An Agile Coach is a talented professional developer who is brought in to a team to help them raise their bar of excellence. This person is a servant-leader, an advocate, a teacher, a helper, and a technical resource as well.

A coach is there to guide the team, help them to do their best. This should be true of a coach on any team. An Agile Coach is someone who is well versed in the practices of an agile developer - XP, SCRUM, LEAN, etc. They have been around a few blocks and have some experience in various teams in various circumstances.

This person is sought out for their experience and their ability to convey their knowledge in a positive way. They are an active and participating member of the team - not someone on the outside. The Agile Coach should be developing code right along with the rest of the team. Sometimes the coach can be the team's representative to outside meetings also, where a developer is needed rather than a scrum master.

The coach should work directly with the scrum master, and be aligned in being able to protect the team from outside influence, as well as randomizations from meetings and questions from other groups. The Agile Coach should show leadership in how code should be written, and the behavior expected from the development team when it comes to coding both main-line and tests.

The coach should encourage continuous learning and growth, facilitating this wherever and whenever possible. He should encourage the team members strive to improve, while being there to assist and support them while they do, and ensure their success. The coach should set the tone for the team in modeling the attitude that will best serve the client, customers, and users.

COACH: Champion, Observer, Advocate, Cheerleader, Helper

Today we used a new "Roundabout" mechanism in our daily stand-up, which is in a conference room. We have our artifacts on the walls, and our focal point for stand-up is our sprint status board with our story cards (large post-it's) and tasks on a progress chart. We use this chart in addition to an electronic mechanism to track the progress through the sprint. We have been just each standing around the table and pointing to the story cards and talking about our progress and status.

Today, (at the suggestion of a team member) we each stood by the chart, moved our tasks and story cards as appropriate, and then all the team moved around to the right walking around the table, so the next person could stand by the chart and talk about their tasks. I think this worked very well, as it kept focus on the team member speaking, and the team member was able to focus completely on the tasks and stories on the wall by physically touching them. It helped keep status focused and short. The movement around the room and around the table gave us a new perspective on the room and the chart, each time someone was speaking. Also, it gave us some physical motion to keep our bodies and minds engaged and present. Stand-up was shorter, and more effective. All the team felt that this was a good new addition to the daily routine, and the team is now wanting to add this movement to our working agreements.

Just moving around a table one team member at a time is a small thing, but it's FREE and seemed to help focus and productivity, so I am going to suggest the mechanism to any scrum team I have the pleasure to be part of in the future. Try it out and see what happens!