I see and hear it all the time: “Who needs an Agile Coach?”. Well, maybe you don’t – but most enterprises do. I cannot tell you how often I hear the groans and whimpers of new Agile teams trying to figure it all out on there own. Maybe they picked up a couple of XP books and decided to go solo. Or maybe a couple of folks went and spent their two days becoming ScrumMasters and now felt that the designation provided the knowledge and skill to fundamentally change the way their organization and team delivers projects. Perhaps someone high up attended a conference and couldn’t wait to dive into the Agile frenzy. They don’t all fail. Some teams emerge as success story. But more often than not, those teams that attempt to adopt agile without the help of an experienced coach are destined to suffer pitfall after pitfall; misstep after misstep; mistake after mistake. And yes – very many of them do fail. [Read more...]