How does an Agile Coach differ from a ScrumMaster?

This year there's an increasing interest in Agile Coaching. Sessions about the role of Coach have been popping up in agile conference programs around the globe. Agile2009 even dedicated a stage to sessions on Coaching. Our book on "Agile Coaching" is the first book dedicated to explaining how coaches work with Agile teams. Meanwhile, Lyssa Adkins is also working on a book, "Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches and Project Managers in Transition", which should be out in the summer of 2010.

Yet, despite the burgeoning Agile Coaching movement, there's not much written about how the role of Coach fits into the Scrum framework. It's easy to see why people are curious. There's no Coach role in Scrum reference books, such as the Scrum Alliance Scrum Guide---although if you do some digging you'll see Coach was included in the original SCRUM pattern language. Yet what's puzzling is that Scrum Alliance's certification program includes Certified Scrum Coach, as an advanced level qualification on  your "journey to mastery". To qualify, you have to demonstrate significant coaching experience with client references. But how is a Scrum Coach different from a ScrumMaster?

In our "Agile Coaching" book, we focus on how to coach a team in a vanilla flavor of Agile rather than getting sucked into the specifics of the Scrum framework. So you may be surprised to learn that I often coach Scrum teams and ScrumMasters. Last month, Christoph Mathis invited me to share my experiences on "Being a Scrum Coach" at the Scrum Gathering in Munich. I was delighted to find there was a whole track dedicated to "Coaching & Continuous Improvement". This panel session was the first time I was put on the spot and asked "What's the difference between a ScrumMaster and a Scrum Coach?" that's when the seed for this blog post was sown.

Last week, the same question came up in an OpenSpace session for Agile Coaches and that gave me the extra nudge I needed to write up my thoughts. I've posted a photo that shows some points in our discussion here.

I'm sure you'll agree that a ScrumMaster needs coaching skills to perform their role well. I'd add that you don't need to be a ScrumMaster to be a Scrum Coach! Coaching skills are like good fertilizer. In my experience, it makes sense for you to spread these skills around the team. The ScrumMaster is not the only person who needs to absorb them. My goal, as a coach, is to encourage the team to become self-coaching rather than continuing to rely on any one team member to be the coach. So for me, a coach is a transitional role until the team grows their own coaching capability.

When you take this perspective on board, your next question is "Does an experienced Scrum Team continue to need a ScrumMaster?" Surely, once they've got experience under their belts in applying Scrum, the need for a ScrumMaster disappears. Let's revisit to the responsibilities of the ScrumMaster. Are there any important aspects that can't be absorbed by the team?

Naturally, Scrum continues to evolve and over the years the role of ScrumMaster has been described in different ways. Ken Schwaber compares the ScrumMaster to a "sheepdog" who guards the team from interruptions, they're often the first point of contact for anyone outside the team. A ScrumMaster also focuses on removing impediments. Maybe it's down to personal coaching style, I'd never do either of these activities as a coach. My rule as an external coach is never to do any tasks for the team. I want to avoid creating any dependency on me. Instead, I teach the team to notice and respond to impediments and interruptions themselves.

As Mike Cohn reminds us there is no end state when transitioning to agile. Adopting Scrum is just a beginning to your team's Agile journey and a team doing "Scrum by the book" is not the end that ScrumMasters or Scrum Coaches are working toward.

Comments

[Robert Dempsey]

Thank you for the distinction Rachel. From your definitions then, it seems that the ScrumMaster is more into the day-to-day (per say) and the Agile Coach is a truly temporary role to help everyone on their way down the road.

[Rachel Davies]

Yes, although I'd hope that the team eventually grow their skills so they don't need a ScrumMaster. For example, I have seen teams who take turns to play the parts of the ScrumMaster role, signing up to be contact point and meeting facilitator. This encourages teams to own their process and take responsibility for it. This also exposes the team to a variety of facilitation styles and can freshen up their meetings.

[Tobias Mayer]

I am not convinced that the ScrumMaster is a coach at all, nor needs to be. I think that may be a misconception. You say "I'm sure you'll agree that a ScrumMaster needs coaching skills to perform their role well." Well, maybe it helps in some circumstances, but I have been a very effective ScrumMaster, and I don't believe I have any particular coaching skills -- I certainly have had no training at all in what it means to be a coach. As a ScrumMaster I don't coach team members, I facilitate a process, and I act as an organizational change agent. It is really entirely different.

Sometimes I teach people about Scrum, using facilitative learning techniques. That is also not coaching. It is closer to teaching. Sometimes I consult, which means I explore, listen, suggest, advise, offer observation, send invoices. I still don't see that as coaching.

