Experience sharing on focusing the coaching on the real problem

Very often the journey into Agile Product development starts with a decision by the Head of R&D. For various reasons, it is seen business critical to change the way of working, to become more “agile”, in order to meet short-term and especially future business targets. Very often an external Agile Coach is invited to support this adoption. Yet, instantly the focus of this coach is limited by the Head of R&D to the teams. In my years of experience of working in large organisation with 10+ teams, I can only state again: “Teams are not your main problem!”. Thus time is overdue to bring more attention to this subject. In order to get meaningful progress in any adoption, one needs to focus on the system which is built around the teams. In order to start this dialogue, I draw four system dimensions: 1) Organisational set-up and self-management, 2) Engineering Practices, 3) Product and Customer Collaboration, and 4) HR/F&C in regards to incentives, budgeting, and job-profiles. During this, I will open up those four dimensions, discuss the role of the Scrum Master, management, so we can enter into a meaningful dialogue together.