Ben THE AGILE COACH

Ben was enjoying being an Independent Contributor. Late twenties, in a good long-term relationship, energetic, enthusiastic, and responsible for many of the thousands of lines of code that were delivering value to hundreds of thousands of customers every day for millions of uses.

Ben often looked at problems and just knew how to solve them immediately, or within a very short period of time. Then, the organisation wanted him to expand his effectiveness - either an engineering manager position, or a technical agile coach position. He could have left the organisation to carry on being a really gifted (and in demand) Independent Contributor, but instead decided to try “stuff” he had no idea about.

Ben and I started working together to find out what he knew about modern software engineering, and also about effectively growing other Software Engineers, Testers, Business Analysts, Service Designers, CX Designers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners and Product Managers, no matter where they were in their careers, nor how similar or different they were to him.

We quickly established Ben knew most of what he needed to on the software engineering side, and I pointed him in the direction of a few older (and thicker) books that were relevant to where all this had come from, and even more relevant to where all this is going to. This freed us up to look at people and process. Things he had a vague, nearly philosophical outlook on, then.

Estimating, tracking, facilitating, Monte Carlo simulating, managing risk, roadmapping, dynamic teaming, servant leadership, mindsets, human doings, human beings, human psychology, philosophy, influence, time management, NLP, NVC, GROW, SPIN, SWOT, TOWS, SPACE and much much more.

In time, Ben started leading things he felt would be beneficial to others - he setup Book Clubs, Communities, Pairings, 1-2’s, and many more activities to help his team and his organisation become more agile - technically AND people and process too. He learned these things are a balancing act.

After another change of direction and focus from senior management, Ben decided to change his organisation.

Ben’s next organisation benefitted greatly from all the growth and experience he had gained in the previous 6 months - accelerating and expanding his impact - as an Engineering Manager (!!) - growing his team from 2 to 15 people in 6 months. Quality levels soared. Customer happiness scores improved. Prioritisation changed, a lot. So too did some of the people he led, mentored or collaborated with.

Then, he got cats and started gardening.

Ben also coached the new Product Manager to their success - very differently to the prevailing Product Culture that existed in the company.

And now, Ben is engaged.

And has taken up two new hobbies with communities.

He reads a bit less.