Recognize When the Team Needs an External Coach

Software development is a collaborative effort. It is—so far—the most challenging type of work. (See Andy Hunt’s Pragmatic Thinking and Learning [Hun08] for more information.)

When I want to improve my skills, I attend workshops where I can obtain guided practice. Sometimes I need more than a workshop can provide me, so I engage a coach for more help over time.

Coaches can help in any number of ways. Consider these possibilities adapted from Choosing a Consulting Role: Principles and Dynamics of Matching Role to Situation [CKM90] and outlined in the diagram.

What kind of a coach does the team need? Consider asking the team what kind of help it wants. Different coaches coach at different levels for different areas. Very few coaches can coach at the three levels: inside the team, for the team, and for the organization. Use the retrospective data to see where the team needs assistance first.

Teams new to collaborative work might need coaches who can help the team teach or facilitate or partner with some practices such as continuous integration, test-driven development (TDD), or even pairing. If the team is working well as a team but has internal impediments, the team (and you, as a servant leader) might need help seeing options for the team’s process. If the team discovers that its impediments are from the culture or organizational processes, the team might need a coach at the organizational level. For more information about servant leadership, see ​How Leaders Serve the Team​.