Agile Coaching Career Progression and Growth Framework

Over the past two years in my role as an Agile Coach, I’ve noticed many conversations within our Agile Coaching Chapter about what progression in the role entails. This sparked my curiosity. As someone motivated to grow, excel, and advance in Agile Coaching, I began to reflect on a few key questions:

• What does it take to move from a junior to a mid-level and senior Agile Coach?

• What expectations are there on me from the organization, my peers, and my managers?

• Given where I am now, what steps can I take to improve as an Agile Coach?

Thus, I spent my summer interviewing Agile Coaches to better understand how coaches of varying seniority see the position and how one can progress in the career path. Originally, I wanted to organize the data and insights from these interviews as a personal reflection tool. However, it didn't feel right to keep all of this information to myself. As a result, I developed the Agile Career Progression Framework to help coaches reflect on their own abilities and provide support for employers in identifying qualities when hiring an Agile Coach.

The Agile Career Progression Framework aims to simplify and provide guidelines to organizations looking to hire agile coaches of varying skill levels and supply them with behaviors, competencies, and understanding of what to look for in potential new coaches on the team.  

The Agile Coach Career Progression Framework arguably oversimplifies the role of the ever-illusive Agile Coaching role. This framework is an attempt to concretize the emergent, ever-shifting role.

A couple of reflections on the model:

Defining whether a coach is junior, mid-level, or senior based on the number of teams coached can be tricky. Many Agile Coaches suggest juniors work with 0-1 teams, mid-levels with 5-10+. Objectively, after 5-10 teams, you start to develop skills and recognize patterns. However, some coaches challenge this, arguing that even after 10-15+ teams, a coach might not have enough experience to be considered senior. So, I pose the question: Do you see a quality gap in coaches who progress too quickly, and would you hesitate to call someone senior after coaching 10-15 teams?

The definition of a senior is a challenging one, this framework doesn’t exist to state objective truths. It is a tool to use to support ones-self when either looking at hiring someone, or reflecting on areas where you can improve. Agile Coaches come in a multitude of varying skill sets, and core competencies, it is up to you as a coach, or organization to highlight and underpin which are most important for your organizational needs.

Regardless of your skill level as a coach, there are always places for a coach to improve. I used this very framework, and built a small learning model for myself as a way to find places for me to improve upon my own abilities.

The model is called the RISE model. RISE - Review (Assess your current state), Identify (decide on a growth area), Seek (find an opportunity to practice), Engage (find relevant content and training).

Here is an example of how I used the RISE Model for myself:

Take a moment to reflect on your own personal development and use the RISE model to find areas of improvement for yourself.

A special thank you to Johannes S, Fiona S, Christophe M, Richard B, Hrefna G, Fredrik K, and Viktor C, in allowing me to interview them and supporting me in the creation of this framework.