We’ve questioned a lot about the role of an agile coach. And there have been several branches of evolution. I’ve long argued that the agile coach is an operational manager. I used to tell coaches at benext (a sort of ESN that existed in the years 2015-2020 and that I led with David): you are managers, and to each manager, I would say: you must behave like coaches.

At the time, the hemorrhage was the influx of an entire population toward agile coaching because it seemed easy and lucrative. Let’s thank this wave that screwed up the use of the term agile: ESNs, SSIs, IT department Shadoks, public entertainers, and coaches in non-violent permaculture of your emotions.

And there you have it, either on one side we had project managers from big IT companies who disguised themselves or imagined themselves agile and shot down all agile coherence, or on the other side people who shouldn’t have been there, hit the wall and escaped through haphazard serious games or professional coaching postures (often without rigor), real coaching, but poorly done, and which didn’t match expectations.

It’s far from over, if you slip into the corridors of a large company, in an IT department, in a digital factory, or elsewhere where it’s “agile”, you’ll probably hear that agile coaches do nothing and claim it, which makes sense, they’re coaches before being agile (and very often they’re never agile). So they whisper in the ears of people who want asmr or they pull out their Legos.

And there, I say: well yes, an agile coach is first and foremost an operational manager. They’re active, they have impact, they do things.

And everyone: “well yeah, of course, we knew they were just big lazy bums!!!”, or “Well yes they’re responsible for results, otherwise it doesn’t work, and they give orders”, or “come on I said they were delivery managers, bosses, enough drawing hopscotch on the walls”.

Yes, but there’s a but.

The agile coach is an operational manager, but NOT AT ALL as the vast majority understands it.

This vast majority absolutely didn’t want to do agile, but rather good old command and control the old-fashioned way, which brings mediocre results, but allows concrete inertia, regular and serene failures. And what do people desire in this world without rhyme or reason? Calm and inertia. Whether the results are there, we don’t care, whether we do things well, we don’t care.

In any case, a large part imagines in the statement: “the agile coach is an operational manager” that we’re going back to the good old boss, that we had strayed and everything becomes like before.

In this vast majority, there are also the non-violent emotion coaches who develop your inner garden, those ones got hit head-on by reality, they didn’t position themselves at all where and how they should have, and so they hit the wall. Since they don’t necessarily understand agility, and they only observe failures, they tell themselves that, if you don’t like cultivating your emotions like a giraffe, well the other way of doing things must be tough boss-style.

Let’s say it again even if we’ve known it for a long time: the agile coach as operational manager is an evolution of traditional management (command and control), which turns toward “give a framework and give meaning, a direction”. And giving a framework means blocking, stopping, constraining. It has nothing to do with commanding, giving orders, pushing. We cultivate (no no don’t come back gardeners) the autonomy of groups of people, but we frame the space of autonomy, and we frame the process (Scrum – yes it’s still very good – or Kanban – it’s still very good –).

So, I’m not going to re-explain all this. You mustn’t frame in a stifling way, you must move forward with elements that aren’t too big that carry meaning, etc. You need constraints, but in the right dose. Share lots of information about what’s happening, make people understand a meaning, a direction, measure, measure, measure the impacts. Clarify the rules, adapt the size of groups, modularize, modularize, give autonomy, and support diversity and interactions when necessary. All this is setting a framework, managing this space. You have constraints, visibility on what’s happening, results (good or bad). Etc. Etc. Etc. You just need to dive into the articles, videos, and other content on my blog (or read the little manual of organizational thinking).

But it’s definitely you who block crappy processes, who constrain obscure spaces toward more clarity, you who apply constraints (too much and the system rebels, not enough and you’re no longer useful). Or conversely you who break down overly verbose, useless, obese processes; you who cut through the vines of convoluted communications so that things become clearer; you who dig in search of a clear direction, etc.

And it’s still not you who asks for precise estimates (useless work), who tells everyone what they must do, who decides nothing, or everything. Who never gets your hands dirty, or who never lifts your head from the grease. Look at host leadership on this blog (here and here)!

The thing is that this concerns ALL managers. Agile coaching is the name of modern management, at all levels.

On the other hand, I insist: those who think and imagine that the solution is some sort of going backward, they’re sticking their finger in their eye up to their knee. Yet this is indeed what we observe, a backward movement linked to stress, and not an understanding of management that proposes a step forward.

For those who want operational agile coaches, you know where to find me.