Are Agile Coaches (And Scrum Masters) Burning Out?

I recently joined a conversation with Agile Coaches from various organizations. What started with lightweight chitchat ended with a depressing conclusion: many felt close to burning out. 😔

They all joined their organization with the ambition to make an impact. Let’s support teams, management, and the broader organization in improving. This proved to be quite tricky.

Reasons that were shared are:
❌ “We don’t have any mandate to make decisions.”
❌ “We’re not heard, seen, and respected by management AND the teams.”
❌ “We’re mostly seen as facilitators for ‘fun’ workshops.”
❌ “We’re stuck in the organization’s quicksand. Doing nothing seems the best option; each time we propose a change, we sink deeper into the quicksand.”
❌ “Some days, I feel more like a politician than an Agile Coach.”

It’s totally recognizable, which is precisely why I stopped being an Agile Coach years ago and moved back to being part of the team as a Scrum Master.

Interestingly, some Agile Coaches considered switching roles:

• One also preferred becoming a Scrum Master. Mainly because it gives him the feeling of having ‘skin in the game’ again;
• Someone else is considering refreshing her developer skills
• The third person aims to fulfill a leadership position because it gives her the mandate to make decisions and have a positive impact (as a servant leader)

An interesting pattern was that they all had permanent positions at the organization. Nobody was hired as an external. I applaud this, but it strengthens their feeling of being stuck.

Please note:
👉 I do not intend to bash Agile Coaches. I recognize their struggle and find it sad that many are unhappy in their roles.
👉 The term ‘leadership position’ is debatable. Anyone can show leadership. Her ambition was primarily born from the frustration that Agile Coaches don’t have any decision power (in her organization).

What do you think about this? Do you recognize the burned-out feeling? Do you have any recommendations to prevent this from happening or to resolve it?

The text above was initially published as a LinkedIn post. It has resulted in dozens of valuable tips, ideas, and recommendations. Seeing how many people could relate to this feeling was also shocking.

I’ve spent a couple of days studying the answers for patterns and collecting the ones that caught my attention. In the end, I noticed that the Agile Coaching Ethics — defined by the Agile Alliance and recommended by Pietro Maffi — covers most of the recommendations. In addition, I’ll share my thoughts on how Liberating Structures can help.

Volunteers have been working to produce a Code of Ethical Conduct for Agile Coaching and supporting Ethics Scenarios. The scenarios aim to help readers identify the dilemmas they may face and give examples of ethical behavior in different contexts. This Code of Ethical Conduct (Code) intends to guide people undertaking agile coaching activities and the types of behaviors, advice, and approaches expected of them. For more details, please check the original page.

Liberating Structures are often labeled as a set of fun facilitation techniques. This doesn’t do just to its potential. Liberating Structures routinely makes it possible to build the kind of organization everybody wants. They are designed to include everyone in shaping the next steps. By attracting lively participation from everyone, you enable real change.

When you change how people interact, collaborate, and make decisions, you change complex systems. Organizations' challenges can only be solved by widely distributed and local solutions. All of this is made possible by using Liberating Structures, which ties in perfectly with the work of Agile Coaches.

As an Agile Coach (or Scrum Master), these would be my go-to Liberating Structures:

• Purpose-to-Practice: Clarify the purpose of your Agile Coaching assignment and, from there, explore other essential elements—principles, participants, structure, and practices—designed to help you achieve that purpose.
• Strategy Knotworking: Strategy Knotworking is an approach for shared sense-making and strategizing. With Strategy Knotworking, everyone is involved in making sense of their environment, identifying the most pressing challenges, establishing the baseline starting position, developing promising ideas for dealing with their challenges, and defining the first steps for getting started.
• Ecocycle Planning & Panarchy: Panarchy aims to help people understand how their (organizational) system works, find leverage points, and trigger change. Its purpose is to find opportunities for change and improvement across all levels. It’s the scaled version of Ecocycle Planning.
• What, So What, Now What: Take a step back and consider what is happening. Structure your thinking by breaking your experience into three steps: “What do we notice?” “So, what does this mean?” and “Now, where do you go from here?”.
• What I Need From You: Help groups express their needs clearly and help others respond to those requests, sidestepping the kind of corporate jargon that often muddies such requests. We’ve found it an essential structure when groups have to work together to succeed.
• 15% Solutions: A 15% Solution is any first step or solution you can take without approval or resources from others, which is entirely within your discretion. More succinctly, it is something that you can start right now if you want to.
• Wicked Questions: Often, changing something is difficult because of various paradoxical challenges. Despite good intentions, things don’t seem to change, resulting primarily in tension, friction, and conflict. The purpose of Wicked Questions is not to find a single answer but to create transparency about seemingly paradoxical realities that exist side-by-side.
• Troika Consulting, Helping Heuristics, and Wise Crowds are Liberating Structures that offer an opportunity to give and receive help with challenges. These structures build trust within a group through mutual support, develop the capacity to self-organize, and create conditions for unimagined solutions to emerge.

Okay, let’s stop right here. I could list all 33 Liberating Structures. In short, these exercises don’t necessarily prevent you from burning out. They can create a setting where you’ll have powerful conversations about purpose, actions, and progress. They offer opportunities for support and create an environment where everyone is heard, seen, and respected.

Liberating Structures can help create an atmosphere of trust and psychological safety more quickly. Although success is not guaranteed, being an Agile coach will make your life more enjoyable. Start small, try one of two structures, and see what they can do for your organization.

We’re always interested in learning what worked for you. So, if you have any other ideas, feel free to share them! Let’s learn and grow together!