Agile Coach Scorecard Anti-pattern or Opportunity ?

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Description:
There is a drive to prove the value of an Agile Coach in most large corporations. Agile Coaching is about soft skills and mentoring team members. It is hard to put numbers around that. The majority of coaches’ reactions to this tends to be on the negative side. I was one of those coaches. That was until I was asked to create an Agile Coach Scorecard. This talk will review the criteria of the Scorecard.

The Scorecard focuses on team metrics, retrospective data, and resolving continuous improvement items. While these items focus on the output of teams and the organization, they can be used to steer teams and show a coach’s value. Data trends in team metrics can show coaching suggestions to be presented to the team as option or areas of opportunity to the organization that are impeding teams from delivering.

Using data as a way to coach teams is also seen as taboo by a large part of the coaching community. I have had a lot experience from being in the racing world and my crew chief used data to coach me to wins. In one of the races, I was in second place and about a minute behind the leader, with three laps to go. I had the opportunity to overtake the leader unitizing the advantage of my trucks setup and a faster route. Right before entering the first section of the faster route, my crew chief came on reminding me of my dropping oil pressure. He urged me to not take the first section but to take the following two. The strain on engine with the low oil pressure could have resulted in the catastrophic failure of the engine. He was confident that based on the lap time trend, if I did this for the remaining three laps, there was a good chance that I would win.

What would have you done? Risk it all, ignoring the coaching and potential setting up the win, or follow the guidance to a win? If you want to know what I did and about data-driven coaching, attend this session.