Rising Above in Agile Coaching

Written By Allison Pollard

Photo by The Wolf Law Library

One of the values of Improving Enterprises is excellence, and we describe often it as “rise above.”  It’s going beyond expectations, delivering great work, and doing what’s right even when it’s hard.  Blazing a trail for good in challenging environments. 

I was thinking about what excellence means for agile coaching, and the thought of teaching teams to understand and use Scrum doesn’t seem sufficient. Then I found this definition of an agile coach from Lyssa Adkins:

...someone who takes teams beyond getting agile practices up and running, into their deliberate and joyful pursuit of high performance.

Rising above as an agile coach is going beyond yourself and focusing on your client to help them discover and take action to become more.  It’s the level 2 and level 3 listening and asking powerful questions and using other coaching skills that takes clients out of their comfort zones and shows them the world of possibility. Excellence for an agile coach means being a disruptive force that causes individuals and teams to think about what high performance means in their context and really go for it.

For an agile coach, the root of excellence is curiosity.  We may be agile-lean practitioners and experts, but it is not enough to tell others how to follow agile principles or use agile frameworks.  We are companions for the journey first and guides to the destination second.

Allison Pollard

Allison Pollard is a coach, consultant, and trainer who brings the power of relationship systems intelligence to go beyond tasks, roles, and frameworks to create energy for change. She engages with people and teams in a down-to-earth way to build trust and listen for signals to help them learn more and improve. Allison focuses on creating alignment and connection for people to solve business problems together. Her experience includes working with teams and leaders in energy, retail, financial, real estate, and transportation industries to help improve their project/product delivery and culture. Allison currently volunteers as program director for Women in Agile’s mentorship program. Her agile community focus is championing new voices and amplifying women as mentors and sponsors for the next generation of leaders. Allison earned her bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), a foodie, and proud glasses wearer. Allison is a prolific speaker at professional groups and international conferences, including Scrum Gatherings and the Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. Allison is co-owner of Helping Improve LLC.

http://www.allisonpollard.com
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