- Resisting the Urge to Provide Unsolicited Expertise
- Handling Explicit Requests for Expertise
- Sharing the “Minimum Viable” Amount of Expertise
- We All Have Blind Spots
- Applying a Coaching Mindset to Teaching
- Creating a Self-Serve Knowledge-Sharing Environment
- Guidelines for Sharing Feedback and Expertise
- Additional Considerations for Sharing Feedback and Expertise
- Receiving Feedback as a Coach
- Chapter Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Creating a Self-Serve Knowledge-Sharing Environment
As an Agilist, you regularly observe opportunities to improve Agility. These observations can tempt you to make specific recommendations and to advocate for particular courses of action. Instead, consider leveraging your expertise and desire to help in a way that affords people more choice.
Let your observations guide you in deciding what to offer. For instance, you might observe an opportunity for people to benefit from technical practices or Kanban practices. You can then offer lunch-and-learns on these topics. Whoever shows up are potential allies. Attendance also helps gauge interest in topics to inform future offerings.
Using Agile and Modeling Agile
Modeling Agile behavior provides your Agile expertise in a way that others can absorb by their own choice. For instance, consider putting your coaching work in a backlog or a Kanban board. A physical visualization in a public area will provide a lot of visibility, but an electronic one also has its advantages. Using these tools gives you an opportunity to discuss and prioritize your work with others.
Publishing Your Capabilities
Imagine going to a restaurant. Once you are seated, the host doesn’t provide you with a menu. There are no menus on the table. There are no menus on the wall. There are no menus anywhere. When the server comes by, you ask for a menu, and they say, “We don’t have menus here. We serve food. What would you like?” Then imagine you ask for a cheeseburger and they say, “We don’t serve that here.” That would be a frustrating experience.
Restaurants provide menus because they have certain capabilities and are prepared to offer certain meals. Similarly, as coaches, we have certain capabilities that our coachees may or may not be aware of. It may be their very first time using Agile, or they may have had a different coach in the past whose experiences and approach were different from yours.
There are many different views of what “Agile” really is. When you first meet a client or a new team, it is likely that the true value you can provide is not fully understood and that people will have certain preconceived notions of how you will provide value to the organization, teams, and individuals. Many people who could benefit from your services won’t even know what to ask for.
Catalog of Services
Just as a menu explains what food a restaurant offers, a catalog of services explains what services you provide. When creating a catalog of services, make sure you provide enough detail to make your offerings interesting without overwhelming people. You want people to be able to quickly scan your catalog to see if there is anything they would like to learn more about. You can provide more detail in person.
Here are some possible offerings:
Scrum Overview
Scrum Training
Kanban Overview
Scaled Agile Framework Overview
User Story Splitting Techniques
Scrum Master Mentorship Program
Product Owner Mentorship Program
Three Fun Retrospective Formats to Try
Introduction to Virtual Collaboration Tools
One of the benefits of having a catalog of services is that people are “opting in” when they ask for one of your services, rather than feeling they have a deficiency you are asking them to address. We’ve included examples of catalog entries in Appendix B for reference.
As with a catalog of services, people value learning how to apply Agile from others who have had experience in their role, especially if you were practicing Agile in that role. To raise awareness of your past roles, create and publish an “Agile Expertise Resume” that simply lists the roles you have had in the past and a little bit about your experience in those roles.