Systems coaching competencies Flashcards
What are systems?
Any group of people with a shared goal or a shared interest.
Why do we name teams in an agile environment?
So that the team treats itself as a single entity, not a group of individuals
What is a systems agreement? (System Alliance)
A set of rules of engagement between people within the team
Why is designing a systems agreement important?
People who have an agreement to handle conflict et al outperform other teams.
It creates accountability within the team.
It can be used to introduce new people to the team.
How do you use the systems agreement with new team members?
Joining or leaving a team creates a whole new team, so the agreement needs to be redone from scratch. The old agreement can be used as a starting point.
How can be a system agreement crafted?
Everyone should be present, in person preferably, else remotely. Then, cover 4 points:
1) What do you want your culture to be? Serious and to the point? Fun and playful? Other?
2) What do you need to become wildly successful as a team? Showing up on time? Communication without blame?
3) What are the ground rules around conflict and decision making?
4) What can the team count on to hold yourself accountable to the systems agreement?
Put it somewhere publicly visible!
When should a system agreement be updated?
After a retrospective, or when a team member joins or leaves.
What is the system coaching agreement?(Coaching Alliance)
- It defines the relationship between the coach and the team.
- It defines what is and isn’t in scope for coaching, how coaching is going to happen, who is involved
- It defines what the system needs from the coach and what the coach needs from the system.
How should a system coaching agreement be formalized?
Depends, can be written and signed or done informally during a conversation. Since it can contain sensitive information, it should not be put in a public place in its entirety.
How do you set up a system coaching agreement?
- Do it after the system agreement, so that the team is aligned on how to work together
- . Everyone should be present, in person preferably, else remotely. Then, cover 5 points:
1) What is the client’s agenda that I am here to help with.
2) What are the particulars of our relationship? Fees, times to meet, number of sessions?
3) What are the topics or areas of discussion which are off-limits?
4) What does the system need from the coach to get most out of the relationship? How do they want me to show up? Fun and easy going? Tough and call them out on things?
5) What do I need from the team? Like please don’t have any secrets between me and individuals from the team, confidentiality, GDPR/how is the data used?
How do you make a coaching/system alliance work if the team did not reach out for consulting?
Make sure that we are not driving another’s agenda with the coaching, and that the system understands that. Facilitate a discussion with the sponsor and the team to unearth issues the team might be having. Then, segue into the agreements with “how can I help with that”
How do you create trust with the team?
- Being empathic, having no hidden agenda, not judging the team members, showing a genuine intrest in the team, treat people with respect
What are the core competencies regarding Observing the System?
Coach helps team to idenfity and understand the system’s outer roles
- Coach helps the system to identify and understand the system’s inner roles
- Coach helps the system to identify and understand the systems hidden (ghost) roles
- Coach helps identify and understand how system will work with outer roles
- Coach helps identify and understand how system will work with inner roles
- Coach helps identify and understand how system will work with ghost roles
- Coach exercises Deep Democracy in order to ensure that all the voices of the sytems have a representation and marginalized voices are brought forward
- Coach helps the system to identify and understand the impacts of rank and privilege and assists them in determining how they will best work with them
Which roles are there in a system?
Inner roles, outer roles and hidden roles
What are outer roles?
The external function that we see, like: Job Title, things they do, like “Tech Lead” “Driver”, but can also be in a family “the laundry guy”, “The cook” etc.
What is the relationship between a role and a human?
Humans can have a role, but they do not become the role. That means that the tasks of a role need to be done by the team, but not necessarily by an individual. It is important that the role is occupied,i.e. actually done by the team.
What is a role in relation to a system?
A required function that needs to be operated for a system to become healthy. They are occupied by persons to serve the system.
What is an inner role?
Roles which are related to keep the system functioning, the emotional health of the system and so on. Outer role focus on getting the work done, inner roles focus on the emotional part.
Example: Devil’s advocate, Tension Breaker, the emotional go to person, the visionary, the disturber.
What is a hidden role?
Also called the Ghost Role. It’s a leftover sentiment in a system which still resonates on the system.
Example: Former Boss, but it could also mean: Another previous coach. Before the merger. Before Agile/Waterfall
Could also be: Inferred meaning of a previous role
What is a sign that outer roles need to be clarified?
If people are doing double work or no work at all because it is unclear who does which work
How should outer roles be clarified with a system?
They are really asking “What work needs to be done by the system and who does it”
Help them understand that roles are not humans
Collaborative exercise:
- What are the humans that we have? (Job Title vs Functions)
- Clarify that the one with a specific job title might not be the best person to do a certain thing
- Then, what are the functions of these roles and what are we expecting? Have people write all the stuff they are doing on post its, whether they should be officially doing it or not. Then put the post its on the appropriate roles, to clarify which role should be doing what. Then, rotate through the roles and add things which are not already defined for that role. (What I think I should be doing vs what I think they should be doing).
- Then, focus first on things that people in that role agree that this is part of their role (don’t discuss capacity, but: is this a function about the role)
- Regarding the other stuff: Conversation around the other stuff, who does it, how is it shared, as well as expectations around the roles
- Then, discuss who takes ownership. IF we need them, then we have to do them. If no one wants to do them, do we really need them? Experiment: Let’s just not do it?
- Then, what are the impediments that we have to do the functions? Do we have the ability/knowledge/skills to do these things? If not, what support do we need?
=> Team needs to take ownership over their roles, and accountabilities
=> We might be finding stuff we thought we need, but we don’t, or stuff we missed, but actually need
How should inner roles be clarified within a system?
Very similar to outer roles, simply other focus
System needs to be educated inner roles exist and are necessary, probably collect them like the outer roles
System needs to be educated that the role needs to be seperated from how it is carried out (if someone who is analytical and sceptical is also mean about it, it does not mean the role is bad)
In case the team is frustrated with a role, ask: How is the role useful to the team? How is it (Attempting to be) helpful? What would happen if we would not have that role?
If it’s good in general - what’s frustrating about it now?
Also, focus on: How does it feel to be in that role? The good and the bad. How would it be to not do the role any more?
Maybe let people switch roles, see what it feels like
How should ghost roles be clarified within a system?
Identify and name the role (e.g. The Ghost of Waterfall), educate the team about ghost roles, normalize it, maybe there is more than one.
Then look at the role, focus on: How is the ghost trying to be helpful? They usually don’t hang around for nothing. What is the purpose? Honor that role!
Then find out the impact of the ghost on the team. Helpful? Harmful? Stress? Frustration?
Then discuss, what are we going to do with the ghost? Continue with it? Let it leave? Transfer parts of the ghost to a real role? How can we get rid of it?
Maybe the team needs to grief the ghost before letting it go
Then, what are we going to do when the ghost comes back to visit? How are we going to identify it, and what are we going to do about it? => Working Agreement
