Second Interview Flashcards
What do you think are the key characteristics of a good coach?
- Observation
- Trust
- Empathy
- Communication
- Friendliness
- Approachable
- Persistence
How would you hit the ground running?
- Observe the team. Sit with them and spend time with the team, but also the individuals on the team beginning with the EL, PO and if necessary the EM.
- Establish what metrics they are using to measure their progress
- Based on my observations of the team, then craft together a continuous improvement plan that I would confirm with the EL and PO of the team which I would start to execute as soon as possible.
- This would essentially be some kind of high performance tree like map that identified the next steps for high performance and ideally the team would be empowered to choose what to work on next.
- From there, the coaching, mentoring, teaching, facilitation would kick in to gear. I would also use the Agile maturity model as some kind of guide/input to that process.
What do you understand the difference to be between an Agile Coach and a Scrum Master?
- Scrum Masters focus entirely on the Scrum framework and typically work with only one team.
- Agile Coaches don’t just focus on the operational teams, but also middle management and senior leaders. The are the catalysts for driving continuous improvement and the Agile transformation across the business.
- The book I read on Agile Coaching for practitioners had a the conclusion that we should be focused 30% on operational teams, 60% on middle management and 10% on senior leaders.
What do you see as the challenges for transformational change at BookingGo?
Problems
- Not sure the Leadership Team is fully supportive of Agile Transformation?
- Operational people can have a tendency to not want to change the way they work.
- People don’t see the value of Agile within the organization.
- Lots of opinions lead to little decision making and action (a problem in the coaching team?)
- Don’t spend enough time with middle managers and those outside of the operational teams.
Solutions
- Us.
- The value of Agile has to be understood at the Leadership team level and ideally not just for product teams, but also for commercial teams.
- Teams need to have the right level of support from the coaching team in which its value is understood and recognized.
What articles, books, videos, games etc… do you currently have in your toolkit that you could use to enhance a team’s knowledge of Agile?
- PO Toolkit
- Pichler’s book on Product Ownership
- Coaching Agile Teams by Adkins
- Agile Coaching for Practitioners
- Agile Metrics in Action
- Key Focus
I also want to write my own and combine my writing skills with Agile as well as create a library of video-based teaching and training - similar to the Khan Academy.
I read so much each week and watch so many talks, give me a week and I could add to that list I’m sure.
What is your approach to helping somebody that isn’t aware that they need help?
- Built trust and remove the individual from the working environment. I did this with Jacob.
- Understand what their needs and wants are
- I would focus upon asking them questions that make visible the issues so as to increase their self-awareness, but this would be done in a gentle friendly manner.
- Example - MG
What would be your approach if the team was ‘frosty’ in their reception of you?
- Observe and find out why.
- Re-establish trust with open, vulnerable and honest dialogue.
- Identify 1-2-1 opportunities with individuals especially the EL and PO.
- Get to know the team/individuals
- Hang fire on making immediate changes until trust has been established.
What would your response be to out-of-the-box solutions?
I think there are some defaults that are good to start with especially with new teams, but over time each team is going to look different and implement Agile differently and this has to be respected. What works for one team is not the same as for another team.
There is a foundational understanding of Agile especially with regard to values and principals that needs to be established, but after that what gets built on top of that is different.
