The Business of
Agile Coaching:
The COVID-19 Remix
Alicia McLain
Brandon Raines
John Eisenschmidt
Roger Brown
#ACESoCal
August 18, 2020

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The Agile Coach Competency Framework
9. The Business of Agile Coaching - Knowing more about things like certifications, insurance, getting business, etc…
10. Coach/Leader/Servant - The leadership practices, principles and theories for success

THE BUSINESS OF AGILE COACHING:
THE COVID-19 REMIX

Agenda
(1)
Building Your
Team
(2)
9 Things wildly
successful Agile
Coaches do
(3)
Agile & the
Government
#ACESoCal | agilecoachingexchange.com | @agilecoachingex
(4)
Professional
Pathways
Discussion: Coaching in the Age of COVID-19

Building Your
Team
For nearly 20 years, John has coached
people and teams toward greater agility
within corporations, nonprofits, higher
education, and the federal government.
Beyond his training and experience in Agile
Coaching and Program Management, John
is a Strozzi Institute certified Somatic Coach,
an ICF ACC and Mentor Coach who trained
with Doug Silsbee in Presence-Based
Coaching, Richard Strozzi-Heckler in
Somatics, and CRR Global in Organization
and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC)
PMP®, CSP-SM, ICP-ACC, SPC, ICF ACC, SISC, LSP
John Eisenschmidt - @jeisensc

Starting a Business is Hard. Running a Business is Harder.

1st Order Needs: Ability to Operate
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2nd Order Needs: Minimize Your Risks and Liabilities
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3rd Order Needs: Maximize Your Opportunity Costs
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9 Things wildly
successful
Agile Coaches
do
Alicia has over 20 years of experience in the
technology industry. Her focus is on coaching
individuals, teams and organizations through
change and transformation. Her specialty is
with organizations looking to increase business
and leadership agility. She has a keen eye for
organizational systems and is passionate about
using Agile practices to build high performing
teams and organizations. Alicia is an
Executive/leadership coach and a Wiley
Authorized partner for the Everything DiSC
integrated suite of leadership assessments.
PMP®, CSP, ICF ACC, Wiley DiSC
Alicia McLain - @AgileLeaderSD

#ACESoCal | agilecoachingexchange.com | @agilecoachingex

If at first you don’t succeed…..
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9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do
#ACEOnline | agilecoachingexchange.com | @agilecoachingex
This is just about “The business of Agile
coaching”
Inspired by ICF (International Coaching
Federation)’s business series for 2018
Why is it important?

9 Things
Successful
Agile
Coaches Do
1. Niche
2. Unique Brand of IP
3. Look Successful
4. Do more than coaching
5. Have a virtual brand
6. Invest in their business
7. Avoid the lone ranger
8. Turn people aware of them into their sales people
9. Build Business Daily

9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do
#1 Niche
• Specialty, Regional,
Industry Focus
• The Agile Coaching
Competency Model
(Technical, Business,
Organizational)
• Branding

9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do
#2 Unique Brand of IP •Blog posts
•Books (ebooks, regular)
•Online classes
•Training materials, etc..
• COVID-19 “Distinguished”

#3 Look Successful • Branding (consistency)
• Website, Office address, Registered business
name
• Business Structures (SoW, etc..)
• LinkedIN
• COVID-19 Get a coach!!!
#4 Do More Than Coaching • Training
• Public speaking
• Author
• Podcast Hosting
• COVID-19 Level up your game!
9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do

9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do
#5 Have a Virtual Brand • “Narcissurfing”
• Digital First Impressions (BOOK: “Control-Alt-
Delete”)
• Primacy bias
• Anchoring bias
• Video
• COVID-19 Never more important than now.
#6 Invest in their business • Website, business cards (design, color, font,
etc…)
• Bookkeeper
• Attorney Services
• Copywriting
• CPA/Tax professional
• COVID-19 – “Zoom Producer”

#7 Avoid the lone ranger • Community (clients, partners, colleagues) to
support your success
• MeetUps (The Agile Coaching Exchange)
• The Coach’s Retreats
• National & Regional Conferences
• Partnerships: (Agile Kata, etc..)
• COVID-19 Connection even more
important
#8 Turn people aware of them into
their sales people
• Undifferentiated – Building
• Distinguished – Reputation, building fans
• Demanded – People come to you!
• COVID-19 Referrals are KING, Existing
business
9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do

#9 Build Business Daily • 9 minutes (Planned)
• ‘Like’ relevant LinkedIN
• Sharing IP on LinkedIN
• Following up (LinkedIN, etc..)
• Blogging (LinkedIN)
• COVID – 19 – Top of Mind
9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do

Summary
1. Niche
2. Unique Brand of IP
3. Look Successful
4. Do more than coaching
5. Have a virtual brand
6. Invest in their business
7. Avoid the lone ranger
8. Turn people aware of them into their sales people
9. Build Business Daily
Sources:
• William Arruda, https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamarruda/
• The Agile Coaching Institute, The Agile Coaching Competency Model
9 Things Successful Agile Coaches Do

Agile & The
Government
Brandon Raines

Brandon Raines
Who Am I ?
Brandon.raines@shokuninllc.com
linkedin.com/in/brandonraines/
twitter.com/shokuninllc
Check out my LinkedIn Learning Video –
Characteristics of a Great Scrum Master

Brandon Raines
Who I Have Served

#ACEOnline | agilecoachingexchange.com | @agilecoachingex
• When did the government get the Agile memo
• What branches are the most interested in Agile
• What are the approaches to getting a contract
• Is clearance required?
• What are some of the things to look or watch out for in government
contracting
• What type of business structures are needed (the answer to this
might refer back to something john or I mentioned in our talks)

Professional
Pathways
Roger Brown

Roger Brown
roger.brown@agilecrossing.com
www.agilecrossing.com
www.agilecoachjournal.com
www.linkedin.com/in/rogerwbrown
I want to be
an
Agile Coach
when I grow
up!
Founding Team Member for
CEC and CTC Programs.

