Agile Coaching Principles That Work In Real Life

Life lessons from my recent agile coaching course

For those who don’t know me personally, I work in IT consulting as a scrum master, or more broadly, an agile coach. The joke with consulting is that no one knows what we *actually* do except work with PowerPoint and Excel, but I’m going to pull back the curtain a bit for those who aren’t in my line of work.

In software development, agile methodologies like scrum and kanban refer to building a technology solution in smaller, more manageable pieces vs. designing and building the whole thing at once. These are backed up by a set of values and principles called the Agile Manifesto, which creates an overall mindset of continuous, incremental improvement, transparent communication, and empowering and trusting people at every level. The scrum framework is named for a scrum in rugby, where the team huddles after every play to inspect what happened in the last play and adapt their approach for the next one.

In the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, he talks about the power of doing small things consistently, which compounded together create powerful systems that can transform your life. My goal as an agile coach is to guide development teams in creating their own small habits and systems to do their jobs more effectively.

I recently attended training to be certified in agile coaching, and I found a lot of lessons that apply to more than just software development.

Lesson 1: Shu Ha Ri—Learn the rules, break the rules, be the rule.

Shu Ha Ri is a concept borrowed from Japanese martial arts to reflect the different stages of mastery, which is often referenced in agile methodologies to assess a team’s maturity. In the Shu stage, you’re learning the rules and doing everything by the book. In Ha, you’ve learned enough to question the rules, break with tradition, and decide what works for you. Ri can be described as a flow state, where you fully embody a mindset, principles, and habits without even thinking about it.

Whether you’re trying to develop new habits, shift your mindset, find a new career, or redefine your values and beliefs, we’re all in different stages of mastery. Cultivating a growth mindset means that you can be okay with being a beginner. You don’t have to know everything to get started, but anything can be learned, and sometimes experience is the best teacher!

It might take a lot to get to the Ri stage of embodiment, and some things we may never truly master. There’s a lot of value in the process of learning and breaking the rules, too. In our high-pressure world, it’s comforting to remember that we don’t have to master everything or keep doing it forever to be successful. Sometimes success is realizing that something isn’t good for us, or only good for a season. The journey of uncovering what’s true for us holds intrinsic value.

Lesson 2: The coach doesn’t have the answer. The answer is within you. 

Organizations often seek out an agile coach because they need an answer to their problems, a way to do things more efficiently, or a fresh perspective. People seek counseling, spiritual mentors, life coaches, psychics, and tarot readers for a lot of the same reasons. While there is certainly something to be said for having the self-awareness to know your limitations and seek help when needed, it’s also important to recognize your own power and not put other fallible humans on a pedestal. 

While a coach may switch between teaching, mentoring, and facilitating, the primary goal is to help you find your own answers. They hold up a mirror to help you see yourself more clearly by asking the right questions. Their goal isn’t to tell you what to do or prescribe a formula based on “industry best practice,” because you’re more likely to own a solution that you come up with yourself. No one knows your context better than you.

Similarly, when I pull tarot cards for myself with a specific question in mind, the answer is often something I already knew deep down. The cards are a mirror of my intuition and subconscious mind, which provides clarity and validation like a coach or trusted friend would.

Your intuition is a powerful tool that can help illuminate what is correct for you and your situation, if you strengthen the muscle and learn to trust it. Our culture values facts, data, and logic, which are powerful allies in decision making and should not be ignored. That said, an over-reliance on these things can cause us to ignore our intuition over time, which makes it harder to trust ourselves the less we use it. At worst, we give our power away to external forces and forget our innate wisdom.

Do you ever just “know” something without knowing why? Whether you call it your spidey sense, intuition, the Holy Spirit, or whatever works for your context, pay attention to it when it comes up. You might be surprised what happens if you decide to trust it.

Lesson 3: The stated problem is almost never the real problem.

One technique used in root cause analysis is the “Five Whys,” where you ask, “Why?” for each stated problem, repeating it at least five times until you get to the real answer. Another technique is using powerful questions like, “What happened? How did that impact you?” 

These techniques combined with active listening help to read between the lines and find what’s under the surface. Being mindful of someone’s body language, tone, or a recurring theme in their answers helps you to intuitively know what path to follow with your questions to get to the root of the problem.

One statement that struck me is that 95% of an individual’s performance is due to the system they work in, not the work they do. For example, if someone has good ideas but works in a system where everything happens from the top down, their potential will never be fully utilized unless the system changes.

