An idea has been running through my mind for a few weeks. I liken my role as an agile coach to that - in a way: don’t take me literally! - of a psychoanalyst… Well from a distance, let’s say the silhouette of the agile coach resembles that of the psychoanalyst. I’ve never been a psychoanalyst, and I don’t regret it at all (argh a confession), but I still completed studies where philosophy and psychology played an interesting part. In short, I return to the foundation of this small article: I draw a parallel between the profession of agile coach and the role of psychoanalyst. Why? How?

First, it’s necessary to pay your agile coach just like your psychoanalyst: perhaps it’s an imposture by Freud, as Onfray strongly implies, but nevertheless as an agile coach I strongly recommend bringing in one or more external people (you can consider that I’m selling my wares, but what can you do - to this day - that’s my opinion). This cost comes from a genuine commitment. When someone hires an external coach they act on their willingness to change through the means (cost) they put into practice.

On this subject, I also refer you to the unfortunate but nonetheless too often verified maxim: “no one is a prophet in their own land”. Same for the psychoanalyst, it is imperative that they be outside your world. It is unthinkable (at least given my mediocre knowledge of psychoanalysis) to involve a psychoanalyst close to you. Their analysis is disturbed, biased, your restitution is just as much.

Then, as with psychoanalysis, the role of agile coach is to listen, to understand and to guide your client, but the solution will come when they know how to express the answer themselves. When you shift a company toward agile you approach things in a pragmatic way by offering tools, a foundation to hold onto (scrum, kanban, xp, lean or other). But the essential lies in the appropriation of agile culture. Inspection, adaptation, transparency for scrum are much more important than the operating mode. My goal is achieved when the company possesses the culture, the agile spirit, and not only when it applies stricto sensu the method. It could very well detach itself completely from this or that method (even if - let’s insist on this - these methods are based on long years of experience and therefore are not without foundation…). It’s useless for me to lecture my client: you must do it this way, you must do it this way, you must do it this way, I will have achieved my goal when they themselves tell me: we must do it this way. It’s therefore better to question them and lead them (if it’s really the right solution) to appropriate the agile culture. The psychoanalyst does no differently…

Finally, a fourth point comes to mind: agile makes latent problems emerge… to solve them. Isn’t that the entire objective of the psychoanalyst?

I captured these ideas last night to question an acquaintance… a psychoanalyst. He tells me that he “more or less” agrees. And raises an interesting point: the word “coach” is very much marked by “objective” and success in a way. But very often his patients don’t wish to see problems solved, he tells me, they don’t wish to succeed. There is a desire for things to remain in suffering. There is pleasure in this suffering in a way. However, we are indeed coaches (even if I’m not very comfortable with this word - I prefer moreover “facilitator”, but this word doesn’t entirely fit either -) and, I hope, “my patients” wish to see their problems solved.

Is it serious, doctor?