Contracting for Success, Establishing Clear Agile Coaching Outcomes | Richard

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: Contracting for Success, Establishing Clear Agile Coaching Outcomes
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Richard Brenner
Release Date: April 17, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in a profound conversation with Agile Coach Richard Brenner. The discussion centers around establishing clear outcomes in Agile coaching and defining success metrics that resonate with both teams and management. Skipping the promotional segments, the episode delves deep into practical strategies and philosophical shifts necessary for effective Agile coaching.

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Favorite Agile Retrospective Format: Solution Focused Retrospective

Richard Brenner begins by sharing his preferred format for Agile retrospectives, drawing inspiration from his favorite book, Solution Focused Coaching of Agile Teams. He explains:

“The Solution Focused Retrospective is powerful because it shifts the focus from dissecting problems to modeling the desired future state” (01:25).

Unlike traditional retrospectives that often delve into root causes of issues, the Solution Focused approach encourages teams to envision what they want to achieve. Richard emphasizes the positive impact of this method:

“Instead of opening up about problems and potentially fostering finger-pointing, we concentrate on what we want to create moving forward” (02:15).

This approach not only fosters a more constructive environment but also helps teams generate actionable steps towards their goals without getting bogged down by past obstacles.

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Handling Conflicts with a Solution Focused Approach

Building on the Solution Focused mindset, Vasco and Richard discuss conflict resolution within Agile teams. Richard advocates for understanding conflicts from multiple perspectives and collaboratively designing a future state that accommodates diverse viewpoints. He notes:

“By focusing on actions and future states, we can navigate conflicts that might otherwise seem unsolvable” (04:40).

This method contrasts with traditional root cause analysis, which assumes that identifying and addressing the underlying cause will resolve the conflict. Richard points out that especially in interpersonal conflicts, creating a new approach can be more effective than merely solving the problem.

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Defining Success as an Agile Coach

Transitioning to the core theme of the episode, Richard Brenner reflects on his evolving understanding of success in Agile coaching. Initially, Richard equated his success with the success of the teams he coached. However, he realized the necessity of broader metrics:

“If my team is successful, then I'm successful” was my initial thought, but it wasn’t comprehensive enough (05:21).

Richard explains the importance of establishing tangible Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) through a coaching agreement with both management and teams. These KPIs often encompass:

• Flow Metrics: Measuring the speed and efficiency of work.
• Outcome Metrics: Assessing the quality of products and feedback loops.

He elaborates:

“By defining these metrics with the teams and management, we create a clear and measurable path to success” (06:40).

This structured approach ensures that success is not only team-centric but also aligned with the organization's broader objectives.

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Contracting and Mutual Accountability

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the necessity of contracting—establishing agreements that define how success will be measured and who is accountable. Richard advocates for a two-sided accountability model:

“Management is accountable for the change process, and I am accountable for supporting that change” (10:28).

Vasco highlights the importance of this mutual accountability, stating:

“It's not just accountability for us; it's also accountability for them” (09:34).

This ensures that all stakeholders are engaged in defining what success looks like and are responsible for their roles in achieving it. Richard reinforces the idea that ongoing conversations are crucial to maintain alignment and adjust goals as necessary:

“Ongoing conversations help us stay on track and ensure that everyone remains committed to the defined goals” (11:52).

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with an emphasis on the dynamic and conversational nature of defining success in Agile coaching. Richard Brenner underscores that success metrics should evolve through continuous dialogue and collaboration between coaches, teams, and management. This approach not only fosters a sense of ownership among all parties but also ensures that the Agile transformation remains aligned with the organization's needs and aspirations.

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Key Takeaways

• Solution Focused Retrospective: A positive approach that emphasizes desired future states over problem analysis.
• Defining Success: Move beyond team success to include tangible KPIs agreed upon with management and teams.
• Contracting: Establish mutual accountability through clear coaching agreements.
• Continuous Dialogue: Maintain ongoing conversations to adapt and stay aligned with goals.