In a way, we’re all a product of our system or environment. We learn from our culture, family, school, work, or social circle. In turn, we may unconsciously perpetuate a dysfunctional system through our behavior patterns.

Cultivating mindfulness and emotional intelligence can help us start to break out of those patterns, which is why I believe self-awareness tools can be so useful. Awareness is the first step to being more mindful of our behavior. We’re no longer in our automatic “lizard brain” and can start to observe our actions more objectively. Understanding how everyone may unknowingly contribute to a situation is key to developing emotional intelligence and moving forward with compassion.

Lesson 4: Vulnerability creates psychological safety and trust and invites people in. Don’t be afraid to go first.

(HT to Melissa Urban: I’ve learned a lot from her about vulnerability and boundaries)

I’ve read a lot about the importance of vulnerability, and since hearing about it again in my agile coaching course, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. We talked about vulnerability and how it creates psychological safety and trust in teams. In group discussion, I mentioned how we often tend to have our “professional” selves and our “real” selves, and how I try to make the gap between those two as small as possible. So when one of my classmates asked how to balance that without oversharing, our instructor said something that surprised a lot of us:

“Lean on the overshare.”

My family and I always joke about how we all inherited the “overshare gene,” as if it was some sort of deficiency or character flaw. But when I heard that, I felt validated that this side of me is also what makes me particularly well-suited for this career path, at least for this season.

The simple statement, “I’ll go first,” invites others into vulnerability and helps them to see that it’s okay to show your true self, even the parts that we’d rather not acknowledge. Much like the monster under the bed, which looks really scary until you shine a light on it, the things we feel we have to hide lose their power when we name them.

Obviously this is a lot easier said than done, and sometimes you get burned when you put yourself out there. I also see the look of visible relief when you tell someone that even though it looks like you have your shit together, you also struggle with imposter syndrome. I’ve made incredible connections and had really fun conversations when I decided to share that I love tarot and astrology, even though it might freak some people out.

TL;DR: The overshare is worth it.

Speaking of oversharing, I’ve decided to add a new section to my newsletter, sharing a snapshot of my current thoughts and what’s going on in my life. Enjoy!

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The Overshare Zone

Thoughts for now, whether you want it or not.

Where the Heck I’ve Been: It’s been a minute since my last edition. I actually wrote this newsletter a while ago, but didn’t actually publish until now. Between work, a family vacation to Disney World, and other life stuff, I just haven’t made time for my little publication. Plus, I’m practicing this new thing where I create from a place of excitement and inspiration vs. obligation or commitment to a specific schedule. But now I’m back, baby! And it feels really good. :)

Life Right Now: Bryan is recovering from surgery, so we’ve been doing a lot of hanging out at home while he rests and heals. Della is taking her job as an emotional support pup very seriously by selflessly offering herself up for snuggles and belly rubs.

Reading: Tarot for Change by Jessica Dore and This Is Your Destiny by Aliza Kelly. I’m currently jumping between those two books on my Kindle and a partially read copy of Atomic Habits on my nightstand, because I’m a mess of unfinished business with a lot of different interests.

I joined Katie’s Everyday Woo book club to read Tarot for Change, and it’s been so fun to get a fresh interpretation of the cards through the book and connecting with others to hear their take. I also love Katie’s newsletter, which explores the intersection of spirituality and humanity in a beautifully grounded, honest way. I highly recommend subscribing if that’s your jam. :)

Pulling: The Ace of Cups was my card for the week, which represents the beginning of a new cycle in the Cups Suit (water element), which deals with emotions, relationships, intuition, healing, and other matters of the heart. So I’m looking for ways to bring in more compassion (for myself and others), creativity, and moving through life with more flow vs. force, tapping into my intuition to find ease.

Learning: Diving deeper into tarot, channeled writing, and psychic skills through Kate Van Horn’s (FULL) Circle Level 2 and (in)ner healing courses. I had planned on taking her level 2 class when I entered a giveaway and won a spot in (in)ner healing, too! It has been such an awesome experience to get out of my comfort zone and learn to trust my intuition in a totally different way. Kate is a beautiful soul, an excellent teacher, and a joy to learn from. She holds space for each person and teaches metaphysical concepts in a grounded, practical, and responsible way. If you’re interested in either of these topics, check her out! She offers introductory tarot and donation-based channeled writing workshops that give a taste of what she covers in her live group courses. She also has an awesome TikTok channel. :)