The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Agile Coaching

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Agile Coaching

agile42 coaches are happy to publish the first version of the introductory reference for new Agile Coaches as well as experienced ScrumMasters

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What is this guide?

With this book, we wanted to create an introductory reference for new Agile Coaches as well as experienced ScrumMasters. It contains much of the theory that we teach our new colleagues at agile42, and hopefully lots of insights for new coaches. This is the book we wish we had when we started out as agile coaches, and it’s now available to download free of charge.

About the authors

The agile42 coaches are experts. We take great pride in our tradition of coaching, which is continuously being adapted to the needs of the company and teams. Our approach is simple, but not easy, and here are some of the tools we use.

Copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Agile Coaching signed by agile42 coaches

The book is primarily about coaching, but not so much about agility. We are not going to explain e.g. why it makes sense to slice large work items into smaller independent pieces, or how to choose between synchronized and unsynchronized releases. There are plenty of good books around for those purposes. We assume that all readers have adequate working knowledge of all things agile.

Instead, we are going to teach you the basics of listening, how to maintain a structured conversation without inserting content, and how to facilitate conversations in teams. We’ll talk about how to help a group of people form an effective team and how you can help create heedfulness and synergy in a team. We’ll present structured means of collaborating on a team with ScrumMasters, development managers and other agile coaches. We’ll cover why change makes people nervous and discuss different ways of overcoming that.

All of this and much more is now available in one book. Becoming an agile coach is a journey that has no end… and that’s why the name of this book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Agile Coaching.

Since this book was written by a team, we have chosen not to stand out individually. Instead, we have been writing this book as if it were software developed by a team. However, we can disclose that the main culprits include a number of CECs, at least one CTC, and a couple of CSTs. This is the very first public release and it will be improved and expanded with the feedback of the community. We are happy to show it to the world for the first time.

The agile42 coaches are experts. We take great pride in our tradition of coaching, which is continuously being adapted to the needs of the company and teams. Our approach is simple, but not easy, and here are some of the tools we use.