Since I began my career as an agile coach, I have been on an incredible journey of development, both personal and professional. A few years ago, a mentor of mine suggested I identify some key areas that I would like to focus my professional development efforts on.
I created a list of six lines of effort that I would like to grow in.
- Coaching Agile Organizations (Enterprise Agile Coaching)
- Professional Coaching (Leadership, Executive)
- Facilitation (teams, large groups)
- Thought Leadership (Public Speaking, Training, Writing — anything that is One-to-Many)
- Learning & Development (L&D) and Organizational Development (OD)
- Remote & Distributed (everything)
I then composed a personal assessment for each of these lines of effort. Where am I now? Where do I want to go? I then identified some things to get me where I want to be (focus areas).
From this thorough analysis, I was able to identify my growing edge for each of these lines of effort. This will guide my future efforts as I pursue learning and growth to be a true master of my craft.
Line of Effort 1: Coaching Agile Organizations
Enterprise Agile Coaching
Assessment:
Where am I now? I have been coaching teams and leaders since 2009, serving in a variety of roles as a coach, trainer, and servant leader in both the military and the engineering/technology industry. In 2014 I decided to begin the process of separation from the military to pursue a career in technology and find a way to put my interpersonal and leadership skills in service outside the military. I completed an MBA and a masters degree in higher education administration, with several courses focused on behavioral leadership, organization design, adult learning, and coaching. This coursework and engagement with peers and faculty in both programs proved to be instrumental to my future success as a coach. As part of my transition and search for opportunities in the greater Raleigh, NC area, I became heavily involved in the Raleigh area agile community in late 2015, attending local user group meetup events and receiving mentorship from coaches in the area. In 2016 I joined a technology company in Mebane, NC as an agile coach. Along with my peers, I coached 190 engineers across 22 teams in three countries working with embedded systems (hardware, software, and firmware) as they adopted agile practices and experimented with better ways of working. From 2016 to 2017, I attended a Scrum for Hardware course in Denver twice, the Agile Coaches Bootcamp in Boston, took a multi-week coaching course, formed and engaged with several coaching circles, joined the Raleigh Agile Leadership Network (ALN) leadership team, and attended many other workshops and conferences to grow as a coach. In late 2017, I joined a consulting firm as an agile coach, and I work with several embedded systems and software clients in the early stages of an agile adoption, scaling agile principles and practices across many teams.
Where do I want to go? I want to validate my coaching expertise at the team level and become a recognized leader in the agile coach space. I also want to continue to mentor agile leaders, but be more deliberate about mentoring CSPs and other coaches not only as a lean-agile practitioners and coaches but also as servant leaders and facilitators. I want to be deliberate in how I participate in change and reshaping the world. My mission is to help people, teams, and organizations pursue the ability to engage and affect their environment so that they can adapt to a complex and ever changing world.
I also want to find a way to coach and facilitate as a servant leader outside of the agile space. Either through my church or local schools, I want to bring my expertise and service to domains outside of the technology industry. I have started to make some inroads with my church, part of the greater Apex family of faith for the UMC. Would like to do some work there and maybe expand out into the NC conference of the UMC. My pastor at 519Church is helping to facilitate this.
Things to get me there (Focus Areas):
- coaching relationships with clients (1:1 coaching conversations)
- seek opportunities to coach senior leaders (executive coaching)
- look for opportunities for multi-team engagements, and enterprise coaching.
- gain more skills/knowledge in the discovery track of product development (lean startup, pragmatic marketing, UX, design thinking, etc.)
- ALN involvement, connect the region — the Triangle groups are starting to come together, we should extend to Triad and Charlotte, then maybe AgileFlorida, Atlanta
- start own meetup in Apex area?
- mentor other agile coaches (toward CSP or other goals?)
Line of Effort 2: Professional Coaching
Leadership, Executive
Assessment:
Where am I now?
