In recent years, I've noticed a conflicting perception of the role of Scrum Master (SM) or Agile Coach (AC, for simplicity, I won't differentiate between these roles further in this article) in companies and the agile community. On the one hand, it says that it is a necessary role for operating in an agile/lean way, for pushing change and directing the company culture. On the other hand, there are business ungraspability of the role, the difficulty of defining its meaning, benefits, goals and their measurability, and the related fact that it is one of the first roles to go when "saving" is needed. I understand both sides and in this article I will try to offer a view on how to grasp this role so that the benefits stand out and at the same time it makes sense from a business perspective.
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Addressing challenges of the present.
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Developing the leaders who make it happen.
Are you dealing with immediate challenges and changes in your company? Do you want to get expert insight on how to deal with them successfully?
Are you looking for a way to get buy-in from your key people? Or do you want someone to roll up their sleeves and do the work with you?
Do you want your company to be able to respond quickly to future challenges? Do you want to improve your company’s performance and impact without increasing costs? Do you aspire to make your company more customer-centric and better understand your customers’ needs?
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Leaders are the drivers of change in an organization and therefore need continuous development. Our tailored development programmes and one-to-one coaching are great for strengthening their skills and mindset to maximize their positive impact.
References
RainFellows are professionals with really diverse skillsets that a lot of the growing companies really need. With RainFellows we’ve been able to introduce Agile software development and the Agile way of managing the whole company. This was a crucial part of what we needed in order to transform from a local to a global company.
Petr Svoboda Owner, ShopSys
„Summer 2013 RainFellows coaches were hosting a great one-day workshop for my team on the agile practices. It was really an eye-opener for most of the team-members and helped us to start our journey into agile world. Their approach was both out-of-the-box and inspiring. I would recommend their service to anybody thinking of moving ahead with agile transformations.”
Mikko Arjanmaa IT Development Manager, UPM Raflatac
„Our managers attended a set of workshops with RainFellows to (re)start the Agile way of working, then we had the Agile transformation in our pilot team and from that point on we’ve worked together via mentoring and strategic problem-solving workshops focused on specific topics. The result is much better alignment between R&D and Product management, we have our architecture and also organisational framework ready. It also helped us discover the need for a new key role and roadmapping process. Thanks to all these workshops and discussions we now have a lot of valuable outcomes we can work with going forward.”
Marek Novotný R&D Director, ComAp
„Thanks to the collaboration with RainFellows we’ve created a new organisational model, based on Spotify that is now described in our internal Agile Playbook. They helped us in defining new roles (PO, Agile coach, Tribe Lead, Tech Lead, Chapter Lead) in the Agile organisation and they helped us with the hiring process for Agile coach. They were with us when we kicked off our new Squads and through mentoring they supported our internal Agile coaches and other key roles (Tribe leads, B-1, and Product owners).”
Ondřej Klamt CTO, Rohlík
We have worked with RainFellows when building our team of Scrum Masters, setting up open communication in our company and also when we needed our people to experience Agile on one of their practical workshops. I appreciate their ability to give direct feedback whenever the situation requires it. They always share their observations followed by best practices. Their positive attitude and enthusiasm are a great inspiration for us.
Miloš Ohlídal Head of R&D ITS CZ, Siemens Mobility, s.r.o.
The guys at RainFellows beautifully combine the technical/knowledge side of things with the art of working with and for people. The result of cooperation does not mean only inspiration “how to do it”, but a real delivery of change. After all, they are “friends in the rain, aren’t they”:) My last experience was consulting with Jan on the company-wide offsite program. We refined the goals together and then designed the individual parts in every detail, including timing, potential bottlenecks or ideas for gamification. Thanks for the frantic efficiency.
Martin BazalaCEO, Raynet
When we were looking for a supplier that would help us understand what the Agile way of working means, we found RainFellows. And it was an incredibly useful discovery – they work in a playful interactive way thanks to which you understand principles of Scrum, Lean, what is Kanban, and much more. We value their positive approach and the energy they put into their work. They really understand Agile and also have a lot of experience, not only from the IT world. Everything they do is always tailored to our needs, we have fine-tuned a lot of activities iteratively so even what they deliver is done in an agile way. Participants of the courses, workshops, and mentoring meetings now have the desire to work in an agile way. I would recommend RainFellows to every company that is serious about their Agile transformation and wants real experts that will help along the way.
Eva Jedličková Guarantor of the Agile Academy, Česká spořitelna
Thanks to guys from RainFellows Agile project management has become one of the cornerstones of our company culture. Without them it would take us additional 10 years.
Tomáš VránekCEO, ICE industrial services
We have been cooperating with RainFellows for quite long time. They help us to improve our Agile software delivery for our Scandinavian customers. I really appreciate their ability to trigger “aha effects”, they align different people around same goal and they are able to decompose complex issues into small, executable steps with strong positive impact.
Petr Janiurek Senior Project Manager, Tieto
About two years ago I started in a department that was in a very gloomy mood. Today the department is twice as big, full of people with great energy. For all that I thank RainFellows. They are not only there for you for the Agile transformation but it’s obvious that they are able to dive deep into any topic from the organisational and company leadership and help you deal with it well.
David PěknicGroup Head of R&D, Fortuna Game a.s.
Lean&Agile coaches provided their experience and tools when Faurecia decided to build an Agile software development team to create a new Just-In-Time solution for their production plants. As a result we got: autonomous distributed Agile development team in 3 months, team productivity increased by 50% in 5 months, development team integrated into the end-to-end value chain, sustainability – continuous improvement built into daily work.
Philippe Hocqueloux Manager, Faurecia
“I would like to thank you for the wonderful day you’ve spent with us. Even on the day after I was still talking to a couple of people about what kind of a “non/training” it was. Everyone and I really mean 100%, was thrilled 🙂 What made people so enthusiastic about it was the funny and relaxed way of doing it, the way they achieved the result by themselves, with their own decisions. At the same time, they had the opportunity to see the real consequences of the changes they made. Also, people now have the drive to change things based on what we created as outputs in the second part of the training. So we’re going to do it”
Petr Fučík Director of Data division, Copy General
After experience from your Lego Car game we started iniciatives which resulted in reduced lead time of certain production from 42 days to 28 days, heavy stock reduction, almost double productivity, … and financially speaking we start seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. The Lean Game was the perfect experience with the perfect timing !!!
Dirk StrooCEO, ArcelorMittal Frýdek-Místek
It’s not easy to explain Agile principles and techniques, really. It has to be experienced. And that is happening during RainFellows workshop in very interactive and interesting way. RainFellows are positive, full of energy and the most importantly – they deeply understand the topic. They are professionals. Thanks!
Petr MašekFuture Bank Accelerator, Česká spořitelna
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