We use the term "coach" a lot in the Agile world, and as you say the Scrum Alliance has a "Scrum Coach" certification. I wonder how many of those people have actually studied coaching as a discipline My guess is few. Being a consultant, and adding "Agile" in front of the term doesn't magically make one a coach. There is more to it than that.

So, in short I reckon the Agile Coach and ScrumMaster are entirely different roles. Scrum requires the latter, it doesn't require the former (which is why there is no "ScrumCoach role in Scrum). If a ScrumMaster decides to be a coach to the team he is probably doing his job badly (maybe being a good coach, but not being a good ScrumMaster). That is not to say there is no role for a coach in an Agile transition. Often there is. But only in the same way it might also be helpful to have an executive coach, a software craftsmanship trainer, or a career counselor in an organization. Different responsibilities.

[Robert Dempsey]

Thank you for your reply Rachel. I agree that a team not requiring a ScrumMaster is an ideal situation. For this to happen, team members would need the political power in an organization to remove the more significant roadblocks, if they were in a company that had politics, which many are. Or, if the Product Owner could remove impediments that would be even better. They are positioned well to do so. I also agree that the team could self-assign the contact point and go from there. Thanks again.

[Rachel Davies]

The Scrum Guide published by Scrum Alliance says "The ScrumMaster is not the manager but leads by coaching, teaching and supporting the team."

I entirely agree that coaching is not the same as consulting. When I work as a consultant, I spend time observing the team in action, talking to the team, and reviewing their artifacts. I then give recommendations based on my experience of improvements they can make. Often these recommendations are made formally in a report.

Whereas, coaching is different. When I am acting as coach, I work to help the team become more aware of their behavior and aspirations, to see the options open to them, and encourage them to make changes to achieve their goals.

I'd say key skills for a coach are building rapport, listening, asking questions, encouraging reflection. Whilst many of these do overlap with skills used in consulting, the difference in coaching is the coachee sets the direction and decides their next steps. A consultant attempts to shortcut this process by providing solutions based on their experience elsewhere.

[David Harvey]

Lots of the problems facing teams adopting agile (and Scrum in particular, as this is the process most often mandated in a top-down organizational program of change*) are not about external impediments, but internal ones: to do with the way individuals in the team collaborate, their relationship to each other, to their physical space, to their technologies. It's moot I guess as to whether a Scrum Master or another coach takes on this role, as long as it's done, but I'd call this coaching, and I'd expect a Scrum Master to do this if necessary. I'd even go so far as to say that if a starting Scrum team and it's SM focus to much on external impediments then they'll lose the opportunity to make more fundamental changes in the way they themselves work.

(* irony intended)

[April Johnson]

Scrum Mastering has a clear role definition already, but it feels like the Coach role can be defined many different ways. It depends on what the word "coach" means to you. In some sense, the SM is coaching a team on Scrum and on functioning as a team, like a little league coach does a baseball team. Reflecting back to individuals how their behavior impacts the team is also a form of coaching that I think falls in the SM's domain.

There's also a domain of coaching - and this gets interesting, since many SM's and consultants and Agile Coaches have training or skills in this domain - where you're really addressing an individual's personal agenda. That's not the SM's domain, and I don't think it's an AC's role, either. It only has bearing on agile teams because the SM or AC could cross this boundary (which I feel is inappropriate).

This other Coach role seems a little blurred with consulting - probably because it's a role performed so often by consultants. Rachel, are you conceiving of Agile Coach here as primarily a change facilitator? An engine of continuous improvement? I think you're onto something good with these definitions.

[Dan]

One goal of a coach would be to help elevate the performance of the team, using the power of questions, listening and encouragement.

While a coach may not be critical to team success, certainly success can be improved and sometimes greatly by the addition of a coach.

I've done both ScrumMaster and coaching roles.

[jc-Qualitystreet]

Even if the ScrumMaster can act as an agile coach, using coaching techniques in some circumstances and even if the Agile coach is sometimes asked to play the role of ScrumMaster in Scrum projects, I really think the roles are different.

A ScrumMaster is not an Agile Coach. Here are my own elements of comparison (based on your first list) :
http://www.agile-ux.com/2010/03/30/the-scrummaster-is-not-an-agile-coach/

[Alexis La Joie]

thank you for this comparison. I was wondering, do you ever think it alright for a Coach to "do" something for the team in the course of training them... for instance, would it ever be alright, in your opinion, to pair with developers on a team that wanted to try pairing, in order to provide an example of effective pairing?

[Rachel Davies]

Alexis,

thanks for your comment. Yes, I think it's fine to work with the team and pairing with team members is an excellent way of sharing agile practices.

Rachel