Last night, AgileThought hosted the second Tampa Bay Agile Coach’s Blitz. At the first Coach’s Blitz, earlier this year, I was coached. This time time, I served as one of the five coaches. Each of us provided four one-on-one coaching sessions, plus a fifteen minute lightning talk.
I wasn’t worried about the lightning talk. I always go into a presentation feeling that I’m less prepared than I’d like, but I also trust my skill as a speaker and knew that I was comfortable with my topic. I was confident that my talk, “Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” would be received well. I enjoyed giving it and engaging with the audience for a brief Q&A session afterward.
What concerned me was whether or not I would provide individual coaching on the same level that I’d received at the first Blitz. At that time, my now-colleague Christy Erbeck worked with me to identify a plan to grow as a public speaker. That led directly to my giving a presentation at Agile 2017 this year. I got a lot of value out of it, and I wanted to do the same for people who selected me as their coach this time.
The most challenging problem was the person working in an environment where agile terminology has been mapped onto pre-agile processes and roles. Her wanted to know how she could make agile work in her workplace. That was a tough question, but we outlined some ways she could apply the agile mindset to her own work and interactions.
One person had questions about how to structure multiple teams working from a common background. We talked a little about the Nexus scaling framework, and about building her teams around features rather than components. Another was struggling with how to prove to her company’s executives that the value her agile teams have delivered was due to the transition to agile. My final session was with someone who wanted to know how to get started writing and speaking about agile.
That one was pretty easy.
The event was a big success. I enjoyed the opportunity to share with the local agile community, and helping others boosted my confidence in my own skills.
Sam Falco 