Book Giveaway & Exclusive Chapter Download: Agile Coaching
DZone and Pragmatic Bookshelf have partnered to bring you this exclusive chapter from 'Agile Coaching' by Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley. This excerpt was extracted from Agile Coaching, published in August 2009 by Pragmatic Bookshelf. It is being reproduced here by permission from Pragmatic Bookshelf. For more information or to purchase a paperback or PDF copy, visit the Agile Coaching homepage.
Leading Change
Sometimes you’ll be introducing new Agile practices; other times you’ll be helping a team fine-tune its process. Either way, you need to lead the team to make changes. It’s not as simple as telling people what they need to do. People need to understand what’s driving a change before they’ll throw energy into it.
So, how can you open their eyes to new possibilities? Start slow; give them some time to think about change before pressing them into action. Look for opportunities for them to learn about Agile. Then engage them in designing change by asking questions and building on their ideas.
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Introducing Change
Start advocating Agile techniques to the team, and you’ll soon find that people raise objections. Even when there’s a compelling reason to change, it’s natural to be concerned about the risks. Assure them that
it’s safe to become more Agile. Tell them stories about other Agile teams you have worked with to give them an appreciation of what’s possible.
Show your confidence in the ability of the team to change. Your belief in their success can give them courage to take the first step. Talk about “When we. . . ” rather than “If we. . . ,” and then make sure they know you’re there to provide support and help them keep going. Take care not to push a team into making changes too quickly. Allow time for new ideas to soak in. The team needs time to talk through a change before starting to implement it. This gives them a chance to think through the implications and to understand how they can adjust
what they do now.
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© 2009 Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley. No part of this publication
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Comments
Meera Subbarao replied on Thu, 2009/11/12 - 5:46pm
I am hoping this book would help me and my team members to bring in the practices and be successful in coaching teams using agile practices.
Sudhakar Ramasamy replied on Sat, 2009/11/14 - 12:20am
I've been working in an Agile environment for a over a year now. The easiest part of Agile is the techniques. A lot of times we get the techniques down but lose sight of the essence of the Agile methodology. And we constantly need to remind ourselves to question the business value of what we do.
I've found that in a bottoms-up approach to Agile if we don't have the business on-board, sooner rather than later, the benefits of Agile plateau out. And you do not realize the true and full potential of adopting Agile.
It seems a book like this can address some of these challenges.Sameh Zeid replied on Sat, 2009/11/14 - 11:41pm
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asoke hinko replied on Wed, 2009/12/16 - 10:07am
Pradeep Sadashi... replied on Fri, 2013/03/08 - 8:50am
Its been a while since I started exploring TDD and Agile practices and I would like to read this one.