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So what is PairCoaching all about? Is a question I get a lot.
A few years back, when my father and I did a retrospective on a leadership game we had done earlier that week, we noticed that some of the leaders we ask to lead in a certain way, had trouble doing it.
So we talked about how we could support them more.
(In one part of the game, the leader had to be command-and-control, in another part we needed a proces leader)
While talking about that, my father suggested to use a pair of leaders.
It seems very logical to do so, as we did our session also with two people.
(And I know he does all of his workshops with someone else.)
Somewhere in the conversation he dropped the term PairCoaching.
He wrote a nice article about it, that we distribute to the players of the game.
Since that moment I have been talking more and more about PairCoaching.
I think that the quality goes dramatically up when you have two people doing a job. For important jobs I think it is good to have a pair doing the work.
Pilots are always with two in a cockpit. Is it overhead? Sure it could be, I think all the passengers of the flight 61 (Brussels Newark of 19 june 2009), are really happy there was a co-pilot, when the main pilot had a heart attack.

In corporate life the default leadership style is one leader, that leads a team somewhere between 5 to 500 people.
In personal life the default leadership style is two leaders, that lead a family of 1 till 17 children.
Oh yes you can lead a family on your own. I have friends who are single parent, they do a great job, and they’ll tell you it’s tough alone.
I propose more people should try leading a team with 2 people.
In some sense people are already doing that in the agile world:
A scrum master and a PO have some kind of leadership role. Yes both roles are different, just like a mother role and a father role are different.
And sometimes a PO does more SM tasks, and a SM jumps in and helps on the PO taks. Like father and mothers switch roles also from time to time.
In a good running family, the mother and father consult each other on important decisions.

Another example I see in corporate life is at the top of companies:
you have a CEO and a president of the board.
Both roles are different, they share the responsibility for the company.

Update: A few weeks ago there was a session at an Agile Coach Camp about PairCoaching. Read the transcription here.

UPDATE2: here is a game to teach pairCoaching
Update 3: I found later that my father was not the first person to use the word PairCoaching. Joshua Kerievsky from Industrial Logic used that word earlier.

I noticed something strange the last months (year?).

Last year there were lot’s of discussions on agile mailing list about agile vs Agile.
We also had discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of certifications.

David wanted to write a new manifesto.

We had discussion if Lean was agile.
At Agile 2009 there was a Open Space session is Scrum evil?

Ken resigned of the Scrum Alliance he founded (the foundation to support “his” scrum)

Joel writing a post against TDD vs Uncle Bob’s response
Tobias writing a blog post to stop doing XP. vs Steve reaction’s to keep doing XP
(Read Tobias answer in the comments to understand the whole discussion)
I could add a lot more if I wanted, and so could you.

It looks like we have a lot of discussions where we question ourselves as an industry.

I have the feeling it is the first time this happens at this scale.
Maybe I’m too young. Maybe I ‘m more in the middle now or have more idea’s myself on who’s right or wrong.
Maybe it’s the always connect, twitterly, blogging world that makes these discussions so more public.

This reminds me a lot of the storming phase that exists in a team live cycle,or the chaos phase in Satirs model.
So from a point of view of a coach these discussions and where this goes is interesting.

In these discussions, there is clearly no leader. Or let me put it in another way, no leader that everyone would accept.
So this is a self-organizing team.

Who’s is part of this team?
I guess everyone involved in creating software.
Some are seniors, some are juniors. Some are good in communication others are bad at expressing what they think/feel, but have good idea’s. Some have great idea’s and don’t say/write anything. Some turn of heir browsers and start writing code.

What is the goal of this team?
mmm? That is a hard one, and as long was we don’t have a shared vision, I doubt we will agree on a lot of stuff. Anyway agreeing should never be a goal.
The creation of the agile manifesto was also not done without discussions.

My personal goal would be that we as an industry end up get better at writing great software.

As a coach I’m interested to look at META position and see how we behave as a community. And how the outside world looks at us during these discussions.

Do we scare people away because we argue?
Do we attract people because we listen to each other and argue politely?
Maybe it is too early to ask these questions, and I know that switching to and from meta position can influence the discussions.

So lot’s of questions. And too much happening that I can take a look at on my own.

So I wonder, what is your idea? How do you feel about this?

Category: Scrum

Video of Scrum Master class

What is PairCoaching

The Storming phase of the (agile) IT world

Interesting article? Dont hesitate to share

Interesting article? Dont hesitate to share

Interesting article? Dont hesitate to share

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