The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel is a tool for Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, Leaders, and anyone looking to enhance their coaching skills and support the growth and success of agile teams and organizations. This powerful tool provides a structured approach to developing key competencies and knowledge areas necessary for effective coaching in an agile environment.
What is the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel?
The Growth Wheel consists of eight competency skill areas, organized around a central hub of self-mastery, with the tread representing domain knowledge. Its comprehensive framework encompasses various coaching disciplines, including individual, team, and systemic coaching, facilitating, teaching, and mentoring, all within Agile and Lean principles.
Designed for continuous improvement, the Growth Wheel encourages coaches to assess their strengths and areas for growth, providing a roadmap for professional development and success. By embracing the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel, coaches can elevate their abilities, deliver sustainable value, and significantly impact agile coaching.
Competency Areas
The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel encompasses eight competency areas, each focusing on specific skills necessary for agile coaching success:
- Agile and Lean Practitioner
- Serving
- Coaching
- Facilitating
- Guiding Learning
- Advising
- Leading
- Transforming
These competency areas cover everything from coaching approaches and team dynamics to leadership techniques and collaborative problem-solving. Each area provides coaches with essential knowledge and applied frameworks that can be employed in various coaching scenarios, from individual guidance to team and organizational development.
How Does the Growth Wheel Help Agile Coaches?
As a self-assessment tool, the Growth Wheel enables coaches to identify their areas of strength and areas for improvement. By reflecting on their coaching skills and competencies, coaches can continually grow and develop in the profession of agile coaching. The Growth Wheel supports their professional growth journey, helping them become more effective and impactful coaches.
Coaches can use the Growth Wheel to deepen their understanding of agile coaching principles and practices, fostering their coaching expertise and competencies. By leveraging this tool, agile coaches can acquire the necessary skills to guide teams and organizations through the agile transformation process.
The Competency Areas of the Growth Wheel
The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel encompasses eight competency areas that are essential for agile coaches to develop their coaching skills and competencies:
1. Agile and Lean Practitioner
This competency area is dedicated to Agile and Lean Practitioners who deeply understand Agile and Lean frameworks, principles, and values. Their expertise lies in applying this knowledge effectively within real-world teams and organizations, focusing on innovation that aligns with these principles and values to deliver continuous and sustainable customer value. The mindset revolves around a commitment to customer satisfaction, fostering collaborative interactions, and emphasizing continuous improvement, all of which contribute to successful Agile leadership and organizational agility.
2. Serving
Serving, rooted in servant leadership as coined by Robert K. Greenleaf, revolves around prioritizing people’s well-being and growth. Unlike traditional leadership, it involves sharing power and focusing on others’ needs, making it central to agile coaching. Serving the business entails guiding organizations toward sustainable outcomes, emphasizing customer needs, and utilizing Agile/Lean practices. Agile coaches play a crucial role by understanding customers, shaping product strategies, optimizing product backlogs, and supporting the growth of business stakeholders.
3. Coaching
This competency area focuses on unlocking potential and fostering growth through coaching, whether with individuals, teams, or organizations. It emphasizes adhering to ethical standards upheld by organizations such as the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). Within this competency, creating a conducive environment for self-discovery and development is paramount, empowering clients to achieve their objectives and maximize their potential.
4. Facilitating
At its core, facilitating enhances group effectiveness by fostering collaboration, understanding context, and identifying valuable outcomes. A facilitator creates a neutral and innovative environment to promote openness and safety, essential for Agile Coaching practices. The facilitation mindset revolves around maintaining content neutrality, fostering collaboration, and embracing a belief in the group’s creativity and resourcefulness, all while prioritizing learning and adaptability.
5. Guided Learning
Guiding learning is about nurturing competence and resourcefulness in individuals, groups, or teams by selecting effective learning methods and inspiring continuous learning. In Agile, it’s vital to guide others’ learning journeys and help them acquire new skills and knowledge. This competency is rooted in a growth-oriented mindset, cultivating a supportive learning environment, and actively sharing experiences and knowledge to empower learners.
6. Advising
Advising is the practice of using knowledge and experience to guide clients toward success and establishing long-term trust-based relationships. Trusted advisors act as truth-tellers, providing context and options while respecting client choice, and this role is relevant across all organizational levels. To adopt an advising mindset, one must prioritize behaviors that enhance client and organizational agility, including building trust, empathy, and confidence, seeking and providing feedback, and maintaining a holistic perspective while remaining aware of personal biases.
7. Leading
This competency area centers on Leadership, emphasizing the importance of leading by example and inspiring positive change for a better world. Leaders play a vital role in promoting Agile principles and shared responsibility within teams and organizations. Effective leaders are versatile, shifting between various leadership stances, such as visionary and servant leadership, and demonstrate self-mastery, modeling desired behaviors, values, and practices internally and externally.
8. Transforming
The competency area of Transforming focuses on continuous organizational adaptation and thriving in a dynamic world through sustainable change and empowerment. Transformation agents leverage organizational design concepts to enhance business agility and acknowledge the complexity of change. They introduce, navigate, and sustain change by promoting a learning culture, building internal capacity, and removing outdated processes, ultimately guiding organizations toward independent and effective change management.
Where to Find the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel
The latest Agile Coaching Growth Wheel version can be found at AgileCoachingGrowthWheel.org.
At AgileCoachingGrowthWheel.org, coaches can access resources for self-assessment and development, including links to books and other learning materials. The website also provides guidance on effectively using the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel for professional growth and improvement.
This central hub of information is continuously updated to ensure coaches have access to the latest version of the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel and any relevant updates. Coaches are encouraged to bookmark the site for easy access to the tool and to stay informed about future enhancements.
Scrum Alliance and the Growth Wheel
The Scrum Alliance, a prominent organization in the field of agile coaching, has been a strong supporter of the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel initiative. Recognizing the value it brings to the agile community, the Scrum Alliance has embraced the growth wheel as a valuable tool for agile coaches.
The growth wheel perfectly aligns with the Scrum Alliance’s vision of a world where agile ways of working are universal and everyday practices. By incorporating the growth wheel into their scrum master and product owner certifications, the Scrum Alliance aims to provide learning objectives and paths for agile coaches to enhance their skills and competencies.
The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel builds upon the Agile Coaching Competency Model, a framework developed by Lyssa Adkins, a renowned thought leader in the agile coaching field. This model serves as a guiding principle for agile coaches looking to further their professional development.
Continuous Improvement and Future Updates
The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel is a dynamic tool continuously evolving and improving to meet the changing needs of agile coaching. The growth wheel aims to enhance its effectiveness through regular updates and provide coaches with the most valuable resources.
Updates to the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel are driven by feedback and insights from the agile coaching community. By listening to the agile coaching community and incorporating their valuable input, the growth wheel strives to stay relevant and impactful.
The growth wheel is expected to stabilize further, offering even more stability and reliability to the agile coaching profession. However, it will continue to evolve to embrace emerging practices, meet evolving challenges, and support the growth of agile teams and organizations.
To stay informed about future Agile Coaching Growth Wheel updates, visit AgileCoachingGrowthWheel.org.
Conclusion
The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel is valuable for agile coaches looking to enhance their coaching skills and develop competencies. This tool provides a structured framework for self-assessment and improvement, enabling coaches to reflect on their strengths and identify areas for growth.
By leveraging the growth wheel, coaches can continue personal and professional development, ultimately becoming great agile coaches.
With the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel as their guide, coaches can deliver sustainable value and support the growth of agile teams and organizations. By embracing the principles and practices outlined in this tool, coaches can confidently navigate their agile journey, continually honing their skills and driving success.
