor Bob Sarni as Awesome Coach of the Week 33, 2011
I had the opportunity to work closely with Bob on a large enterprise transition. Bob has a great way to deal with people. He used to be an excellent contributor to the success of a project we did together. - During these four months in Greece, I learned a lot from him.
Leading people
I can’t remember that Bob ever used a phrase like “you do this”. He has a great way of leading by questions and from the back of the room. One special case where he impressed me a lot was during a planning meeting. There was nothing ...
10 August 2011
Author:
Olaf Lewitz
We honour Chris Matts as awesome coach of the week 32, 2011!
Chris Matts is one of the most inventive, creative and illustrative guys I have the pleasure to know. We collaborated on a few half-fun, half-serious projects, only one of which made it to being published—LeanProcrastionation. Chris and Olav Maassen contributed important ideas regarding the identification of the Last Responsible Moment, which lead to a game being created that’s going to be played at the Agile2011 in Salt Lake City tomorrow… Unfortunately, without me.
I only once met Chris in person so far, on my first night in Trondheim where we attended the XP2010 conference. We had much fun ...
1 August 2011
Author:
Olaf Lewitz
We honour Andreas Leidig as awesome coach of the week 31, 2011!
I first met Andreas @leiderleider Leidig at last year’s AgileCoachCamp. Since then, we met at a few other (un)conferences, collaborated in organising a new one, helped the ALE network grow… In short, we became much more than colleagues. Having met Andreas at the Deutsche Scrum in Stuttgart the week before my holidays, I was reminded of a compliment by Sebastian Schürmann that I wrote about before…
Will Disobey Anyone If Required
Andreas takes this mindset to another level. If there was a word for “dogmatic about being undogmatic”, I’d use it for him:–)
Let me give ...
5 July 2011
Author:
Olaf Lewitz
We honour Michael Sahota as Awesome Coach of the Week 27, 2011!
I first met Michael Sahota at the XPDays Benelux 2010. I had heard his name before, but not much about him… A funny connection was our first topic of conversation: A colleague of mine from Berlin had moved to Toronto in the Summer, and had been looking for a job as a ScrumMaster there. Tuesday before the XPDays we chatted on Skype, and she told me she had just signed a contract: “And do you know what’s really funny? You’ll meet my boss in two days!” That was not Michael, but a friend of him in Toronto, and ...
1 July 2011
Author:
Olaf Lewitz
We honour Sebastian Schürmann as awesome coach of the week 26, 2011!
I first met Sebastian Schürmann at the ScrumGathering 2009 in Munich. We’ve been in touch on Twitter since and met again at Play4Agile in February and the AgileCoachCamp two weeks ago. This week, I’ve been at his company and could gain first-hand experience of his awesome achievements…
(Non-)Violent Communication
Sebastian is a man of strong opinion and blunt communication. To phrase it differently, he’s a natural talent of violent communication—which can be quite effective…
At the ACCDE11, we both attended a session on non-violent communication. We talked a lot about that technique during the ...
Olaf Lewitz