I am on a coaching journey of curiosity, exploration and learning. I have an incredible passion and drive for engagement with leaders, teams and organizations to build better relationships, tools, and systems for future work. I explore organizational leadership and design, human systems dynamics, social systems design, and what it means to be a whole person at work. I love to serve others on their personal journey of discovery by partnering with leaders and teams throughout blossoming agile organizations. I build coaching relationships and generate written coaching agreements with leaders and teams to help them set and keep clear intentions. I work hard to model empirical process control and data driven decisions to cultivate organizations that are not averse to risks and embrace learning as the upside of experimentation. I provide a challenge and forward focus to cultivate a desire to improve. I am always mindful of my presence when I coach. I practice engaged listening to be authentic and ensure alignment to purpose. I observe, articulate, reframe, reflect, and make distinctions to acknowledge what is happening and lean toward self-awareness and action. I serve as a witness to others as human beings, with innate value and potential, and respect and process what emerges. I fulfill the immense responsibility of the coaching relationship through balance and self-management. I avoid giving advice and honor others’ ability to be resourceful and whole. I recognize that as a coach, I am not a peer. I provide servant leadership, self-awareness and a focus on process in ways that allow others to create and use supportive systems and structures. I harness these concepts and keep them front of mind as I coach and train people to use an agile approach to product development, experiment with better ways of working, and to become high performing teams. Many of these ideas are incorporated into my coach approach, a vision statement for me and how I want to engage with others in that capacity.
I was able to do a really fun and rewarding experiment at ARCA with some leaders in technology, including my boss, the CTO. I drafted a coaching agreement document with each of them, and had focused 1:1 coaching sessions weekly or bi-weekly. These were anywhere from 30-60 minutes long, and focused on whatever that leader wanted to talk about. I really think I sharpened my professional coaching axe quite a bit with this, and I want to do more of it with current clients.
Where do I want to go?
Within the next two years I want to complete a professional coaching certification, either through the Certified Professional CoActive Coach (CPCC) through Coaches Training Institute (CTI) or Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC) through CRR Global. I want to develop a broader client base so that I can serve others. This will undoubtedly help me in the art of coaching agile teams and leaders.
I think my long term goal is to start a professional coaching business. I need to give some thought as to what I would focus on (leadership?)
Things to get me there (Focus Areas):
- pursue professional coaching certification. I would like to do CTI’s CPCC program. I may be able to start this next year.
- pursue some sort of Assessment certification (MBTI, DiSC, 360)
- stay engaged with coaching circles to practice skills (also applies to agile coaching). I try to attend RGalen circles when I can. I am part of circle that meets every Friday, but I have fallen off that (need to re-engage), and the VTT Slack community has some coaches-in-training that I can leverage for some more practice
Line of Effort 3: Facilitation
teams, large groups
Assessment:
Where am I now?
While I have many years of practice as a trainer from the military, I have only in the past few years started to develop specific skills as a facilitator. The ACI Team Agile Facilitator course gave me some great tools last year. I have been seeking every opportunity I can to grow in this space. I was able to attend a visual facilitation workshop hosted by Stuart Little of Radtac last year at the Scrum Gathering, San Diego. Since then I have incorporated small icons, textual emphasis, and color to my flipcharts. Only a few weeks ago I took my first stab at live illustration, and I have had one more full day of practice at a TODN conference.
I of course facilitate many agile team meetings proscribed by various frameworks, but I enjoy opportunities where I can serve a group or team in an ad hoc meeting designed to solve a particular problem or address a particular issue. In this case I really love doing preparation work, including meeting with meeting sponsor or owner, developing a purpose and agenda, and then making arrangements for the meeting. Then, in during the meeting I strive to remain impartial and create a container for them to explore their content.
Where do I want to go?
I want to get better at graphic facilitation and live illustration, but I also want to try sketchnotes. I may be able to practice this against some of my favorite blogs (should look for a willing guinea pig).
I know that i need to work harder to withhold judgement and restrain personal bias as a facilitator. I have strong opinions on a lot a of things, and I need to hold all this back when I am facilitating meetings for others. I also need to develop better skills with conflict resolution
I want to facilitate a multi-day offsite workshop, maybe one with a senior leadership team designed to get alignment or to develop a quarterly or annual strategy.
Things to get me there (Focus Areas):
- do more Agile Team Facilitation, particular themed retrospectives to help teams explore issues
- engage with more cross-departmental meetings
- conflict resolution
- Organizational Heartbeat (Cadence & Strategy, tied to OD)
- Executive Facilitation (leadership offsite)
- partner with Laura Burke for mentorship and practice in this space
Line of Effort 4: Thought Leadership
Public Speaking, Training, Writing — anything that is One-to-Many
Assessment:
Where am I now?
