Becoming an Agile Coach
Course overview
As an agile coach, you'll adopt many stances depending on the situation. In this context, a coaching "stance" is the position you take—whether facilitating, teaching, leading, etc.—to guide people through the situation and toward improvement as an agile team. This course will take you through these stances so that you can coach teams and leaders through agile adoption roadblocks and hesitancy, everyday conflicts, and other organizational challenges on the road to continuous improvement.
The modules in this course reflect the multifaceted stances of a coach:
- Facilitating
- Teaching
- Mentoring
- Advising
- Leading
- Coaching
- Case study
Explore story-based, real-world scenarios and situations as you learn how to coach people through an agile adoption.
Time: 4 hours
Format: On-demand and live, trainer-led versions available
Credential: Microcredential
Prerequisites: None, although some familiarity with agile will help you follow along.
What you'll get: 4 hours of training and education, and a microcredential with a digital badge to showcase your new skills. The on-demand version consists of mostly written material, including digital flashcards and real-world scenarios. If you are a new or lapsed Scrum Alliance member, you'll receive a two-year membership with this course.
Build a complete skill set: Develop an entire toolkit of useful coaching skills with the Scrum Alliance coaching microcredentials, which include—
- Introduction to Agile Coaching
- Becoming an Agile Coach
- Agile Coaching Skills
- Coaching for Change: Making Agility Work
Who's this course for?
- Anyone who wants to become an agile coach
- Leaders who want to support agile adoption
- Leaders who want to increase the ROI on their agile efforts
- Anyone who wants to be better at the stances of a coach, including facilitating and leading
- Scrum masters ready to supercharge their coaching toolkit
- Agilists and professionals who want to grow their team coaching abilities
Course modules
In this module, you will learn to identify and implement facilitation techniques enabling collaborative decision-making and shared goals.
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Summarize the core competency areas and competency levels of the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel.
Describe the importance of developing an open, reflective, positive, and flexible mindset.
Describe how a facilitator maintains neutrality, trust, transparency, and clarity throughout the engagement with the group.
Identify guidelines to facilitate conversations that encourage open communication, collaborative decision making, and exploration of diverse perspectives.
In this module, you will explore teacher traits and the differences between formal and informal learning methods.
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Differentiate between formal and informal learning methods and their benefits.
In this module, you will learn about mentor traits, mentoring individuals vs. groups, and creating effective mentorship plans.
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Summarize a mentorship plan that meets the needs of the mentee(s) and the organization.
Distinguish between mentoring individuals and mentoring groups.
Describe the value of using mentors as a source of growth for themselves and clients.
In this module, you will practice fostering an advising mindset, emotional intelligence and sharing agile insights.
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Explain an advising mindset includes the behaviors and actions that have the greatest likelihood of helping the client meet their goals through increasing the organization’s agility.
Describe how to share ideas, patterns, stories, and examples of successful agile transformations and solutions relevant to the client’s circumstances.
Highlight the key skills and behaviors of a trusted advisor, such as building trust, listening actively, and setting boundaries.
Describe the value of emotional and social intelligence.
In this module, you will focus on encouraging continuous learning and growth while applying agile principles.
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Recognize the importance of creating a powerful purpose for positive change such as vision, strategy, or goals, focusing everyone on a shared outcome.
Explore how to inspire others through storytelling, taking responsibility for your actions, and connecting with people on a human level.
Use empiricism to encourage a continuous learning culture.
Discuss how an agile coach leads growth.
In this module, you will explore coaching definitions, mindset, key skills, and differences between team and individual coaching.
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Describe a coaching mindset.
Identify the skills used in a coaching conversation.
Explain how coaching a team differs from coaching an individual.
In this module, you will apply what you have learned using real-world scenarios to apply agile skills in diverse fields.
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Unmatched quality and scale
"Simply amazing learning experience!"
"My experience at Scrum Alliance was simply exceptional ... "
Developed by community experts
Our community is at the heart of everything we do. This course wouldn't be possible without the subject matter experts who generously share their time and talent. Join us in recognizing these individuals for helping us inspire and empower our global agile community.
Is a microcredential worth it?
Microcredentials are a great way to continually add new skills with fast and flexible formats. Here are just a few reasons microcredential training is a worthwhile investment for you and your team.
- Focused expertise — gain specialized knowledge in a specific area
- Flexible learning — learn the way you prefer by choosing from live or on-demand learning formats
- Cost-effective — typically less expensive than certifications or degree programs
- Relevant — topics prioritized to cover industry trends and emerging technologies
- Expedient — earn a credential in hours as opposed to weeks, months, or years
- Recognizable — validated by Scrum Alliance, a globally recognized credentialing body
- Practical — build skills and knowledge immediately applicable in your role
- Stackable — combine microcredentials to build comprehensive learning pathways
Train your team!
Interested in purchasing this course for more than one person? We can help.
While familiarity with agile will help you follow along in this course, it is not required and there are no prerequisites. The on-demand course allows you to start, stop, and restart your learning as needed, so there's plenty of time to revisit materials or look up supporting information about agile if you need to.
This course will benefit agile coaches, aspiring agile coaches, and anyone who wants to learn agile coaching skills. Even if your organization doesn't have dedicated agile coaches, scrum masters and team leaders can leverage coaching competencies to support their team's success with agile.
Becoming an Agile Coach is the perfect follow-up to Introduction to Agile Coaching, but it's not a requirement to take both coaching courses or one before the other. These coaching microcredential courses will build your knowledge, but you can also pick and choose the subjects most relevant to your goals.
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Learn how to guide leaders and teams through an agile adoption and continuous improvement.