It’s hard to practice coaching a team or an organization… without actually coaching a team or organization. So, I’ve co-created with Gillian Lee, a set of “Choose Your Own Coaching Adventure” games similar to our other coaching games, but focused on teams and organizations.
Each game represents a different scenario with multiple challenges to overcome in order to produce a successful result. For this session, you “puppetmaster” two Agilists, an Enterprise Agile Coach and a team based Agile working with a large organization with many teams.
At the start of each game you’ll be presented with a description of the scenario and a choice of 3-5 actions you can take such as “Work with the team to figure out what they would like to do next” or “Present your recommended changes to the CTO.” Each action has the potential to uncover additional information and/or actions that you can take. There are many branching paths, and it will feel just like working with real people: determining what approach is appropriate in each situation: powerful questions, teaching, facilitation, or providing expertise. Along the way you’ll interact with teams, team members, stakeholders, and leaders in the organization.
You’ll have a chance to practice many coaching skills including: powerful questions, emotional intelligence, rapport building, acting as a mirror, encouraging and supporting learning and growth, and pivoting between coaching and providing expertise. The game is meant to be played in small groups of 2-4 people to encourage discussion and to provide an opportunity to learn from each other. Think “escape the room” style fun and collaboration.
To get an idea of what these games are like, you can try the ones we have online which are focused on individuals: (https://facilitivity.com/online-games/). In this session we’ll mostly be playing the game, but it is perfectly ok to be a spectator.
About the Speaker:
Damon Poole is an Enterprise Agile Coach and the co-author of Professional Coaching for Agilists (Addison-Wesley). In addition he offers ICAgile and ICF accredited coach training programs. He has coached and trained thousands of people at companies such as Capital One, Oanda, Ford, Perforce, and Fidelity. As a coach of coaches at Eliassen, Damon led the Agile Delivery team which grew to hundreds of Agile Coaches and other Agilists in the field. He is an International Coaching Federation Associate Certified Coach, International Coach Academy Certified Professional Coach, and ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Coaching. Damon frequently presents at local and international Agile meetups and conferences such as the Agile Alliance Conference, Play4Agile, and Agile and Beyond. He has also co-created a series of popular Agile games such as User Story Games, Agile Coaching Games, Heroes of Agility, and a small collection of online games. Learning through play is a consistent element of his work.
