Kamal Tejnani,

Agile Coach @ Agile Practice,

Cognizant

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamalt

ejnani

kamal.Tejnani@gmail.com

From Servant Leadership to Journeyman -

the next wave of Agile Coaching

Journeyman ?

Journeymen were paid each day, and this is where the word ‘journey’ derived from-journée meaning ‘a day’ in French. Each individual guild generally recognized three ranks of workers; apprentices, journeymen, and masters.

A journeyman, as a qualified tradesman could become a master, running their own business although most continued working as employees.

i.e. A Journeyman Agile Coach should be CAPABLE of working on his own without DEPENDING upon the organization he works at.

A "journeyman" is a skilled worker who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification in a building trade or craft. They are considered competent and authorized to work in that field as a fully qualified employee

A Strictly Personal View

Disclaimer:

• Just a perspective that I have on this topic given my Agile Coaching experience in the last couple of years

• I respect your disagreeing with me

A Small exercice

• Anil Kumble or Ravi Shastri as the Team India’shead coach – why ?

More recently

hands-on?

Bowler versus Batsman as

Coach?

Eagerness to do the

job ?

Connect with the Current Generation?

Active Hands-on ?

• Both Anil Kumble and Ravi Shastri have retired

Should an Agile Coach be aPRACTISING hands-on

practitioner or should he be doing only Coaching and

Training

Seeds…

• Performance of Agile Coaches in the organization with respect to Agile Deliveries

• Analysis of failed Agile Projects

• A Meetup discussion topic

• Books

A Journeyman Agile Coach

• Been part of the Scrum Development Team ?

• Played the Scrum Master Role ?

• Been part of some projects that did not fare well ?

• Grown bottom up and not Certified top down

Thought:

What about Product Owners becoming Agile Coaches?

Scope of Agile Coaching ?

• Engineering ?

• People Issues

• Facilitator

• Training

Who is an Agile Coach

Certified Agile Coach ?

Versus

Person who has worked as a developer/tester in an Agile Team, Scrum Master, Coached one/two teams, conducted Agile training

The Benjamin Franklin Story

• From Apprentice to Journeyman to Partner: Benjamin Franklin Workers and the Growth of the Early American Printing Trade

• With the growth of the printing trade, most journeymen had little trouble securing work

• Lineman training with steel poles is essential to helping students, apprentices, and veteran linemen gain valuable skills they will use right away on the job.

• How to Become a Journeyman Electrician (US)

Journeyman Software Developer

• Are you are a person that LOVES to coach and help others produce excellent code/applications?

• Skills required:

• 5+ years strong Java background

• Comfortable working with multiple languages that are materially different

• Hands on experience working in an emerging agile development environment which must include: Test Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration, Pair Programming, Clean Code, refactoring, source control, automated deployment and iterative development

• Excellent communication skills with client and teams

Journeyman Agile Coach

• Do and show

• Write BDD using Cucumber

• TDD for legacy ? Don’t believe you

• Shell Scripts for Jenkins ?

• Empowerment cannot be done in Indian IT Services organization – the Client PO is ALWAYS right

What if the team says

• Transparency exists only in the clear waters of Australia

• The Phoenix Project is fiction – don’t talk about it

Journeyman Agile Coach

Scenario:Agile Coach leaves engineering practices to the technical team

Team has never done CI before

Solutions:

1. Do and show versus Tell

2. Involve the DevOps team versus DIY

Journeyman Agile Coach

Scenario:

The onsite Agile Coach has NEVER worked with offshore (Indian) teams in a Distributed Agile Mode (in an Indian offshore model)

The Agile Transformation failed twice before.

Journeyman Agile Coach

Scenario:

Program is moving from Clearcase to Git and you have never worked on either ClearCase or Git.

Solution:

1. First learn Clearcase and Git

2. Participate in one Clearcase to Git migration

3. Help by doing for other teams

Journeyman Agile Coach

Scenarios:

• Team is not speaking up during Grooming

• No transparency during Standup and Retrospectives

What if the Agile Coach has never been in such a situation himself but has read a lot about it and done a lot of certifications

Journeyman Agile Coach

Scenario

Continuous Learning

e.g.

Automated Build Process

Make -> Ant -> Maven -> Gradle

CVS -> SVN -> Git

Journeyman Agile Coach

Scenario:Team is not meeting its Sprint commitments Sprint after Sprint

Has the Agile Coach been in such a situation before ?

Can he/she talk from experience how to fix this ?

Journeyman Agile Coach

Scenario:Scaling Agile