Sharpening the saw at the agile coaches symposium.

One of the seven habits of highly successful people is called “Sharpening the Saw.”  It is taking time off for self-care and personal development.  I took time off the blog and spent some time at the Uptake offices for the Agile Coaches Symposium in Chicago.  It was a great time and a valuable learning experience.

Working as a scrum master and agile coach is often a lonely duty.  You are spreading the word and sharing information with a skeptical audience.  Business and cultural forces often impede the agile maturity of the organization.  As a coach, you are spending your time serving as an example to others.  That is why it was nice to spend time with others in this profession and exchange information.

A few themes cropped up during the conference.  First, over 80% of the people at the meeting said that they had suffered from Impostor Syndrome.  It surprised me because when I have moments of doubt and disappointment, I chalked it up to something else. Those moments of darkness are Imposter Syndrome rearing its ugly head.  We did not have any easy answers to these issues, but discussing them in the open with others was still helpful.

Next, there is a trend in the business world for Project Managers and other waterfall types of people to brand themselves as agile coaches falsely.  These falsely branded coaches create plenty of situations where people without experience or the personal qualities of a coach try to bring agility to organizations.  The aftermath is typically a poorly applied implementation, and the agile movement is undermined.  We felt that some level of exposure and experience with Agile was necessary to help coach others.  The group agreed that a good coach “Wears the shoes and can talk about the walk.”  So be on the lookout for agile coaches who cannot find comfortable shoes to wander around the office.

There were plenty of other discussions.  I even talked about how my notion of story points has changed during my career.  The best part is spending time with other agile professionals and learning from them. I do not know what it is if that is not sharpening the saw.

Until next time.