The Value of A Coach
I have benefited from coaching at different periods of my life. As a young little league baseball player, and then teenage basketball player, coaches taught me the technical skills I needed. They also taught the team how to excel as a team, with each of us performing our roles and learning to collaborate, instead of just a group of individuals engaged in a common activity. As I began my professional career I was doing translation and analysis work and benefitted from the patient guidance of some very skilled and experienced professionals who were not only very good at what they did, but invested time and energy to help others become good at it. Asking people in all roles to begin to do and be what they have to do and become in an Agile environment takes more than just standard training (classes, readings, and exercises). People need support when they're in their normal, day-to-day settings and relationships to help them break from established patterns and practices and do t