# Coaching Patterns

Strategies for coaching scrum teams toward self-management. The Scrum Master's goal is to make themselves less necessary over time by building the team's capability to inspect, adapt, and improve independently.

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## Coaching vs Mentoring vs Directing

| Mode | When to Use | How It Looks |
|---|---|---|
| **Directing** | Team is brand new to scrum, needs structure and rules | "Here is how the Daily Scrum works. We will follow this format for the next two Sprints." |
| **Mentoring** | Team understands the basics but needs guidance on applying them | "When I have seen teams struggle with this, they tried X. What do you think would work here?" |
| **Coaching** | Team has experience but is stuck on a specific challenge | "What outcome are you trying to achieve? What have you tried so far? What else could you try?" |
| **Delegating** | Team is self-managing and resolves most issues independently | Step back. Observe. Intervene only for systemic or organizational issues. |

### Transitioning Between Modes

The goal is to move from directing toward delegating over time. Signs that a team is ready to move to the next level:

| From | To | Signals |
|---|---|---|
| Directing | Mentoring | Team follows scrum events without reminders; asks "why" questions about the framework |
| Mentoring | Coaching | Team proposes solutions before asking for help; retrospective actions are completed consistently |
| Coaching | Delegating | Team facilitates their own events effectively; impediments are raised and resolved proactively |

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## Team Maturity Assessment

### Maturity Model

Assess the team across five dimensions. Rate each dimension from 1 (beginning) to 4 (advanced).

| Dimension | 1 - Beginning | 2 - Developing | 3 - Competent | 4 - Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Sprint Goal** | No Sprint Goal or task-list disguised as goal | Sprint Goal exists but is vague or ignored during Sprint | Sprint Goal is outcome-oriented and referenced in Daily Scrums | Sprint Goal drives all decisions; team declines work that does not serve it |
| **Self-management** | SM or manager assigns work to individuals | Team discusses who does what but defers to SM for decisions | Team self-assigns, re-balances during Sprint, asks for help proactively | Team reorganizes autonomously, mentors new members, manages conflicts internally |
| **Continuous improvement** | No retrospective or retrospective with no actions | Retrospective happens but actions are rarely completed | Actions are completed; team tracks improvement trends | Team experiments proactively; improvements are measurable and sustained |
| **Collaboration** | Work in silos; handoffs between individuals | Pair work happens occasionally; team helps when asked | Team swarms on blockers; knowledge sharing is routine | Cross-functional by default; no single points of failure; collective ownership |
| **Transparency** | Backlog is invisible or outdated; impediments are hidden | Backlog is visible but not always current; some impediments are surfaced | Backlog is current; impediments are tracked visibly; metrics are shared | Full transparency - the team shares failures and learnings openly with stakeholders |

### Using the Assessment

1. Rate the team on each dimension through observation over 2-3 Sprints
2. Identify the lowest-scoring dimension - this is the coaching priority
3. Set one improvement goal per Sprint targeting the weakest area
4. Reassess every 3-4 Sprints to track progress
5. Share the assessment with the team - transparency about growth builds trust

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## Impediment Resolution Strategies

### Classification

| Type | Description | Resolution Approach |
|---|---|---|
| **Team-level** | Within the team's control (process, technical practices, communication) | Coach the team to solve it themselves |
| **Cross-team** | Involves another team or shared resource | Facilitate a conversation between teams; involve management if blocked |
| **Organizational** | Policies, tools, or structures beyond the team's influence | Frame the problem, identify the decision-maker, escalate with data |
| **Technical** | Requires specialist knowledge the team lacks | Connect the team with the right expert; arrange knowledge transfer |

### Resolution Workflow

1. **Make it visible** - Add every impediment to a shared board the moment it is raised
2. **Classify** - Determine the type and who can resolve it
3. **Assign** - Every impediment gets an owner (not always the SM)
4. **Track** - Review open impediments in the Daily Scrum; update status regularly
5. **Resolve** - Apply the appropriate strategy based on type
6. **Verify** - Confirm with the team that the impediment is truly resolved
7. **Learn** - If the same type of impediment recurs, address the root cause systemically