I have had three speaking engagements at conferences now (Scrum Gathering in San Diego March 2017, Southern Fried Agile November 2017, TriAgile April 2018). During each one, I have become more comfortable putting together content, whittling down to key points, and delivering. I have submitted talk proposals to a number of local conferences this year, and to AgileDev East.
I have quite a bit of experience training, and my graduate degree in Higher Education Administration has helped me tremendously to understand curriculum design, adult learning theory, and teaching techniques. I really enjoy putting together a course or workshop from scratch, and designing how I would facilitate it. I need to work more on delivery skills.
I have started to dabble a bit into what I am generally calling thought leadership on my blog, iterationsofjason.com. I posted one of my blog posts as an article on LinkedIn.
Where do I want to go?
I would like to continue to shoot for local conferences, but also throw my hat in the ring for some of the larger global conferences. I think a good 3-5 year goal would be to speak at an international conference. I still rely heavily on speaker notes, though, and I want to get better and deliver an impactful presentation more naturally.
I would like to grow skills in adult learning theory. Training from the Back of the Room would be a good start. I also want to become fluid weaving liberating structures into my training.
I would like to be more focused with my blog. It remains very low on my priority list, and my posts are sporadic at best. I would like to craft more high quality posts and then maybe repost on LinkedIn or medium, rather than only share as a link to my site on LI and Twitter.
Things to get me there (Focus Areas):
- talks at conferences
- workshops at conferences or with clients
- brining adult learning theory (pedagogy) into trainings
- more publishing–creation over consumption (slack, LinkedIn, IterationsofJason, Medium?)
- Look into & Develop content for ICAgile course (facilitation, leadership)
Line of Effort 5: Learning & Development (L&D) and Organizational Development (OD)
Assessment:
Where am I now?
My first interest in this topic was driven from exposure to Holacracy at ARCA. Through online research and connecting to a few other folks that are experimenting with Holacracy, I found a treasure trove of information and experiments related to non-hierarchical organizational structures. Coming from the military, I was a part of a high-functioning hierarchy. Hierarchy is the predominant organizational structure in the business world, but it is often dysfunctional. Decisions are slow, and people are disengaged, not doing their best work. I believe alternative organizational structures like Holacracy, Sociocracy, and the Cultural Operating System are the modes of future work.
Member of TODN since 2017 — regularly attend workshops and conferences.
Where do I want to go?
I have a few books on the subjects, but interested to find more. I also want to expand my network in this space, and move beyond a plural of focus on Holacracy. I am sure there are similar experiments out there.
I also want to explore more in organizational learning and development. I love the idea of a Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO), but I need to learn more.
Things to get me there (Focus Areas):
- Cultural Operating Systems for Open Allocation (i.e. Holacracy)
- Deliberately Developmental •Organizations (DDO)
- TODN involvement
- partner with Rachel Conerly & Tim Kelley with the Cultural Operating System, consider taking their course
Line of Effort 6: Remote & Virtual Work
everything distributed
Assessment:
Where am I now?
I never thought about remote or distributed work as a real issue until I left the military. In fact, the modern battlefield is highly distributed network of teams working asynchronously within a clear framework of intent. Communications technology is evolving everyday to navigate some of these challenges. The same is true in the business world, yet companies struggle with remote work. Part of this is a lack of trust, a larger problem is not clear intent for people to tie their efforts into, and a small portion is just misuse of tools. Either way, I had some great success with with distributed teams at ARCA, in both Italy and France. I am trying to bring some of those success patterns to current clients.
Where do I want to go?
I would like to grow skills with remote facilitation and training. I would love increase the proportion of time I facilitate and coach remotely, compared to onsite. Certainly, this profession will always need a face-to-face appearance, but with the right structure, I feel much of this work can be done in a distributed manner. I know a few folks working in this was as Agile coaches, I would like to mine them for ideas and approaches.
Things to get me there (Focus Areas):
- remote and future work
- distributed teams
- continue to follow VTT on Slack
- Remote meetup?
At the time of writing this, I have just accepted an offer from Fidelity Investments to be an Agile Coach in their Personal Investing business unit. I am eager to use this assessment to guide my development in that role.
Until the Next Iteration . . .
Jason