An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling
Stefan Wolpers
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TL; DR: Hands-on Agile #53: Bob Galen on Agile Coaching
On September 5, 2023, we had the opportunity to listen to Bob Galen on “An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling.” In this session, Bob shared his experience coaching an agile coach struggling to connect with a development manager. He underscored the transformative impact of incorporating personal narratives, lessons learned, teaching stories, and purpose or vision stories into coaching conversations. Moreover, Bob demonstrated the compelling power of storytelling in agile coaching by using stories to share knowledge and wisdom while fostering dialogue.
📺 Watch the video now: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling — Bob Galen at the 53. Hands-on Agile.
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Abstract
“I’m going to tell you a story.”
“I was coaching an agile coach who lamented that they weren’t connecting with their coaching client, in this case, a development manager. I asked them to share a typical coaching conversation, and they spoke about a series of questions they asked that essentially went unanswered — leaving them and the client quite frustrated. I asked them what other coaching techniques they had tried, and it boiled down to only coaching stances and only open-ended questions.”
“I suggested they experiment with weaving some stories into their coaching conversations. Personal stories, lesson-learned stories, teaching stories, purpose or vision stories, and relationship or connection-building stories. I spoke to them about sharing their knowledge and wisdom with the client via story, not dominating the conversation but augmenting it, and using the story as a backdrop to their questions and explorations with the client.”
“They later told me that this small change significantly impacted their coaching after a bit of practice. This talk is about bringing the power of Storytelling INTO your agile coaching and discovering the magic of the Story. Now, please share this story with others, and I hope to see you in the talk…”
During the Q&A, Bob answered the following questions:
Watch the recording of Bob’s session now:
Meet Bob Galen
Bob Galen is an Agile Practitioner, Trainer & Coach based in Cary, NC. In this role he helps guide companies and teams in their pragmatic adoption and organizational shift towards agile methods of working.
Bob has been doing that since the late 1990s, so he’s deeply experienced. He is the Director of Agile Practice at Zenergy Technologies, a leading business agility transformation company. Bob is also President and Head Coach at RGCG a boutique agile coaching firm.
Bob regularly speaks at international conferences and professional groups on topics related to agile software development, testing, scaling, and organizational leadership. He is a Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC), Scrum Alliance CAL trainer, and an active member of the Agile & Scrum Alliances.
Recommended by LinkedIn
He’s published four agile-centric books: The Three Pillars of Agile Quality and Testing in 2015, Scrum Product Ownership, 3’rd Edition in 2019, and Agile Reflections in 2012, and Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching in 2022.
Connect with Bob Galen
Bob Galen on Agile Moose and RGalen Consulting
📺 Watch the video now: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling — Bob Galen at the 53. Hands-on Agile.
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An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling — Bob Galen at the 53. Hands-on Agile was first published on Age-of-Product.com.
Software Product Strategist
1yI've been using the storytelling for years, thinking of like Aesop's Fables for Leadership. When you tell someone exactly what to do, it creates an "interesting" response. But, when you tell a story, it's not just "here's what to do", but "here's how that can go". I find it has a consistently greater response rate. The story has to be engaging enough to keep the attention. But, if you just tell folks what to do, it can go in one ear and right out the other without any "stickiness" factor. When the scenario of the story matches the current situation closely, there's more surface area for neural mapping.