### Escalation Template

When escalating an organizational impediment:

```
IMPEDIMENT: [Brief description]
IMPACT: [How it affects the team - quantify if possible]
DURATION: [How long it has been unresolved]
ATTEMPTED: [What the team has already tried]
REQUEST: [Specific ask - what do you need from the person you are escalating to]
URGENCY: [What happens if this is not resolved by X date]
```

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## Self-Organization Enablement

### Building Team Decision-Making

| Pattern | Description |
|---|---|
| **Decision protocols** | Agree on how the team makes decisions: consensus, consent (no objections), majority, or delegate to an expert |
| **Working agreements** | Team-created rules for how they work together (response times, code review expectations, meeting norms) |
| **Delegation board** | Visualize which decisions the team owns vs which need SM or management input |
| **Rotate responsibilities** | Rotate facilitation, note-taking, and other roles to build shared capability |
| **Retrospective ownership** | Gradually hand retrospective facilitation to team members |

### Growing Self-Management Over Time

**Sprint 1-3 (Forming)**:
- SM facilitates all events
- SM tracks all impediments
- SM enforces the timebox and scrum rules
- SM models the behavior expected

**Sprint 4-8 (Storming)**:
- Team members begin co-facilitating events
- Team tracks their own impediments on a shared board
- SM asks coaching questions instead of giving answers
- Conflicts are addressed openly with SM support

**Sprint 9-15 (Norming)**:
- Team facilitates most events independently
- SM observes and provides feedback after events
- Team proposes and runs their own experiments
- Working agreements are updated by the team without SM prompting

**Sprint 16+ (Performing)**:
- Team is fully self-managing for daily operations
- SM focuses on organizational impediments and cross-team coordination
- SM challenges the team to raise the bar - "What would world-class look like?"
- SM may support multiple teams

---

## Powerful Questions

Questions are the Scrum Master's primary tool. Good questions create insight; directives create dependency.

### For Sprint Planning

- "What is the one thing we want to be true at the end of this Sprint?"
- "Is this Sprint Goal ambitious enough to be meaningful but realistic enough to achieve?"
- "What are the biggest risks to delivering this goal?"
- "Do we have the skills on the team to deliver everything we have selected?"

### For Daily Scrum

- "Are we on track to meet the Sprint Goal?"
- "Is anything slowing us down that we have not talked about?"
- "Does anyone need help from someone else on the team today?"

### For Retrospective

- "What is the one thing that, if we changed it, would have the biggest impact on our next Sprint?"
- "Are we getting better? How do we know?"
- "What did we commit to improving last Sprint? Did we follow through?"
- "What would we do differently if we could start this Sprint over?"

### For Impediment Resolution

- "What have you already tried to resolve this?"
- "Who else is affected by this problem?"
- "What would it take to make this problem impossible to recur?"
- "If this were resolved, what would change for the team?"

### For Coaching Conversations

- "What do you think is really going on here?"
- "What would success look like?"
- "What is the smallest experiment we could run to test that idea?"
- "What are you avoiding?"

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## Coaching Anti-Pattern Recognition

### Signs the SM Is Over-Functioning

- The team waits for the SM to make decisions
- Impediments are only raised to the SM, not discussed in the Daily Scrum
- The SM is the only one who facilitates events
- The team does not update the Sprint Backlog without the SM prompting

### Signs the SM Is Under-Functioning

- Scrum events are skipped or consistently run over timebox
- Impediments go untracked and unresolved for multiple Sprints
- The team has stopped doing retrospectives or retrospective actions are never completed
- Anti-patterns persist without being addressed

### Recovery Actions

| Problem | Action |
|---|---|
| Team depends on SM for decisions | Introduce a delegation board; explicitly hand back decisions the team should own |
| SM does all facilitation | Start a facilitation rotation; coach team members on how to facilitate |
| Impediments pile up | Make the impediment board visible; review it daily; set a goal of resolving one per Sprint |
| Retrospectives are stale | Change the format; bring data; ask the team what would make retros valuable again |

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## Coaching Checklist

Before and during each Sprint:

- [ ] Team maturity is assessed and coaching approach matches the current stage
- [ ] At least one powerful question was used in each facilitated event
- [ ] Impediments are visible, owned, and actively being resolved
- [ ] The team is making more decisions independently than last Sprint
- [ ] Working agreements are current and respected
- [ ] Retrospective actions from the previous Sprint were followed up
- [ ] The SM is doing less directing and more coaching compared to previous Sprints
