The Future Agile Coach Looks More Like a Sports Coach
Lately I have been thinking a lot about why so many organisations have started questioning the value of Agile Coaches and even Agile itself. And honestly, I do not think the problem is Agile. I think the problem is that our industry has slowly disappeared down a rabbit hole where we have become far more focused on coaching identities than measurable value.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped talking about outcomes, delivery, effectiveness, flow, decision-making, and organisational improvement, and started talking almost entirely about coaching stances, coaching techniques, coaching conversations, and the endless list of hats an Agile Coach should wear.
If we are honest with ourselves, many organisations and even Agile Coaches themselves struggle to clearly explain what measurable value Agile Coaches actually bring. Not because people are not working hard. Not because coaching skills are useless. But because the role has become so broad, so fluffy, and so identity-driven that we have lost clarity on what the real purpose of the role is supposed to be.
Over the years, I have seen more and more conversations around what an Agile Coach should be. Coach, mentor, facilitator, consultant, trainer, leadership advisor, change expert, culture builder, conflict mediator, organisational designer, psychologist, strategist, transformation lead — the list keeps growing every year. It feels like many Agile Coaches believe we need to become experts in everything happening inside an organisation.
Large organisations already have specialists in many of these areas. They have leadership coaches. HR specialists. Organisational psychologists. Change management departments. Transformation offices. Technical experts. Product specialists…
So why have we as Agile Coaches started convincing ourselves that we need to become all of these things as well? I think this is where we have lost the plot.
What is the real purpose of Agile Coaching?
The more we try to become everything for everyone, the more diluted the role becomes. We become so focused on the identities themselves that we lose focus on the actual outcome we are supposed to drive.
To me, the role was always about helping organisations become more effective.
That effectiveness can look different depending on where you work. At team level it might mean improving collaboration, reducing waste, improving flow, helping teams deliver better, or helping them continuously improve. At organisational level it might mean improving prioritisation, reducing dependencies, creating transparency, improving decision-making, or helping the overall system function better.
But the goal is still the same: driving effectiveness.
I think we have over-rotated so heavily into the coaching aspect that many Agile Coaches are developing deep coaching skills without equally developing the practical skills needed to improve organisational effectiveness.
We talk a lot about how to coach people, but far less about how to improve flow, create transparency, reduce dependencies, strengthen prioritisation, improve decision-making, or help organisations truly inspect and adapt. Meanwhile, many organisations are still struggling with the basics of how work actually happens.
The Future of Agile Coaching Must Be Effectiveness
Having been active in team sports most of my life, I believe Agile Coaching should look far less like the “everything coach” we have created over the years and much more like a sports coach.
If you look at sport, the coach is not on the field playing the game themselves. They are observing the system around the game. They look for patterns. Where is the team losing momentum? Where are people disconnected? Where is communication breaking down? What is slowing the team down from achieving the goal?
Most importantly, the coach is there to improve effectiveness and create high-performing teams. Every level of an organisation is ultimately a team that needs to perform, and teams often need coaching to reach a high level of maturity. Yes a team can play without a coach, but we also know some of the best teams in the world, has the best coaches in the world.
A sport coach does not do it through control, or through hierarchy, or by pretending to be every specialist role around the team. The football coach is not suddenly the physiotherapist, nutritionist, psychologist, owner, and doctor all at once. Those specialists already exist. The coach works together with them while focusing on helping the overall system perform better.
I think this is the part our industry has slowly forgotten.
We do not need Agile Coaches that try to become everything for everyone. We need people who can step back from the noise, observe how work actually flows through organisations, identify where effectiveness breaks down, and help organisations measurably improve how they operate as a system.
The Future Cannot Be More Fluff
Because at the end of the day, organisations are not investing in Agile Coaches because they want better coaching conversations. They are investing because they want better outcomes , and I believe this becomes even more important in a world with AI.
AI will accelerate how organisations work, but speed without effectiveness simply creates faster dysfunction. If Agile Coaches want to stay relevant in the future, I do not think the answer is becoming even more fluffy, abstract, or identity-driven. I think the answer is becoming better at helping organisations improve how work actually happens.
Call to action
What do you think?
Have we, as an industry, drifted too far toward coaching identities and away from helping organisations become more effective? I’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences, and even where you disagree. Join the conversation and share what you believe the future of Agile Coaching should look like.
And if you’re looking to deepen your skills in areas like flow, effectiveness, systems thinking, and practical ways of improving outcomes, that’s exactly what we explore in courses such as Scrum Better with Kanban and AI for Scrum Masters.
Because the future of Agile Coaching cannot only be about coaching conversations. It also needs to be about understanding systems, improving effectiveness, and helping organisations achieve better outcomes.
