> What I find fascinating about this is how predictable people become once you know the different personalities and their nuances.

curious - is there a way to learn this other than from experience?

I haven't discovered it yet. Of course, there are certain studies and models like 16 personalities, DISC, etc. But you cannot pinpoint people to these categories easily. It's a spectrum, I guess.

> how predictable people become once you know the different personalities and their nuances

I will never cease to be amazed at managers who don't do this. I've seen enough managers who pick fights with the wrong subordinates then have to scramble to replace key staff when they leave.

Curious to know why my comment received a downvote / downvotes.

I didn't, but guess: a lot of happy-babbly words without much substance or stark opinion. What's the summary? "I love this job, there are challenges, but I can master it well". Well..ok, thanks?

I didn't downvote, but you started out sharing credentials that aren't management and then recounted standard platitudes about collaboration and some personal experience with zero transferable utility. And you posted that in response to a comment saying how difficult topics necessary to succeeding as a manager don't happen often on the internet. I understand why people would evaluate your contribution as detracting from the conversation at hand and downvote.

Understandable. Thanks for pointing it out!

Being an agile coach isn’t management

The author of the article writes:

> You’re not the player, you’re the coach. Sometimes that means strategy and big-picture thinking. Sometimes it means shielding your team from dumb shit. Sometimes it means buying someone coffee and saying, “You’re not crazy. This is hard.”

Guess what good agile coaches or scrum masters are expected to do :-)

Very little of that. Agile coaches don’t deal with under performers, promo packets, retention issues, etc.

Agile coaches are also not able to shield the team from dumb shit. They don’t have the power to make priority calls on what the team is doing.

I'd argue it's not my job to "shield the team". It's my job to enable the team to question "dumb shit" and put them in a position where they can discuss these matters constructively with management (or whomever).

Also - I "deal" with underperformers because my team needs to deal with them. It all comes back to "what benefits the team".

I see that there are a lot of different varieties of agile coaches out there.

Off topic, but:

It's interesting how everyone thinks they're "managers" in "agile" teams.

Scrum Masters, Product Owners. I've even had Designers and QAs trying to make decisions on behalf of the team.

> It's interesting how everyone thinks they're "managers" in "agile" teams.

In scrum in particular, teams are supposed to be "self-organizing and self-managing". Perhaps that's why :-)

Well, yes, but "self-managing team" implies the team manages itself, not that one person picks up the slack. As the sibling poster said, this is a sign of a dysfunctional team.

> QAs trying to make decisions on behalf of the team

Oof, hits close.

Suggestion from a QA to implement some feature that is hugely difficult to implement? Business agrees so developers now need to make it happen.

Yep.

The crazy one for me was QA not going through business and just marking new feature ideas as "bugs", and then informing business that "there are still lots of bugs to be fixed".

Cross-functional teams can be very toxic when there is no decision maker, and someone suddenly decides they don't want to really collaborate.

That sounds like a dysfunctional team to me, to be honest.

It is indeed.

Leadership and Management are two pair of shoes, I get that.

I don't consider Agile bureaucrat positions leadership either.

At best they're clerical support and training. In practice they can become officious ticket minders.

Obviously, I strongly disagree.

Hope you will experience better Agile Coaches through your career.