Do systemic coaching and agile methods fit together?

– Clearly yes! –

Both have a lot of commonalities…

The systemic, solution-oriented approach was the same breakthrough for coaching as agile methods were for software development 👉🏻 a small revolution in mindset that allowed to achieve better results much faster.

Both have similar values and principles

Agile Manifesto:

★ Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
★ Working software over comprehensive documentation
★ Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
★ Responding to #change over following a plan

Systemic attitude:

★ Individual persons over standard „rules“ how a person has to be
★ A working solution over „documenting“ comprehensively the past
★ Collaboration with the client over negotiation “who has the best solution”
★ Adapt to changes in the system over laying out the perfect plan once

Induced behaviour for both:

 👉🏻 Openness & transparance – Allow and accept different opinions
👉🏻 Courage – Be honest to others and yourself
👉🏻 Respect – Trust the competencies of the counterpart
👉🏻 Commitment – Accept own responsibility and trust others engagement
👉🏻 Focus – Clearly define the goal and go for it
👉🏻 Continuous Learning – Adapt to the changes introduced by your actions/deliveries

Commonalities in practise:

Both the systemic and the agile approach are very aware that they are operating in a dynamic, continuously changing system that is influenced by their behavior. With each change/code-release, one has to adapt again to be successful. Nobody can act independently, a lasting solution is only possible in collaboration. A fixed plan from the beginning will fail.

Therefore an overall cycle is defined with the final goal broken down into small, self-contained session/sprint goals. The client/customer is responsible for these goals, only he can judge whether they have been achieved or need to be adapted. 

A key component for both is the confidence in the competence and willingness of all involved.

The focus is on a working solution not on the failures of the past. Retrospectives take place for reflection and new ideas, not to blame – a crucial difference to earlier approaches. 

Regularly everybody reflects where they are and where they want to go, what is (not) working, what has changed. Then the next short-term goals and steps are planned.

The similarities are even evident in sayings such as that of Steve de Shazer for the systematic approach “It’s simple, but not easy” and in agile “Scrum is easy to understand, but difficult to master”.

Realizing those similarities, I found it very fascinating how such similar attitudes and approaches can appear in such very different fields of profession. It seems time was simply ready for this attitude in all facets of life.

Did you ever before realize the similarity between agile methodology and systemic attitude? Let me know what other similarities you see