Chapter 5. Coach as Coach-Mentor

I had been working as an agile coach for a few years when a colleague said to me, “You know, there’s a whole world of professional coaching out there. Maybe you should check it out.” This was his diplomatic way of saying, “You call yourself a coach, but you’re really not one.” He was right.

My practice of agile coaching up to that point was useful for starting up teams and getting the basics working, but it stopped well short of tapping into each person’s potential to improve the team’s overall performance. For that, I was using the tried-and-true (but not very effective) management techniques I had picked up during my years as a project manager.