I’ve known Mary Thorn for around 10-years. We’ve grown up together coaching and teaching agile to a wide variety of organizations and teams. Mary calls me her mentor, so I guess I am. But I’ve probably learned more from Mary than she’s ever learned from me.
We’re friends, colleagues, and incredibly like-minded when it comes to agile strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques. So, on the surface, you would think we’d be in permanent, lock-step alignment.
Sure, we have our disagreements. For example, one of the big ones relates to SAFe—
I’m a recovering SPC and Mary is a hardened SPC.
She loves the framework and I tolerate it.
She leverages it in her coaching and company contexts, and I normally don’t.
In a word, Mary is SAFe, and I’m not that SAFe.
But they are quite few and far between. And, we often have a bit of fun with our differences. So, we’re aligned, right? Well, we are and we’re aren’t.
Let me share a quick story…
A Non-Alignment Story
Mary and I hadn’t worked together, side-by-side, for quite a while. Then, an opportunity came up for us to work with a new client together. This was one of those pre-meetings, where you’re trying to understand the client and gain their confidence in your abilities as a coaching firm.
It was about the third meeting with the client, but the first for me to be there with Mary and she was taking the lead with the client. Because we are so “aligned” we did no preparation or alignment work before going into the client.
Well, in a word, it was a disaster.
We talked over each other;
We disagreed on several key approaches or strategies;
We emphasized different things as being crucial to the clients’ success;
And I didn’t respect her as the lead. Instead, I behaved as if she were a mentee.
We discussed it afterward and realized that no matter how well we thought we were aligned; we’d gotten a bit overconfident. And it was mostly my fault for overstepping the bounds of my role.
Wrapping Up
Why did I write this?
To amplify how important coaching alignment is between pairs or groups of coaches when coaching a client. It’s not just a pre-sales imperative, but incredibly important throughout your entire engagement.
And you should never assume that you’re aligned. That’s just plain arrogance. Instead, you should take the time and ensure that you’re aligned. For example—
Aligned on the overall client strategy;
Aligned on specific principles;
Aligned on roles, for example, who’s taking the lead;
Aligned on compromises being made; i.e. meeting the client where they are;
Aligned on practices, tactics, mindset, lines in the sand, etc.
Another quick, silly example—
You should never have two coaches going into a client and disagreeing on Scrum Sprint Planning practices (whether to task or not). Or disagreeing on the level of estimation (points) that will be recommended. Or on the need for defining a Sprint Goal.
Point being—alignment matters! And most of us believe that we’re more aligned than we are. So, agile coaches, check your alignment—then get aligned, before you confuse the heck out of your clients.
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.
Afterthought…I wonder if this same thing applies to agile leadership teams?