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Why do you prefer agile consulting over agile coaching?

Discover why Martin Hinshelwood prefers agile consulting over coaching in this insightful video, exploring the benefits of short-term engagements for agile teams.

Published on 14 March 2023

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

3 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/FJjiCodxyK4

Why do you prefer agile consulting over agile coaching?

💡“Why do I gravitate towards Agile Consulting over Agile Coaching?”

This question pops up more often than a jack-in-the-box. Let’s illuminate this topic and unearth the power of internal leadership and sustainable change. 🚀

Leadership: The Core of Business Success

Leadership is the heart of any organisation, pumping energy and direction to all its parts. It’s not just a role; it’s the dynamo that pushes an organisation towards its goals. 🎯 Outsourcing leadership? That’s like hiring a surrogate to run your marathon. 🏃‍♂️

Too often, external Agile Coaches step in, bridging the chasm between traditional and Agile leadership. And while this might work in the short term, it creates a crutch that hinders true growth. It’s like training wheels that never come off. 🚴‍♀️

Unshackling the Training Wheels

Imagine a software team battling a product riddled with issues. A complete rewrite seems like a solid plan, but hold your horses!

If the same team, with their ingrained habits and perspectives, embarks on the rewrite, chances are, the same issues will resurface.

The same can happen with Agile Coaches. Even the best coach can’t spur true evolution if teams hold onto old ways. Unless individuals are ready to challenge their mindset, it’s like rewriting code with the same bugs!

As an Agile Consultant, I prefer to come in for a brief stint, empowering the team to innovate and improve their processes. It’s about sparking internal change and mindset shifts, not about being a long-term safety net. 💪🌱

Riding the Budget Wave

Agile Coaches often face the chopping block in lean times, especially if organisations feel they’re not getting bang for their buck. Once the coaches are gone, teams often revert to old practices, highlighting the transient change coaching sometimes brings. It’s like a sandcastle washed away by the tide. 🌊

The Agile Consultant’s Promise

Here’s what sets me apart as an Agile Consultant. I equip organisations with the tools, insights, and mindsets they need. Then I step back. They take the reins, learn from the journey, and drive the transformation. It’s about creating self-reliant teams that don’t need an external safety harness. 📈

Balancing Act

My usual model is to work intensively for several weeks to a month, plant the seeds of transformation, and then transition to an advisory role. I provide value without creating dependency. This ensures the change is enduring, robust, and, above all, transformative. 🔥

So, that’s why I champion Agile Consulting over Agile Coaching. I believe in sparking change and then passing the torch to the organisation to carry it forward.

Ready to lead your organisation towards self-reliance and lasting change? Let’s connect and strategise ways to cultivate leadership and spark lasting change. Ready to start your Agile journey? 🚀

Keywords: Leadership, Agile Consulting, Sustainable Change, Self-reliance

Hashtags: #AgileConsulting #Leadership #SelfReliance #SustainableChange

Hashtags:

#Agile, #AgileCoach, #Scrum, #ScrumMaster, #AgileCentre, #ProductOwner, #BusinessAnalyst, #AgileProjectManagement, #BusinessAgility, #ScrumTraining, #AgileProductDevelopment.

About Naked Agility

Naked Agility is an #agile consultancy that specializes in #scrumtraining, #agilecoaching and #agileconsulting to help teams evolve, integrate, and continuously improve.

We recognize the positive impact that a happy AND inspired workforce can have on customer experience, and we actively help organizations to tap into the power of creative, collaborative, and high-performing teams that is unique to #agile and #scrum environments.

If you are interested in #agiletraining, visit https://nkdagility.com/training/

If you have identified the need for #agilecoaching and #agileconsulting, visit https://nkdagility.com/agile-consulting-coaching/

We would love to work with you.

#scrum #agile #scrumteam #agileprojectmanagement #agileproductdevelopment #projectmanagement #productdevelopment #agilecoach #agileconsultant #agiletraining #scrumtraining #scrumorg

Oh, that’s a good question. So the question is why do I prefer agile consulting over agile coaching? And for me, I believe the leadership within your organization is a business critical function. Right, this is not something that you should be outsourcing to somebody else. And I feel like too many organizations bring in coaches who are their semi-filled time probably over a number of years, and those coaches are bringing leadership to the organization. They’re filling the gap between traditional organizational leadership and agile leadership, and they become a crutch for the people in the organization. The people in the organization don’t actually learn to do things differently.

Um, it’s like for if you were to equate it to software engineering, it’s like the mythical rewrite of a product. Right, you go rewrite the product, but you don’t really realise that the people that built the crappy coded product you have right now are the same people that you’ve got doing the rewrite. And why would you think it would be any different? Right, and this is exactly the same thing. You have the same people in your organization. So when those coaches rotate off, either because budgets get constrained, right, because that goes in fluctuations over the years, we’re in a budget constrained environment right now.

Um, and we’re seeing big swathes of organizations divesting themselves of agile coaches and scrum masters, mostly in the contracting space, because um, they’re not seeing the value. Right, they’re not seeing the value anymore, and those people are leaving. And then the organization’s falling back into its old traditional practices because there was no actual learning taking place inside the organization.

So the way I look at it is an agile consultant’s job is to go in, in a very short space of time, help people in the organization understand what they need to do and how they need to change and work on their mindsets. And then they’re the ones doing the work. They’re the ones taking it forward. They’re the ones cleaning up their own mess and dealing with the issues that are a result of their decisions. They’re the ones learning. Right?

Um, so then you’ve got that intrinsic to the way your organization functions now. So when the agile consultant leaves, they’re no longer that crutch. Right? So a normal engagement model for me is to only work full time with a team for a couple of weeks, maybe a month tops. I think the longest engagement I did was three and a half weeks.

Um, but then come back periodically, um, and help with advice for the scrum masters, advice for leaders in the organization. Have those constant touch points where they’re bringing me some of their problems, and I’m helping them figure out other things to try, right, that might help resolve them. So that I’m not in full time, I’m not helping them full-time.

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