Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick

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Thu, 13 Nov 2003

Christian Sepulveda on coaching

Christian Sepulveda writes what I want to call a mission statement for agile coaching, except that "mission statement" is too often a synonym for "vacuous", which this is not.

My father compares parenting to bumper bowling; a parent's job is to keep the ball out of the gutter. But, if their child is not approaching the edge, the parent should let the child find his own way.

Similarly, a good coach provides guidance but allows (and hopefully encourages) a team to find their own identity. It's critical for a team to take ownership of its own process if they are to maintain and adopt it.

Were I starting as a coach, I'd hand Christian's essay out to the team and say, "Here. Tell me when I don't live up to this."

Christian follows the mission statement with some practical guidelines. He talks about identifying and understanding stakeholders. At PLoP, Jeff Patton walked us through a two-hour example of doing just that, using a variant of Constantine/Lockwood style usage-centered design. Shameless plug: Jeff has written an article on that topic for STQE magazine. It'll be out in the January issue.

## Posted at 11:02 in category /agile [permalink] [top]