Opportunities of improvements - first try out

It is late Sunday evening and I just can't stop thinking my team. Today I was reading book Agile Coaching (by Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley).  I like the book because it is practical and that is exactly what I need: Practical examples like what kind of questions to ask, which options to try and tips on how to help teams - food for thought and inspiration.

When reading chapter "Introducing Change" and about picking one's battle I got an idea. I had so many challenges in my mind and picking my battle sounded like good idea. I sketched the challenges and looked at that for a while. Actually before sketching I wrote a long list of challenges but I realized that there were many things having something in common, kind of related to each other. And I manage to summarize it all to one small paper (size A6).

How should I pick my battle? Taking this to the team? Listening what the team is telling me - either by themselves or by me asking them questions? Or just picking one and start with it? I need to sleep at least one night and look this sketchnote again either tomorrow or day after that when I am back at office with the team.

I think it is good thing that I created the long list even I then summarized it. On the other by looking these big things I don't restrict my own thinking but  by having the long list I am able to do my own retrospective and see whether I have achieved value by helping the team with the challenges I have noticed.

Task for me for next coming week is to start informal one-to-one discussions with team members. I have had one-to-one discussion with one of the business developer/ product owner, very short 5 minutes discussion after team's Sprint Planning meeting. I was asking some clarifications for issues I didn't understand and I didn't even think at that time to ask questions which could have helped her to reveal challenges she is facing. After discussions I might sketch other kind of challenges.

Lyssa Adkins - Coaching Agile Teams

In my team we had a dream: let’s start coaching agile teams. I am sitting in methods team in an ivory tower in our organization and we have not had real connections to our methods user. Now we are driving for more agile development in our organization and we saw our chance there.

 
One of my colleagues got a great idea: let's read a book "Coaching Agile Teams" and have study group around it. Yes - said most of us. There is three separate parts in this book and we took one part at the time. We read it in two weeks and then we met and discussed and reflected. After reading the whole book each of us were supposed to write a blog post or some other way reflect the book.
 

At the same time I get excited about sketchnoting. It was Ru who showed me some of her notes saying “I thought you might like this”. Said and done – I went home and started to practice. So it was very natural choice for me to reflect the book by doing my first sketchnotes.

Part 1 It Starts with You
Me having no experience on coaching and very short experience working agile - I had the feeling that I am now trying to bite off more than I can chew. I got stressed and desperate. I as a person will face too many challenges. And then again - let's try. Maybe my journey just will be longer than other's.

Part 2 Helping the Team Get More for Themselves
Even worse. This part was about different "roles" of coach. Like "Coach as Coach-Mentor", "Coach as Facilitator" and so on. I felt like I am facing high and thick wall. Every chapter started with summary "By the time you finish this chapter, you will be albe to answer these questions." Likewise every chapter ended with a refresher. Structure was good but the content was little bit discouraging for me.

Part 3 Getting more for Yourself
Finally I get the feeling that "Yes, I can do this". Journey will be long but I will reach my goal. The most important is that I have to merciful to myself. It is okay to fail and learn from you failures. Great book and I will be getting back to it certainly.

Now, I need to start my journey - somewhere with someone, either with a team or with  an individual. And I am horrified!