Competence Cohort for Agile Coaching Mastery

A Rigorous Practice-Based Program for Building Competence and Confidence

The Agile Coaching Institute (ACI) creates transformation Agile coaches who can shift individuals and whole teams to leverage agile to its highest benefit. To do this, we strive to build real-world competence and confidence in those we teach and coach. 

The Competence Cohort paves the way to proficiency, culminating in ACI’s first-ever certification, the ACI Certified Teams Transformation Coach™ (CTTC).  It is the next step after taking ACI’s classroom learning for those ready to radically expand their capabilities, build solid competence and achieve industry recognized certification.

Proficiency in the skills of Agile coaching requires practice. This rigorous 10-month program places an emphasis on practice and feedback opportunities through skill drills, peer coaching, ongoing group work, and one-on-one assessments of actual agile coaching, mentoring, teaching and facilitation sessions.  In addition, upon successful completion of your assessments, you will be eligible to attain the ICAgile Expert in Agile Coaching Certification (ICE-AC), an important milestone and cause for celebration during the program.

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Outcomes of the Competence Cohort Program

• Close the gap between learning and application of Agile coaching competencies and skills through modeling, in-cohort practice, real-life practice and graded assessments.
• Integrate Agile coaching skills into your everyday real-world situations, including professional coaching, facilitating, teaching, and mentoring.
• In-depth personalized assessment and feedback about your Agile coaching from ACI’s top-notch faculty.
• Achievement of two industry certifications: Certified Teams Transformation Coach™ (CTTC) and ICAgile Expert in Agile Coaching (this certification is optional, and requires an additional, significantly discounted fee payable to ICAgile).  Our philosophy: Competence is the product; certification is the byproduct.
• Belong to a powerful network of professional Agile coach change makers who are achieving the highest standard of competence in the industry.

When are You Ready?

You are ready to participate in the Competence Cohort when you…

…have met these prerequisites.

• Classroom Learning. Complete The Agile Facilitator (2 day course) and Coaching Agile Teams (3 day course).  Acceptance based on completing other ICAgile-accredited facilitation or Agile coaching courses on a case-by-case basis.
• Experience. At least 1-2 years Agile coaching experience, having been the ScrumMaster or coach of 3 or more teams, at least one of which you started up.

…have a supportive work situation.

• Ability to Practice and Record. Most students find that they need to be actively involved with several teams for the duration of the program so that they have “built in” practice opportunities.  In addition, you will need to record yourself in real-life team meetings and coaching/mentoring sessions to support your assessments. If your organization does not allow this, please ensure that you will be able to record yourself in other situations, such as teaching/facilitating during Agile user group meetings or mentoring/coaching sessions with people outside work.
• Ability to Attend. Most of your Cohort calls are during US business hours. There are very few excused absences, which are meant to be used for last minute emergencies, so you must have a work situation that allows you to plan to attend all calls.

…have the internal “velcro” needed to see the program through.

• Intention. A strong desire and intention to significantly expand your Agile coaching competence and confidence.
• Intrinsic Motivation. An internal motivation to attain a significant level of professionalism in Agile coaching. A drive that yields the stick-to-it-ness needed to make the continual decision to prioritize the program among your many time pressures.

Components of the Program

The Competence Cohort is divided into two phases.

Phase one is six months long and focused on practice and skill building up to (and beyond) the level of skill needed to achieve the ICAgile Expert in Agile Coaching.

Phase two is four months long; including a 3-day residential that catapults the Agile coach into the deeper skills and knowledge of transformational Agile coaching and the chance to apply them to the difficult Agile coaching situations we call Quests.

Phase One: Competence up to the level of ICAgile Expert in Agile Coaching

Phase 2: Competence up to the level of ACI Certified Teams Transformation Coach™ (CTTC)

Phase Two goes beyond the foundations and deepens the skills of transformational agile coaching. Phase Two
is four months in duration and includes the following components:

3 Day Residential. You will attend an intense, fun and transformational three-day Residential Training with your cohort colleagues. Topics include professional coaching, human systems attunement, large group facilitation and transformation mastery.  (Held in the US. Travel expenses not included.)

• Deep dive into more professional coaching skills such as Articulating What’s Going On, Curiosity, Intuition, Designing an Alliance, Acknowledgement, Clearing, Requesting, Accountability and, of course, more Self-Management.
• Transformation mastery models and applications (ie Integral Agile, constellations)
• Large group facilitation techniques and practice
• Revealing the system (observation vs. evaluation)

4 Agile Coaching Quests.
After the residential, you will apply your new knowledge and sharpened skills to the more challenging situations. We call them Quests. You must complete four Quests of your choosing. The main criterion of a Quest is that it is a significant challenge and something you have never done before (and something you’re a little afraid to do).

Sample Quests:

• Coaching a manager with more organizational power than you on their role transition
• Coaching someone with resistance
• Facilitating a conflict conversation
• Applying coaching skills at the team level (listening, PQs, self-mgmt, revealing the system to itself)

4 Post-Residential Colleague Calls.
You will take part in bi-monthly support and accountability calls to help you integrate what you learned at the residential. ACI will provide the structure/accountability, you will be leading the calls with your colleagues!

8 Professional Case Consultation Calls.
A bi-monthly case consultation call will be held, post-residential, with an ACI faculty member. These calls will continue the path towards transformation and focus on a real-world Agile coaching case that a participant brings to the call.

Community Contribution.
Agile coaches support and grow other Agile coaches. The Community Contribution allows you to apply your Agile coaching knowledge skills to benefit others’ growth. It can be a new tool, a new blog post, a user group presentation, or many other things.  It just needs to be something more than you contribute today, and ideally begin charting your course as an important voice in the Agile coaching world.

Completion Presentation.
Create and deliver a Completion Presentation: of your portfolio, your unique contribution to the Agile field, your “my model” for doing Agile coaching work. It’s a self-evaluation. It conveys your now-evident competence and confidence in your own authentic and professional Agile Coaching Stance. Delivering this presentation results in the formal acknowledgement of your accomplishment and attainment of the CTTC™.