James Carr

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
- Socrates

As those of you who read my blog often know, I recently made a career jump to a contracting firm to consult at different large scale organizations. To my dismay, my first assignment has been more as a developer than as a coach/scrum master, but I felt this would also be a good opportunity to observe and understand how to coach effectively. I might even experiment with seeing how well I could help improve practices from the trenches.

You see, I thought I knew all there is to coaching after being in an agile environment for three years and seeing a lot of good and bad approaches. The contrast between that and my current workplace has been profound… I’ve often been swift in pointing out rotten practices, often citing a lot of the good practices that I’ve experienced work well and know to be right. I’ve also found myself sometimes written off when I vocalize my observations.

Anyway, while I was walking my dogs this afternoon it hit me… coaching isn’t about being right, it’s about providing options and helping the team discover better practices.