In the past, professional coaches didn’t have to split hairs when identifying themselves, by their line of work: e.g. being “agile coaches” vs. “product coaches.” While coaching focus areas have always existed—e.g., enterprise, team-level, individual, career, technical, HR, business/product, etc. — seasoned coaches-veterans were expected to be versatile in their capabilities and adaptive in their stance.
Over time, the industry has digressed and got overtaken by agile coaches-fast-trackers (image: bikers):
The approach that big companies took: a mass-conversion (exodus) of former managers into “agile coaches”, just to keep the ladder busy, did not help. Reputation and quality of real agile coaching got watered down, and many false dichotomies have emerged, as a result, for example:
- “agile != adaptive”
- “Feature teams are *inferior* to product teams and cannot work on the whole product”
- “Product managers cannot be product owners”
- “Agile coaches cannot do product coaching”
Today, we’re witnessing a secondary mass exodus of agile coaches-fast-trackers from low-ROI, failing agile transformations. Many, are now seeking a safe haven under the umbrella of product coaching.
Companies have to understand: this will only usher in a new wave of empty trends—like fake productization—that offer similarly poor returns:
Be wise in choosing whom you rely on, for guidance. Study history, so you don’t “step on the same rake” twice. 😊 Effective organizational coaching has many dimensions and product coaching is one of them.