The Official Guide to the Scrum Master Coaching Sprint
Coaching the team and surrounding organization is a core Scrum Master accountability [2020 Scrum Guide]. While effective Scrum Masters leverage the modalities of teaching, facilitating, mentoring and advising, adding coaching into the mix leads to the most sustainable change and is what separates good Scrum Masters from great ones.
The Coaching Sprint is a seamless and impactful way for Scrum Masters to coach their teams without the burden of additional meetings or processes not already defined by Scrum. The Coaching Sprint is an effective pattern in agile environments as it allows the Scrum Master to model agility by working in sprints. Below you’ll find the components that every Coaching Sprint needs.
Sprint Length
The Coaching Sprint is longer than a product sprint (regular Scrum team product delivery sprint) because people change more slowly than products. Research has shown that people take an average of 66 days to change their behaviour. Further research has shown that coaching sessions that happen no more than 2 weeks apart lead to the best client outcomes. To optimize these two pieces of information, a Scrum team with a 2-week product sprint might choose to work in 3-month Coaching Sprints and have one coaching session each product sprint to enact meaningful change.
Roles
The Coaching Sprint has three roles: Coach, Client and Sponsor. The Scrum Master is the coach, the Scrum Team is the client, and the person responsible for financing the coaching is the sponsor. The sponsor is kept apprised of Coaching Sprint Goals and results but does not participate in or have transparency into the content of coaching sprint events. A Scrum Master may be the only coach, or they may work as part of a team of coaches when coaching a larger system such as multiple teams and departments.
Coaching Sprint Planning
Coaching Sprint Planning is a 30-90 minute session where the Scrum Master and Scrum team co-create the Coaching Sprint Goal, coaching agreement, and Coaching Sprint Plan. Coaches are responsible for the process that leads to growth while clients are responsible for their own results. When creating a Coaching Sprint Goal, a helpful question to ask is, “What growth needs to happen for the Scrum Team to achieve their Product Goal?” When creating the Coaching Sprint Plan, teams may review the diagram above and decide when and where each event will occur. Scrum already has a mechanism built-in to inspect and adapt the team: the retrospective. Use the retrospective for Coaching Sessions to help the Scrum team to focus on one area of growth at a time while minimizing disruption from additional meetings. Since all Coaching Sprint events lead directly to a more stable, resilient and high-performing team, the Scrum team may decide that their regularly scheduled retrospective is the appropriate time and place for all Coaching Sprint events. When scaling the Coaching Sprint up to multiple teams and departments, an overall retrospective can serve a similar purpose. If this is your first Coaching Sprint, you’ll want to first engage in proper systems entry.
Coaching Sessions
Coaching Sessions are a 30-90 minute event where the Scrum Master and Scrum Team partner in a confidential manner to move the Coaching Sprint Goal forward. Coaching Sessions result in meaningful action the Scrum Team will own to progress the Coaching Sprint Goal before the next Coaching Session. These actions are added to the product sprint backlog. Coaching Sessions in the Coaching Sprint are like Daily Scrums in the product sprint in that they are an opportunity to inspect and adapt the Scrum Team’s progress towards their Coaching Sprint Goal and sync up on the activities the team will take on to progress towards their goal.
Coaching Sprint Backlog
The Coaching Sprint Backlog is an emergent, ordered list of what is needed to improve the Scrum Team. It is owned by the Scrum Team and refined as needed together with their coach (Scrum Master).
Coaching Sprint Review
The Coaching Sprint Review is a 30-90 minute event that includes the Coach, Client and Sponsor. The purpose of the event is to review the results of the coaching sprint, celebrate the work that was done, acknowledge the work that was not done, and collaborate on what to do next.
Coaching Sprint Retrospective
The Coaching Sprint Retrospective is a 30-90 minute event that includes only the Coach and Client. The purpose of this event is to inspect and adapt the coaching relationship between the Scrum Master and Scrum Team as well as the Coaching Sprint process. Research shows that coaching is more effective when coaches ask for feedback.
Looking for some case studies with real-world examples of Scrum Masters using Coaching Sprints? Students of the Superheroes Academy CSP-SM Capstone Project Certification Program were tasked with running one three-month Coaching Sprint with their team. Here are just a few of those results: https://bit.ly/superhero-capstone-projects