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Notable Quotes

• Richard Brenner:
  “The Solution Focused Retrospective is powerful because it shifts the focus from dissecting problems to modeling the desired future state.” (01:25)
  “If my team is successful, then I'm successful” was my initial thought, but it wasn’t comprehensive enough.” (05:21)
  “Management is accountable for the change process, and I am accountable for supporting that change.” (10:28)

• Vasco Duarte:
  “It's not just accountability for us; it's also accountability for them.” (09:34)

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This episode serves as a valuable resource for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches seeking to refine their approach to coaching, establish clear success metrics, and foster a collaborative environment that promotes continuous improvement and accountability.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Have you ever wondered what it really.

[Unknown Host]

Takes to make Agile work well? At the Global Agile Summit, we're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action. Whether you're a leader, a product innovator, a developer, you'll hear practical insights from those who've done it. They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode. So stay back and listen to the full detailed description of what we have in store for you at the Global Agile Summit. But if you can't wait, you can go right now to globalagilesummit.com and check out our full schedule for now onto the episode. But I'll see you at the end of this episode with more details on the Global Agile Summit. Talk to you soon.

[Vasco]

Hello everybody.

[Unknown Host]

Welcome to our Success Thursday. The big question of the week this.

[Vasco]

Week with Richard Brenner. Hey Richard, welcome back.

[Richard Brenner]

Hi Vasco.

[Vasco]

So Richard, Thursday is success day, but we always start with what is your favorite Agile retrospective format and why?

[Richard Brenner]

Yeah, coming from my favorite book that I mentioned, the Solution Focused Coaching of Agile Teams is also my favorite retrospective format, which is called Solution Focused Retrospective. And I like it because what I learned in the classical retrospective is like this set the stage, gather data, derive insights, generate actions, and so on is that you usually open up a topic and then you dig deeper into the root cause of the problem. And this format changed the perspective of my retros completely because I said, look, don't dive into the problem space too much because you open bad things and you talk about bad things and you might end up with finger pointing someone and so on. So stop this and try to model your desired future state, which is I think far more powerful to say, okay, don't talk about the too much about of course don't avoid talking about problems, but let's not try to dive deeper into why do we have this problem. But let's think about what do we would what would you like to have? And then if you model that desired future state, you think about, okay, from a scale from 1 to 10, where are we now? And when you say okay, you end up in let's step four or five. Then you have conversations with the people who, who stand there on a line, usually say, why are you here on four? Why are you already on four? What do you need to come a step forward further? And so on. And from that point you think about, okay, how do we get from this scale Just a step further. And from that you get the actions derived. And I think this is a very positive approach to retrospective because you think about something good that will happen that you want to achieve and not something bad that happened and how to avoid it.

[Vasco]

Yeah, absolutely. And the solution focused brings us that topic or that perspective specifically. And when it comes to conflicts, for example, it is actually much more productive to understand there's a conflict, understand the situation from two or three or four perspectives, how many that are involved, and then design the future state together with all of these people so that we can then take actions. And I think this specifically the focus on actions when we are in the face of what might be unsolvable conflicts otherwise. Right, because the root cause analysis perspective leads us to think that there is a solution to a conflict. We just need to pinpoint the reason for the conflict, then we solve the reason, then the conflict is solved. However, that isn't always the case when it comes to interpersonal conflicts. Sometimes we just need to create a different approach, future focused or solution focused as you describe, in order to get us out of the feelings that come with that conflict.

[Richard Brenner]

Exactly, exactly. And this format helps a lot to just not go into that problem space in the first place.

[Vasco]

And we'll put the link to the book Solution Focused Coaching for Agile Teams in the show notes. It's also on the Tuesday show notes, so be sure to check it out and get some inspiration for a new retro. But Richard, as it were, today is also success day, of course, and we talk about what success means.

[Unknown Host]

So share with us for you as.

[Vasco]

An agile coach, what does success mean for yourself when you are evaluating your own work?

