Getting Started With Agile Coaching
Isabella and Theresa joined SHARE NOW, Europe’s leading car-sharing provider, as Agile Coaches in 2021. For both of them, it is their first time in this role. I sat down with them to talk about how they first came across agile and what tips they have for people who are new to that position. And we discover what common household item influenced Theresa’s career choice.
Gerrit: First of all, welcome Isabella and Theresa. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk about your experiences today. I’m sure many people will benefit from the insights you’ve gathered over the past year.
So, both of you joined SHARE NOW in April 2021 and did not work as an Agile Coach before. Could you tell people a little bit about what your previous work-life looked like?
Isabella: Before becoming an Agile Coach, my work life was already quite unplannable, the level of uncertainty was quite high. I was a co-founder of a tech startup and was responsible for the product. Every day was a bit of a surprise. Unplannable, but at the same time, there was an incredible routine as well. I felt like I was building the same pitch deck over and over again.
And on the other hand, I was also leading people without having had any prior experience in that whatsoever. So the job was quite diverse already, but more frustrating [laughs].
Gerrit: Thank you for sharing that. Theresa, how was your life before SHARE NOW and agile coaching?
Theresa: Very different. Very spreadsheet-driven. I introduced Scrum and Kanban, working as a sustainability manager for a multi-brand corporation. One sustainability manager, three brands, and lots of dependencies. It was too much work for one person.
Jeff Sutherland says you get twice the work in half the time with Scrum. So I thought, “that’s a good thing” [laughs]. Then I discovered I had too many dependencies. This was a great preparation for a company as multi-faceted and multi-layered as SHARE NOW.
My tasks were often related to the annual audit. I did the tiny bit that I could actually do, like, get suppliers to give me documentation. And then I moved on to the next thing. But it was not immediately impacting revenue. So it had low priority to them. Sometimes people didn’t touch their task for six months.
Kanban was really useful in visualizing this. I had two gigantic boards, each three meters long [ten feet — for all the non-metric people]. I showed them to the CPO and the group of Head-Ofs. And they looked at them and [Theresa mimics the sound of someone coming to a sudden realization].
So the visualization was helpful for me and surprising for other people. And it’s also surprising for me to see that a lot of times, people still have the illusion that a Gantt chart and a spreadsheet is how you do serious business. And this is how, statistically, 80% of all projects fail.
So I went from realizing that this may be normal (but not working) to agile coaching. And it’s good to push that because it’s deeply ingrained in all forms of culture.
Gerrit: Sounds like, in retrospect, both of you were in a kind of boot camp that prepared you for the job as an Agile Coach. What was the point where you decided being an Agile Coach was the next thing for you?
Theresa: Mine is easy. It was a thing called the COVID pandemic, just hitting textile retailers very hard. They simply didn’t have the cash necessary to pay employees, and everyone was sent home. I like to say that my hamster wheel broke at that moment. I knew before that it wasn’t working. Then you have four weeks at home, time to introspect. There’s nothing like having a solid business plan crushed by a global pandemic [laughs].
Gerrit: I think many people found themselves in that situation. There are so many job options, though. What made you realize that agile coaching was your next thing?
Theresa: It’s the closest I could find to dealing with complexity on a daily basis without needing to code [everyone laughs]. I was introduced to Scrum because they’re really good at marketing. Scrum helped me learn how to deal with complexity. As a typical German, I loved planning ahead, which was no longer possible.
Even my grandma, who survived the 2nd World War, is used to planning ahead for the whole year, and she couldn’t do that anymore. We did not even know what was going to happen on Monday. We were all thinking about pasta and toilet paper. And Scrum simply said: Okay, you have to take small iterations and get as much transparency about a situation as possible. Inspect and adapt.
This pandemic needs agility. So for me, it was, first and foremost, huge mental support. And it worked really nicely. I had a sprint goal for the week because I felt like I could not plan for more than seven days. I shared that with family and friends as they kept being constantly frustrated. “I want to know what I can do next Saturday!” I just planned for one week, focussing on my toilet paper. After all, that was the sprint goal [everyone laughs].
Gerrit: Isabella, was there anything other than toilet paper that inspired you to seek a job as an Agile Coach?
Isabella: In fact, I would say the trigger point was quite similar. After leaving my startup job, I had an interlude working as a sommelier. So the most hierarchical, conservative surrounding you could imagine. High pressure, no room for failure. Two Michelin stars mean you cannot mess up. If something happens, people might not come back; it might cost you a star. That’s all the pressure they put on your shoulders.
Lock-down number two meant a 100% reduction in my working hours. I was home all the time. I did all the work I could do, including cleaning my apartment twenty-five times. And so, I confronted myself with the truth that this is probably not where I want my future to head. So I started looking into different jobs.
I applied for product management because I thought that was what I did before. I also tried to figure out what I’m good at. What do I want to do? And what kind of values do I want to have at my workplace? And I just stumbled over the job ad from SHARE NOW. So I was like, yeah, I’m going to try it out. I had no idea what an Agile Coach is. But from the job description, it sounded like something I could do and learn to do and want to do.
I think I had my very first interview with you, Gerrit. And then I met the entire team, and I pretty much just fell in love with them. It was just like, yes, that feels like nice people to work with.