Organization
Multi-Teams
Departments
Team
Self
Community
Profession
Scope of
Service

Organization
Multi-Teams
Departments
Team
Self
Community
Profession
Specialty
Areas
Product Ownership
Portfolio
Agile Beyond IT
Lean Startup
XP
DevTools
Structure
Scaling
R&D
Culture
Learning
DevOps
Lean UX
Distributed Agile
Agile Transformation
Leadership
Team Dynamics
Lean
Mentoring
Presentation
Training

$ Certifications
$ Collaborators
$ References
$ Case Studies
Indicators of Coach’s Worth
AGILE FLUENCY PROJECT

Scrum Alliance Coaching Certifications
• Experience Based
• Requires Certified Scrum Professional
• Peer Reviewed
• Coaching Skills and Mindset
• Agile Expertise
• Mentored and Mentors
• Active Scrum Alliance Participation
• Path to Coaching Programs Available
Coaches: 161 120
Review Time: 4 weeks 6 weeks
Actual application process
time can be 6 months to 2
years because you really have
to work at it.

Coaching in
the Age of
COVID
Summary of survey
to the CTC/CEC
Community
(20 respondents)

Impacts
• All work is remote and leverages video and digital tools, of
course.
• Have had to retool training products.
• No travel opens up more time for new clients and/or self-
improvement work.
• Billable Hours: 3 Increased, 9 Decreased, 1 up and down
depending on client, 2 Down then up
• Leads and prospects decreased in general.
• I have more global exposure.

Behavior Changes
• Set up tools and space for video-based work
• Learn more about marketing L
• Remote work takes more hours
• Doing more training, less coaching
• Retooled training and facilitation artifacts for online
• Put effort into more persistent IP (video, blog, books)
• Less time spent on email
• More time to mentor others
• Expanded product and service offerings to replace what can’t
be done now.

Value of Certification
• Is CTC/CEC helpful at this time? 6 Yes, 7 Neutral, 0 No
• Indirectly, certification leads to more speaking
engagements, thereby helping to get business.
• Reputation is worth more than certification.
• With everyone online and remote, there is more
competition from self-proclaimed experts.
• Training certificates are helpful now to allow sales of
online training as a substitute and/or funnel to coaching
business.

Lessons Learned - 1
Skills and Tools
- Level up on tools: Zoom, Miro, Mural, Calendly mentioned most.
- Level up on remote facilitation skills.
- Keep tool use simple to focus on content instead of technology.
- Facilitation tools can also provide documentation of decisions made.
- Make instructions visible when facilitating an exercise.
Business
- Have a financial buffer in case of really big emergencies.
- Do more marketing.
- Less travel == more time for the client
- Build your network. Tap your connections.
- Recalibrate your compensation expectations.
Self Improvement
- Patience, patience, patience
- Be more flexible and open-minded.
- “Someday” has arrived for professional growth.

Lessons Learned - 2
Client Interaction
• Interactions are more targeted and pro-active
• Actively schedule everything and use a regular cadence when
appropriate
• Show up for the schedule; don’t wait for client to respond (ie. 1-1s)
• Limit Zoom to 12 people. Use breakouts if you can’t.
• Kids and dogs are ok.
Client Atmosphere
• Teams adjusted better than expected
• Transformation is easier when people are not tied to the “place”
• Hard to get the bigger picture and undercurrents
Personal
• Have a separate home office
• Let family know your schedule

Other Observations
• Ironic how much resistance to change there was among Agilists.
• Remote coaching takes a lot of energy
• Quality of coaching is still important.
• Don’t try to recreate in-person culture in an on-line world.
• Self-learning opened up new communities to tap.
• When working on a coaching team, all-remote work has too
much communication overhead (my personal experience)

http://scrumblr.ca/ace-business-of-agile-coaching

Thank You! https://bit.ly/ACE-retro

Agile Coach Sales Pitch
•You will reach Agility sooner
•The pathway will be smoother
•Your Agility will be more sustainable
•An Agile Coach is a bargain
Why Hire an Agile Coach?
Illustration

Illustration
Cost of a Sprint
Skill People Labor Cost Per 2 week
QA 2 $10,000/person
SW Dev 5 $12,000/person
ScrumMaster 1 $14,000/person
Product Owner 1 $20,000/person
Total: $114,000
Cost of Sprint = $114,000
Average Net Profit of US S
oftware Companies = 15%
Baseline Sprint Value = $17,100
Value of a Sprint
Contract Time: 3 Months
Teams Impacted: 10
Onsite Days: 10
Remote Days: 3
Onsite Rate: $4,000/day
Remote Days: $2000/day
Travel Expense, 5 trips: $5,000
-----------------------------------------
Total Cost: $51,000
Coach Payback
Sprint Cost $114,000 * 10 teams = $1,140,000
Sprint Profit $17,100 * 10 teams = $171,000
Coach Cost: $51,000
If Gain in Value
Throughput Is
The Profit Gain Is Coach Investment
Pays off in Sprint
10% $17,100 3
50% $85,500 1
100% $171,000 1
Cost of 1 Enterprise Coach