What Does an Agile Coach Want for Christmas?

Dear Santa,

I am an agile coach. My work-life is quite a challenge. Please give me something that will help with these problems:

As an agile coach…

• I want easy-to-find improvement ideas for agile teams that will match their context, regarding culture, industry, language, maturity, team roles, and ways of working, so that I don’t have to wade through hundreds of context-free search results.
• I want a simple way to discuss my agile-related experiences with other coaches, without having to write long blog posts or join noisy LinkedIn and Slack groups, which all costs me far too much time.
• I want to be able to coach teams remotely and understand what they are doing from a distance, so that I can work with multiple teams concurrently without destroying the quality of my work.
• I want to scale up my value so that my contributions are not dependent on just my face-to-face availability and so that I can offer additional services as an author, speaker, and consultant.
• I want ideas on how to manage the organizational transformation to upper management levels, so that the agile movement doesn’t get blocked or sabotaged by those who care more about other things.
• I want to show my stakeholders that I’m a valuable team member and a valued contributor to the organization, who can provide evidence of the progress of organizational transformation.
• I want the behavioral changes that I have suggested to stick, so that the agile teams that I have coached keep moving forward, even when I’m not around anymore to help them.
• I want a simpler way to develop my skills and experience and to get better and better every week, for personal satisfaction, career development, and having an impact on organizations.

Dear Santa, please help me with these simple requests before Christmas so that I will be a happier person in 2018.

Thank you,

An agile coach.

p.s. No need to solve it all at the same time.

Dear agile coach,

I have read your list of requests with great interest.

For now, the best I can do is to give you access to the Mind Settlers app, created by the Agility Scales team. Sorry, it will not solve all your problems before 2018, but it’s a small step in the right direction.

Your friend,

Santa

p.s. You think your work-life as an agile coach is hard? Be glad you’re not a middle manager. At least, you have a great future ahead of you!

HEY, COME GET YOUR OWN CHRISTMAS PRESENT HERE!

(photo credit: © 2016 PokemonaDeChroma, Creative Commons 2.0)