[Richard Brenner]

That is a very good question. And I think the perspective of my own success changed a lot during the years because my first, let's say a bit naive approach was if my team is successful, then I'm successful, or if the setup I'm coaching is successful, then I'm successful. But I realized that this is not enough because usually I was part of coaching teams and top management wanted to know, guys, what are you doing? Are you successful? How can we measure that? And usually the problem for me starts that we, for example, seldomly have tangible success metrics for teams or multiple teams working together to say, how do we know that we are successful? So it starts there and then I can also let's, usually when I start coaching, we talked about contracting. So I try to create a coaching agreement with the team or the management that hired me to say, look, that's a coaching agreement. First of All I ask them, how would you see that I am successful? And usually what I also work on with the teams that I'm coaching is to get some tangible KPIs with them. And usually they have multiple aspects like KPIs that go into the direction are we working fast enough? Like flow matrix, do we have the right speed or sufficient speed? And then also outcome matrix, are we creating the right product? How do we measure that? Do you have feedback loops in the process? How do you get feedback about the things that you are building, if that's good? And usually then you have a baseline and say, okay, let's talk about what do we want to improve now? And then it's easier for me to say, look, they want to get like a better net promoter score within the company or they want to have more like deliverables a week, they want to have a faster time to market, they want to be able to ship more often. So then it's, it's more tangible also for my work when I'm successful, how can we measure that more tangible?

[Vasco]

So two, two, two things that I heard from you is it's not enough to look at whether the team is successful or not. There's more details involved. Then the discussion needs to be done. First with the management, so how do they define success then with the teams and make those conversations part of the contracting process so that we define success together? Is that what you said?

[Richard Brenner]

Yes, that's exactly what I said. If you say management, usually for me that's also the sponsor. So someone is paying for you as an. I'm usually external, not part of a company. So someone is paying for. For me, I need the contracting there. And then I go to the teams where I also have a separate contracting and I think there is nothing really tangible. So I cannot tell you some tangible coaching KPIs when is an actual coach successful or not? But I would say it's an. It's an ongoing conversation. If you have some first steps that you want to achieve within those teams, then I have usually regular meetings with the sponsors as well and also the teams to see are we on track, what do we need to improve, are you happy with how we are working or not? So I think that's far more useful. And it also involves the people in the change process again and keeps you close to the management.

[Vasco]

One of the things that I really like about this approach is that it doesn't stop with how do I think I am successful? But it also asks how do they see they, meaning the teams and the management or sponsors see that I am successful because that brings accountability, meaning accountability for us. But one thing that is kind of implicit here is that it's not only accountability for us, it's also accountability for them because they also need to decide what they want to see happen. And of course at that point we, we have the door open, we can communicate, we can discuss about, you know, is this really what you mean? Don't you mean this other thing? Or have you thought about that? Like that becomes a conversation, but I think it is also that contracting conversation becomes kind of a, a two sided accountability agreement, Right?

[Richard Brenner]

Yes.

[Vasco]

I'm accountable to you in this and you are accountable to me in the fact that you're actually defining what you want. Right. Like you're, you're not just saying, hey, go and coach them, you're saying, here are the things I would like to see. And that tool, or let's say two sided accountability is really important for any change.

[Richard Brenner]

Absolutely. And that's good that you mentioned this accountability part because that's usually also a big part of the coaching agreement to say, guys, you are accountable for the change, I am supporting the change, but you as a management are accountable for the success of the change. So we need to talk about how do we see that the change is successful? And that's always a bit difficult. So. Okay, but why are you not feeling accountable or responsible for the chance? I feel. But still you are in charge of making decisions. I cannot make all the decisions necessary. So you as a management are accountable for the process. And that's why we need these ongoing conversations and see if we are still working on the same goals or if they have the feeling that I should do something different or that's, I think, the more important part than having some tangible KPIs.

[Vasco]

Yeah. And it really is a conversation, so. Absolutely. Thank you for mentioning that as well, Richard. Thank you for sharing that.

[Unknown Host]

Thank you. Hey friend, thank you for staying Here is all you need to know about the Global Agile Summit. If you've ever suffered or know people who are suffering from Agile fatigue, this event is for you. Agile Fatigue is that feeling that settles in when we can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. We get discouraged. Especially when conversations revolve around the same old frameworks, the same old buzzwords and theories.

[Vasco]

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[Unknown Host]

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[Vasco]

Who wrote literally wrote the book on.

[Unknown Host]

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[Vasco]

How agile is that?

[Unknown Host]

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[Vasco]

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[Unknown Host]

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[Vasco]

Com.

[Unknown Host]

I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May. I'll see you there.