Also, to have a team to support you and support your growth. One that looks at your potential and not the gaps in your knowledge. That was something that really, really suited me, this growth mindset that I found here.
Gerrit: So you had time to think about what you want to do next. You figured it out. And you eventually land a job as an Agile Coach with us. What kind of tips do you have for our readers? The ones that are on the hunt for a job as an Agile Coach?
Isabella: I mean, I just landed one job in agile coaching so far, so I don’t know if it’s the perfect advice [laughs]. But it really worked for me to be authentic and not pretend to be someone you’re not.
So you can read up all the information, watch all the YouTube videos, and try to practice. I think it was amazing, for example, that you, Theresa, put it into your daily practice already.
I think this practice is better than “I read this, and now I will tell you how you should do it.” Just be yourself. Because if who you are right now is not needed or doesn’t fit the team, you will not have an enjoyable time. But if you are accepted as you are and people see your potential and your motivation to grow in this direction, I think this is the place where you should start your agile coaching career.
Theresa: There are tons of virtual venues to meet Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, or developers. Just speak to the people, see the diversity but also the homogeneity of the industry, and find out if this is something that suits you. I had over 20 phone conversations: I went to venues and asked my friends and friends of friends. I tried to figure out if that’s work that I enjoyed doing.
And I also met many frustrated people and found out what frustrates them. I think agile coaching attracts people who want to help and want teams to feel good. But if you’re unaware of that, it’s easy to go into burnout. I also met people who recommended I don’t choose the profession. They strongly believe it is a profession that automatically drives you to burnout, because they believe the job is about always pleasing people, which is impossible.
So that was really interesting also to meet the dark side of agile coaching [laughs]. I can only recommend that if you don’t enjoy speaking to people, this job is not the right one for you. We are in a super people-centered business.
Gerrit: So you prepared yourself. You showed up as yourself. And that’s likely why you ended up working with us. What was your first experience coaching a team?
Isabella: I started working with a team with which I quickly got a good connection. That was nice, a very pleasant experience actually. I felt very welcome and everything. But at the same time, I remember the first couple of weeks, and maybe months, I was also a bit terrified of making mistakes.
Like, I didn’t want to fail them. And I enjoyed how I could even share that with the team — up to a certain degree. I worked with feedback as well, which was really, really nice.
Of course there were also a couple of impediments and things that showed up. So that was also interesting to see. I got the chance to quickly understand what kind of challenges can be resolved within a team and what is also dependent on maybe leadership, the environment, dependencies around them.
That was a massive growth experience. The first couple of months were the best because I could feel the learning.
In the beginning, you just work with what you already know. And then you reached a point you’re like, I’ve no idea, I have to look into this.
Theresa: It was hard but for different reasons. So I come from coaching, and I had these virtual co-creative spaces that I offered to people who came intrinsically motivated to practice coaching. And they were already super aware and reflected.
That is different from doing a retrospective with software developers who enjoy coding and speaking about facts and external things. They may even resent any meeting that does not allow them to code. It is a very different audience.
As an Agile Coach, I think it is very important to be aware of that. We are on the sidelines of a very rich daily work life. We are more like the invisible infrastructure or like the frame. But they are looking at the painting, which was hard at the beginning.
Gerrit: It’s already been a year for you. I’m curious, what are some things you wish you had known earlier on this journey?
Theresa: I think it’s a classic answer to wish to know more about implicit culture. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. All that implicit information about who likes who, how is top management organized, et cetera. Who has been to lunch each day together before the pandemic? Stuff that is especially difficult to access when starting work remotely because I was never in the office. I don’t even know how people were seated before the pandemic.
It’s impossible to observe this remotely in an 80-person group call. You will not see how people interact, who sits next to whom, who waves at whom, who high fives.
Isabella: I think I’m part of the group that says, “I would rather not know in advance.” So I’m glad that I didn’t know most things. I could just experience everything with a fresh mind and make my learnings by experiences. I really enjoyed that. I would not give much information to past Isabella.
Gerrit: Thank you for that. We are approaching the end of this interview. And I would now like to give you a moment to share anything with the audience that you feel would still be good to know.
Theresa: I am reiterating the point of realizing some agile principles in your own life or current work. If you cannot think about how to use a simple “todo-doing-done” flow with work-in-progress limits in your current job but think this is something that other people need to do or that needs to be instructed by a manager… then it would be extremely difficult as an Agile Coach.
Agile Coaches are not managers that instruct people to think a certain way or to behave a certain way, it’s about instilling and giving life to these principles in the workplace. And it really helps if you know how to do that. Especially with the most difficult person in your life, yourself.
Isabella: I would thoroughly inspect how well you deal with uncertainty. I wasn’t really aware before that it’s something that I deeply enjoy: being very uncertain about what’s happening tomorrow or next week or in a month or a year.
We’re all different, and we have different preferences, but I would say that dealing with uncertainty is quite crucial in my work.
Gerrit: That brings us to the end of our chat here. First, thank you very much for taking the time and sharing those insights. And last but not least, a big thank you for joining us, for all the work you put in throughout the last year, and for all the value you brought to the organization. Thank you for that, too!
-the end-
