Category Archives: pair coaching

Recorded at the Scrum Alliance’s Global Scrum Gathering in Orlando, FL, this episode features nine voices. Vic (@AgileCoffee) was joined by fellow participants (all working with Agile/Scrum teams) to discuss some highlights of the gathering (and CSP Fast Pass). Guests list: Brett Palmer (@brett_palmer) Aaron Kopel (@aakopel) Jason Tanner (@JasonBTanner) Leon Sabarsky (@LeonSabarsky) Anderson Hummel (@anderson_hummel) Things we’d mentioned: Peter Green’s Lean and Agile Adoption with the Laloux Culture Model Scrum Gathering Rio June 23-25, by Scrum Alliance CSP FAST PASS: the fast track to becoming a Certified Scrum Professional® (on twitter at @CSPFastPass)

If you’re looking for a way to randomize a group and match them with scenarios for role play, I suggest trying dominoes.

I’ve recently been speaking on the topic of pair-coaching, and in developing my workshop, I’ve been tinkering with using double-nine wooden dominoes. The face of a domino tile is divided into two ends, each with a number of pips (dots)… or no pips at all. In the case of double-nines, the values range from 0-0 to 9-9.

Set of 55 "double nine" dominoes by Pressman
Set of 55 “Double Nine” dominoes by Pressman
a set of Double Nines will contain a total of 495 pips (dots) across all 55 tiles
a set of Double Nines contains a total of 495 pips (dots) across all 55 tiles

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It’s an onsite company visit! Vic sits down with four employees representing Dev, QA & PMO at the Data Protection Unit of EMC Corp in Irvine, CA, to discuss how the transformation to Agile has changed things up. Also on hand is Scott Dunn (@sdunnRocket9), facilitating the transformation activities and coaching at many levels within the business unit. Scott mentioned the Certified LeSS Practitioner: Principles to Practices class led by Craig Larman – May 9 in Tustin, CA

Back in March I led a pair coaching workshop at Scrum Day Orange County 2015.  My goal with the session was to examine a few pair-coaching roles, share a list of competency areas for Scrum Masters, and use dominoes to demonstrate viable situations where pairing will help the coach, her team, or the larger organization. (You may remember that I enjoy exploring this topic, and that I wrote about it earlier in the year. It seems that I’ll be talking about more this summer at the Scrum Alliance Coaching Retreat, possibly at the Agile Open SoCal and certainly at Agile SoCal in…

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Agile coaching demands many skills of the practitioner. In addition to being conversant in common agile processes, we are also called to serve as teacher, facilitator, mentor, counselor, negotiator, and leader. Of course, this is a partial list; there may be no limit to the skills identified as valuable to our coaching profession. Where did you learn these skills? If you weren’t born with these skills or have them injected into your being, how did you acquire them? Books, videos and training courses can help, but on the job is perhaps the quickest and most lasting method. Did you have someone…

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I just scheduled our next meetup and threw these two questions out: How many teams is too many for one roving scrummaster? How many members before a team is too large? What’s great is that the group can discuss / debate the question. Despite being in Scrum environments for over six years, I don’t have THE answer, but I DO have some opinions based on solid experiences. Without playing too much of my hand prior to the actual meet-up, here’s what I’m thinking: Roving ScrumMaster I was hired here at SendGrid as an Agile Coach tasked with leading the transformation…

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