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Coach Individuals, Teams, and Organizations to Greater Success with Agile

As Agilists work to increase an organization's Agility, they will run into major obstacles with mindset shifts, moving to self-organization, and organizational adoption. Over the past decade, more Agilists have been using Professional Coaching to help individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole uncover these obstacles and move forward faster.

In Professional Coaching for Agilists, Damon Poole and Gillian Lee draw on their experience with thousands of Agile coaches and practitioners to show you how to use Professional Coaching to accelerate your Agile adoption. The authors' approach of "learning by doing" teaches by using well-honed exercises, real-life stories, and example coaching conversations.

This guide is framework-independent and has been designed for Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, and any Agilist involved in Agile adoption. It teaches high-value coaching skills, step by step, from "coaching by objective" to managing mutually successful engagements.

  • Leverage coaching to create aha moments that lead to real change

  • Learn dozens of coaching techniques and more than a hundred powerful questions

  • Help people uncover blind spots and assess their opportunities more clearly

  • Offer your expertise while maintaining your coaching mindset

  • Help people improve performance by connecting them with their values, goals, and strengths

  • Blend professional coaching with group facilitation so both work better

  • Become a great coach by making coaching a natural extension of who you are

The coaching exercises and resources in the appendices are available as free downloads. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. About This eBook
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
    1. What Is Professional Coaching?
    2. Who Is This Book For?
    3. What Makes Professional Coaching Valuable for Agilists?
    4. What Is in This Book?
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. About the Authors
  9. 1 Basics of Professional Coaching
    1. What Is Professional Coaching?
    2. Supportive Behaviors
    3. Professional Coaching Defined
    4. Coaching Terminology
    5. Professional Coaching Is Not the Only Tool
    6. People Do What They Want to Do
    7. Focus on the Person Instead of the Issue
    8. Our Coaching Toolbox: Principles, Objectives, and Techniques
    9. Objective-Based Coaching
    10. Starting a Coaching Conversation
    11. Objective: Rapport Building
    12. Objective: Identify the Session Purpose
    13. Objective: The Aha Moment
    14. Objective: Forward Motion (aka Planning)
    15. Objective: The Associated Goal
    16. Identifying the Session Purpose versus the Associated Goal
    17. Objective: Learning and Growth
    18. An Example Coaching Conversation
    19. Powerful Questions: The Primary Tool of Professional Coaching
    20. Your Mindset Determines the Kinds of Questions You Ask
    21. The Seven Characteristics of Powerful Questions
    22. Powerful Question Anti-Patterns
    23. Applying Professional Coaching to Teams and Organizations
    24. Chapter Summary
    25. Self-Assessment
    26. Suggested Next Steps
  10. 2 Professional Coaching in Depth
    1. Professional Coaching Starts with Permission
    2. The Session Purpose
    3. The Session Purpose Is a Specific Outcome for the Conversation
    4. The Coachee’s True Session Purpose Is Probably a Surprise to Both of You
    5. An Example of Determining the Session Purpose
    6. Success Criteria for the Session Purpose
    7. Exploring the Coachee’s Mental Landscape
    8. Forward Motion (aka Planning)
    9. Excitement, Motivation, and Resolve
    10. Real Next Steps
    11. Accountability
    12. A Coaching Approach versus Managing and Project Managing
    13. Looking for Discrepancies
    14. Closing a Coaching Session
    15. When You Are Running Out of Time
    16. Turning Loose Ends into Coaching Assignments
    17. Moving Wrap-Up Actions Earlier in the Conversation
    18. Coaching Techniques
    19. Coaching Technique: Personalizing
    20. Coaching Technique: Depersonalizing
    21. An Extended Example of Professional Coaching
    22. “The Standup” Take 1: No Assistance Requested
    23. “The Standup” Take 2: The Scrum Master Reaches Out to an Agile Expert
    24. “The Standup” Take 3: The Scrum Master Reaches Out to a Coach
    25. Chapter Summary
    26. Self-Assessment
    27. Suggested Next Steps
  11. 3 Acting as a Mirror
    1. Neutrality: The Absence of Distortion
    2. Fully Absorbing Information
    3. Presence
    4. Patience
    5. Going with the Flow
    6. Emotional Intelligence
    7. Consider Your Response
    8. Reflecting the Coachee in Your Response
    9. Create a Space That Invites Inner Reflection
    10. Coaching Technique: Notifying
    11. Maintain the Coachee’s Point of View
    12. Avoid Paraphrasing When Coaching
    13. Use Reiterating Instead of Paraphrasing to Move the Conversation Forward
    14. Helping the Coachee Focus
    15. Invite Prioritization
    16. Coaching Technique: Summarizing
    17. Keep the Session on Track without Taking the Coachee Off Track
    18. Coaching Technique: Orienting to Session Purpose
    19. Orienting to a New Session Purpose
    20. Using the Team to Augment Your Coaching
    21. A Complete Summary of Professional Coaching
    22. Shaping Your Coaching Self
    23. Chapter Summary
    24. Self-Assessment
    25. Suggested Next Steps
  12. 4 Offering Expertise
    1. Resisting the Urge to Provide Unsolicited Expertise
    2. Handling Explicit Requests for Expertise
    3. Proactively Raising Awareness of the Value of Coaching
