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by Lyssa Adkins
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Agile is easy to get going and hard to do well. Almost anyone can learn the mechanics of Scrum or Kanban in a few days. You can read about sprints, stand-ups, and retrospectives and have a team running through the motions within a week. But running through the motions is not the same as being agile. The gap between doing agile and being agile is where most teams get stuck, and it is the gap that agile coaches exist to close.
**Author:** Lyssa Adkins **Estimated Reading Time:** 42 minutes
This condensed edition teaches you the mindset, skills, and practices of a masterful agile coach. You will learn how to guide teams beyond mechanical agile practices into genuine high performance, how to navigate the tensions between teaching and letting teams learn, and how to develop yourself as an instrument of change. You will discover why the best agile coaches lead by serving, how to cultivate collaboration that produces breakthrough results, and what it takes to help teams reach their full potential.
This book is for anyone who has been asked to coach an agile team, whether you carry the official title or not. It is for ScrumMasters who want to become more than meeting facilitators, for project managers transitioning to agile leadership, for technical leads who find themselves responsible for team growth, and for experienced coaches who want to deepen their craft. If you care about helping teams become truly great at agile, this book is for you.
Agile is easy to get going and hard to do well. Almost anyone can learn the mechanics of Scrum or Kanban in a few days. You can read about sprints, stand-ups, and retrospectives and have a team running through the motions within a week. But running through the motions is not the same as being agile. The gap between doing agile and being agile is where most teams get stuck, and it is the gap that agile coaches exist to close. The problem is that most people who find themselves in the role of agile coach have no clear picture of what the job actually entails. They were good developers, good project managers, or good ScrumMasters, and someone decided they should now coach others. But coaching is a fundamentally different discipline. It requires a different stance, different skills, and a different relationship to the team. It requires unlearning many of the habits that made you successful in your previous role. This book exists because the agile coaching profession has suffered from a lack of clarity. Too many coaches default to being consultants who tell teams what to do, or trainers who teach workshops and then disappear, or administrators who manage backlogs and run meetings. None of these approaches helps teams become self-organizing, high-performing units. In fact, they often make things worse by creating dependency. Lyssa Adkins wrote this book to define what agile coaching actually is and to provide a practical path for becoming good at it. Her central insight is that an agile coach models agile all the time, and just by being teaches all the time. The coach is not someone who stands outside the team dispensing wisdom. The coach is someone…
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Get the complete summary in the appAn agile coach models agile all the time, and just by being teaches all the time.
Servant leadership is the foundation of effective agile coaching. Serve the team, do not be served by them.
Your value comes from helping the team find their own answers, not from providing yours.
Collaboration happens in present time. Create conditions that make it possible.
Conflict is a resource to be leveraged, not a problem to be solved.
The ultimate success of an agile coach is a team that no longer needs one.
"Coaching Agile Teams" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around business, leadership, management, especially themes like an agile coach models agile all the time, and just by being teaches all the time; servant leadership is the foundation of effective agile coaching. serve the team, do not be served by them. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Motivated to help readers with agile coach models agile all the time, Lyssa Adkins wrote “Coaching Agile Teams” to package those ideas for a fast, focused read. In “Coaching Agile Teams”, Lyssa Adkins focuses on agile coach models agile all the time. Through “Coaching Agile Teams”, Lyssa Adkins distills the core ideas on business into lessons readers can absorb in a single short sitting. Readers turn to this work when they want Lyssa Adkins's perspective on the subject without working through th…
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