I forget when I first thought about this idea, but it’s been several years. It’s about taking a service-oriented view to agile coaching.
One genesis point for me was talking to an agile transformation director leading a team of coaches. He lamented that his coaches were constantly pulled in multiple directions well beyond their capacity and skills.
I brainstormed with him about whether a service-oriented mindset or approach would be helpful to him. And we defined that as—
Define a set of coaching services that his team would provide;
Define Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) or delivery agreements for each service;
Market the services to the organizational stakeholders;
Manage capacity (across services, across coaches, and unique skills);
Perhaps on an annualized basis, reevaluate service outcomes, needs, and rebalance the investment in the team.
One problem he was experiencing was the incredibly broad skillset assumed by his coaching team. That is—they can coach in any situational context. Which certainly wasn’t true. A service orientation would not only define what they would provide but what they would or could not provide.