    4. Coaching Technique: Redirecting
    5. Coaching Technique: Highlighting
    6. Sharing Expertise with a Professional Coaching Mindset
    7. Sharing the “Minimum Viable” Amount of Expertise
    8. Feedback Is a Form of Expertise
    9. Giving Praise and Criticism Is Like Playing a Game of Hot and Cold
    10. Return to Professional Coaching as Soon as Possible
    11. We All Have Blind Spots
    12. Applying a Coaching Mindset to Teaching
    13. Creating a Self-Serve Knowledge-Sharing Environment
    14. Using Agile and Modeling Agile
    15. Publishing Your Capabilities
    16. Catalog of Services
    17. Guidelines for Sharing Feedback and Expertise
    18. Additional Considerations for Sharing Feedback and Expertise
    19. Embrace Not Knowing
    20. Acknowledge the Coachee’s Contributions
    21. Encourage the Coachee’s Learning and Growth
    22. What if Their Approach Is Not as Good as My Approach?
    23. What if They Make a “Bad” Decision?
    24. Receiving Feedback as a Coach
    25. Chapter Summary
    26. Self-Assessment
    27. Suggested Next Steps
  13. 5 Coaching toward Performance
    1. Connecting People with Their Best Selves
    2. Personal Inventory
    3. Creating a Personal Inventory
    4. Our Differences Shape Our Choices
    5. Shifting from Obstacles to Goals
    6. Coaching Technique: Orienting to Goals
    7. Coaching Technique: Determining Goals and Vision
    8. Providing Feedback on the Coachee’s Journey
    9. Coaching Technique: Encouraging
    10. Coaching Technique: Acknowledging
    11. Coaching Technique: Challenging
    12. Coaching Technique: Celebrating
    13. Rewiring Our Thought Patterns
    14. What We Do Now Is How We’ve Succeeded So Far
    15. Coaching Technique: Reinterpreting
    16. Coaching Technique: Reevaluating
    17. Coaching Technique: Repatterning
    18. Coaching Technique: Reflection
    19. The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Rewiring
    20. More Opportunities for the Coachee to Rewire Their Thought Patterns
    21. Opportunities for Coachee Self-Improvement
    22. Team Self-Coaching
    23. Supporting Coachee Improvement Efforts
    24. Chapter Summary
    25. Self-Assessment
    26. Suggested Next Steps
  14. 6 Being the Best Coach You Can Be
    1. Bring Your Whole Self to Coaching
    2. Building Rapport with Humor
    3. Coaching Technique: Lightening
    4. The Practical Application of Intuition
    5. Coaching Technique: Intuition
    6. Metacognition: Translating Your Experience into Coaching
    7. Leverage Your Emotional Intelligence
    8. Social Awareness
    9. Self-Awareness
    10. Self-Management
    11. Relationship Management
    12. Emotional Intelligence in Action
    13. Responding to the Coachee’s Feelings
    14. Coaching Technique: Releasing
    15. Experiment and Take Risks to Grow as a Coach
    16. Consider Specialized Tools and Techniques
    17. Visualization
    18. Role-Playing
    19. Interrupting
    20. Incorporate Coaching Skills into Your Everyday Interactions
    21. Pursue Excellence
    22. Self-Coaching
    23. Self-Retrospectives
    24. Chapter Summary
    25. Self-Assessment
    26. Suggested Next Steps
  15. 7 Leveraging Group Facilitation
    1. The Best Results Emerge from Self-Organizing Teams
    2. Growing a Team toward Self-Organization
    3. Facilitation Structures and Practices That Maximize Coachee Choice
    4. Powerful Activities—Powerful Questions for Teams
    5. Example: Team with the Best Results Ever
    6. Example: Shared Visioning
    7. Additional Opportunities for Team Coaching
    8. Case Studies
    9. The Nonviolent Communication Retrospective
    10. A Tale of Two Teams
    11. An Organization-Level Coaching Conversation
    12. Chapter Summary
    13. Self-Assessment
    14. Suggested Next Steps
  16. 8 The Coaching Engagement
    1. Discovering the Work That Needs Doing
    2. Doing the Work
    3. Growing Agility
    4. Using Agile and Coaching to Become Agile
    5. Managing Coaching Work via a Backlog
    6. Measuring Agility
    7. What’s Your Coaching Engagement Model?
    8. Coaching Contrasted with Other Services
    9. Coaching versus Therapy
    10. Coaching versus Consulting
    11. Using Professional Coaching as a Consultant
    12. The Coaching Agreement for the Coaching Engagement
    13. Creating a Coaching Agreement
    14. Creating a Coaching Agreement with a Team
    15. Creating a Coaching Agreement with Leadership
    16. Creating a Coaching Agreement in the Moment
    17. Coaching Behaviors That Require a Coaching Agreement
    18. Turning Verbal Agreements into Written Agreements
    19. The Path to Creating a Coaching Agreement
    20. Chapter Summary
    21. Self-Assessment
    22. Suggested Next Steps
  17. Appendix A: Exercises
    1. Guidelines for the Exercises
    2. Exercises for Chapter 1
    3. Exercises for Chapter 2
    4. Exercises for Chapter 3
    5. Exercises for Chapter 4
    6. Exercises for Chapter 5
    7. Exercises for Chapter 6
    8. Exercises for Chapter 7
    9. Exercises for Chapter 8
    10. Additional Exercises
  18. Appendix B: References
    1. Our Coaching Principles
    2. Coaching Objectives
    3. Behaviors to Do and Avoid
    4. Professional Coaching Starting Reference
    5. Guidelines for Creating Powerful Questions
    6. Additional Powerful Questions
    7. Guidelines for Sharing Feedback and Expertise
    8. Guidelines for Staying in the Coaching Mode as Much as Possible
    9. Example Descriptions of an Agile Coach and Professional Coaching
    10. Example Coaching Agreements—For Individuals, Teams, and Organizations
    11. Example Service Offerings
    12. Coaching Techniques
    13. Recommended Resources
  19. Index
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