Interest in professional coaching within the agile community has been growing and it is now widely agreed that it is a core competency of an Agile Coach. It is a skill that you must be adept at in order to qualify as a certified professional in Agile Coaching with ICAgile. There are many reasons for this but I wanted to start you out with a few.
1. Real & Lasting Change
– how real change happens so that it is sustainable
Advice is rented, a choice is owned. What I mean by that is as Agile Coaches we are helping to create change, and if we are only ever telling or instructing and not enabling the people we work with to be involved and have a choice, we will not achieve real and lasting change. People know that there are problems in their system, they feel the pain or frustration. But they often don’t have an outlet or a plan to solve them. Professional coaching gives us the ability to help people set goals and own the change. It enables us to help them find what they need, to solve their own problems.
2. Awareness
– seeing if what they are currently doing is helping them get to those goals or not
The first step in any change is awareness, this can take many forms such as; self, other or system awareness. Lack of awareness can stop us achieving what we want to. For example we could have the goal to improve a skill, and we maybe getting frustrated with our lack of  progress. It could be that patterns in our behaviour or structures within the system we inhabit are preventing, or making it challenging for us to achieve that goal. When you are in the situation or pattern it can be difficult to see these obstacles and how we may be perpetuating them and blocking ourselves.
As a neutral partner, a professional coach helps us see what is already there in a new way that allows us to gain awareness and make changes so that we can achieve our goal. Simply put…
“Coaching is bringing a person’s behaviours in line with their own goals”
Simon Powers
3. Motivation
-now that they have achieved the goal they set, they will want to do it again
Motivation is the fuel of actions. Professional coaching enables us to help individuals or teams to identify and achieve their goals. When we achieve a goal we feel good. We feel good because dopamine, the reward chemical is released in the brain. We then feel motivated to keep doing whatever caused that release. Motivation is what drives and sustains us in any action. We have now established a positive change cycle. Through the professional coaching process we can guide this and achieve continuous and sustainable improvement.
Learn Professional Coaching Skills For Agile Coaching
AWA offer a 3-day course accredited through ICAgile that teaches you professional coaching skills targeted at improving your Agile Coaching Practice. If you want a certified course that doesn’t overlook the coaching in Agile Coaching, this is the one for you. We hold classes in UK, Norway, USA and Portugal. To find a forthcoming course in your city check out the Agile Team Coach course page here.