Checklists

Begin with the Instructor/Coach Attitude Checklist by Scott Bain. A good list of important concepts to consider before starting a course or a coaching session with any group or individual.

Here are other checklists to know:

• Starting a Lean-Agile Team
• Business Discovery
  • Priority
  • Planning
  • Staging
  • Ready-to-Pull
• Business Delivery
  • Iteration 0
  • Iteration Planning Meeting
  • Iteration Retrospective
  • Product Demonstration and Review
  • Release
  • Iteration Implementation
  • Daily Stand-up and Ground-rules

Recommended books for Agile Coaches

A complete annotated bibliography may be found on the Net Objectives Coaching page.

Coaching

• Caruso, Joe. The Power of Losing Control. 2004.
• Rackham, Neil. SPIN Selling. McGraw-Hill Education, 1988.
• Weinberg, Gerald M. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully. Dorset House Publishing, 1986.

Agile practices coaches should know

• Cohn, Mike. Agile Estimating and Planning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, 2005.
• Denne, Mark, and Jane Cleland-Huang. Software by Numbers: Low-Risk, High-Return Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, 2003.
• Highsmith, James. Agile Software Development Ecosystems. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002.
• Larman, Craig. Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager’s Guide. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2003.
• Shalloway, Alan. “Lean Anti-Patterns and What to Do About Them.” Agile Journal. 2008.
• Shore, James, and Shane Warden. The Art of Agile Development. O’Reilly Media, Inc, 2008.

Issues of transition, knowledge management and organization

• Bridges, William. Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. De Capo Lifelong Books, 2009.
• Bungay, Stephen. The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions, and Results. Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2010.
• Collison, Chris, and Geoff Parcell. Learning to Fly: Practical knowledge management from some of the world’s leading learning organizations. Chichester, West Sussex: Capstone, 2004.
• Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Crown Business, 2010.
• Kotter, John P. The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations. Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.
• Mann, David. Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions. New York: Productivity Press, 2005.
• Mascitelli, Ronald. Building a Project-Driven Enterprise: How to slash waste and boost profits through lean project management. Northridge, CA: Technology Perspectives, 2002.
• Maurer, Robert. One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. Workman Publishing Company, 2004.
• Maurya, Ash. Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works. O’Reilly Media, 2012.
• Rother, Mike. Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results. McGraw-Hill Education, 2009.
• Scholtes, Peter R. The Leader’s Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.
• Townsend, Patrick L, and Joan E. Gebhardt. How Organizations Learn: Investigate, Identify, Institutionalize. Milwaukee, WI: ASQ Quality Press, 2007.

Brian Johnson’s Philosopher’s Notes

Optimize Your Life with Brian Johnson – More wisdom in less time.

I’ve been a fan of Brian Johnson for a long time and highly recommend his ridiculously inexpensive program ($10/month). He has several online classes but I tend to listen to his Philosopher’s Notes – 20 minutes summaries of great books. I’ve selected a few here that are particularly useful to coaches:

• Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Not to be confused with Made to Stick. This challenges some of our well-known assumptions about learning.
• Mini-Habits. Smaller Habits, Bigger Results. You’ll learn why Kaizen works and how it can both change your life and those you coach.