The Agile Facilitator (AF) role is broader than conducting meetings. … It includes group facilitation tools and techniques for effectively designing meetings and workshops that both engage the entire audience and drives toward agreed-upon outcomes.

The AF must also guide the team through the paradigm shifts required in Agile team environments and lead them towards collaboration and self-organization. To do so requires a mindset shift for the team leader – the facilitator mindset.

There are a number of different roles for a facilitator:

Meeting Adviser – The facilitator helps the leader plan the meeting, but during the session, he primarily sits on the sidelines, stepping in only when asked or if a situation occurs which the participants cannot handle themselves.

Meeting Manager – The facilitator sets the agenda, establishes ground rules, initiates the discussion, and allows the session to flow, stepping in only when needed.

Meeting Leader – The facilitator sets the agenda, establishes ground rules and initiates the discussion just as the meeting manager does.  In addition, however, he is active in getting participants excited about participating.  The facilitator describes the purpose of the session in terms that gives the participants a much bigger picture of the importance of the session.  In addition, he is active in ensuring that all participants engage in the discussion.  The facilitator challenges the participants when the discussion appears to remain at a high level.  And, from time to time, the facilitator offers insights that may be otherwise overlooked.

Participating Facilitator – The facilitator starts out much like a meeting manager, setting the agenda, establishing ground rules, and initiating the discussion.  But the facilitator also actively engages as a participant in the discussion, frequently offering his own views, giving opinions on topics, and expressing disagreement with various comments.

When you serve as the facilitator in this role, we believe you have seven specific responsibilities:

Guide You must know the steps of the process the group will execute from beginning to end.  You must carefully guide the participants through each of the step.

Motivator From the rousing opening statement to the closing words of cheer, you must ignite a fire within the group and keep it well lit.  You must establish momentum and keep the pace.

Visionary You must create a vision for the group of why the meeting is important.

Bridge Builder You must create and maintain a safe and open environment for sharing ideas.  Where other people see differences, you must find and use similarities to establish a foundation for building bridges to consensus.

Clairvoyant Throughout the session, you must watch carefully for signs of potential strain, weariness, aggravation and dis-empowerment — and respond in advance to avoid dysfunctional behavior.

Peacemaker While it is almost always better to avoid a direct confrontation between participants, should such an event occur, you must quickly step in, re-establish order and direct the group toward a constructive resolution.

Taskmaster You are ultimately responsible for keeping the session on track; this means tactfully cutting short irrelevant discussions, preventing detours and maintaining a consistent level of detail throughout the session.

Praiser At every opportunity, you should praise the effort put forth, the progress made, and the results achieved.  Praise well, praise often, praise specifically.

Generally Agile Facilitator role is combined with Agile Coach Role. Agile Coach with Agile Facilitator training and experience is much superior than Agile Coach without Agile Facilitator role.

The role of agile coach can be temporary or permanent, depending on the organization’s needs. Larger businesses with multiple agile teams might want to keep an agile coach on staff to help oversee the method long term, but the position is typically temporary or contracted. For most businesses, especially midsize and small organizations, it’s more useful to hire an agile coach on a contract basis to help get an agile team up and running and later parting ways once everyone has adjusted.

Agile coaches aren’t just responsible for organizing an agile team; they also help the company embrace agile as a culture shift. To properly implement the methodology, an agile coach needs to encourage buy-in from employees and key stakeholders.

Agile coaches pull from their own background in project management, IT, and other related fields to understand what will work for the business. Since some employees might be unfamiliar with agile, it’s important to focus on the fundamentals and to make the agile framework accessible to everyone.

Part of the job is leveraging experience and teaching the basics to bring people up to speed with an agile way of working.

As an agile coach, you’ll need to have strong communication and interpersonal skills, since you’ll be working closely with employees across the entire company, including leadership. Chances are, you’ll find it difficult to convert some workers to the agile methodology. In these instances, you’ll need to know how to navigate the corporate culture to help the organization realize its goals.

A good coach knows how to work with the team and the leadership to change the environment. Managers and management are often quite resistant to agile because it fundamentally challenges their power and control. The coach works with the leadership to see the future and be patient along the journey. The coach also works with the team to help them transform to being self-managing and accountable. These are big changes.

Most common responsibilities for an agile coach include:

• Coach agile teams in the Agile mindset
• Integrate related Agile methods and best practices within the company
• Develop standards and requirements for the agile process
• Provide training to employees on the agile process
• Help teams navigate agile tools and software
• Encourage employee and stakeholder buy-in

The most important skills for an agile coach include:

• Soft skills such as active listening, trust, conflict management, servant leadership, emotional intelligence, mentoring, facilitation, change management, teaching, and powerful questions
• Strong understanding of Scrum and Kanban
• Experience as a Scrum master or any other role in Agile team
• Strong communication and problem-solving skills
• Interpersonal skills and patience

Agile Coaches earn between $85/Hour to $135/Hour ($161,500 to $256,500 annually) if they work on a contract basis. For full time employees, earnings between $110,000 and $180,000 with benefits is prevalent within the US. Demand for Agile Coaches is expected to rise much faster than other IT roles. Experience, training and certifications, location, and industry are several factors that would impact expected earnings of Agile Coaches.

Agile Coaches do work in one or more of the following roles:

• Agile Coach
• Scrum Coach
• Agile Team Lead
• Lean Coach
• Senior Agile Coach
• Scrum Master/Agile Coach

Past participants of our Certified Agile Coach (CAC) training program came from variety of industries, including healthcare, banking, finance, credit card issuers, retail, oil and gas, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, communication and internet, energy, computer manufacturers, consulting firms, credit bureaus, network manufacturers, software, hardware, government organizations, satellite manufacturers, credit unions, and oil refineries to name several. Here are few of the 140+ organizations that our past participants represented:

Walmart, Kroger, Target, Accenture, USAA, Shell, ExxonMobil, Citibank, Master Card, Visa, Duke Energy, Bank of America, IBM, FedEx, Aetna, Anthem, CVS, Walgreens, Tesla, Verizon, Infosys, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, CapitalOne, USPS, US Bank, Blackrock, CBRE, TD Ameritrade, Wipro, Micron, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Discover, Chevron, Ford, HP, Allstate, State Farm, Desjardins, Petrobras, Enterprise, US Coast Guard, US Department of State, UHG, FDA, SAIC, BCBS, HCSC, PepsiCo, Dell

We at Chicago State University offer several career enhancing training programs for Agile Coaches. Agile Coaches can pursue to attend one or more of the following training offered by us:

1. Certified Agile Coach (CAC)
2. Certified Enterprise Agility Coach (CEAC)
3. Certified Agile Transformation Coach (CATC)
4. Certified DevOps Transformation Coach (CDTC)
5. Certified Business Agility Coach (CBAC)
6. Certified Agile Leadership Professional (CALP)
7. Certified Agile Change Practitioner (CACP)
8. Certified Servant Leader Practitioner (CSLP)
9. Certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner (CEIP)

Agile Coaches can earn a Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (MCAM) by completing training programs 1-4 in addition to Certified Agile Coach (CAC) training. They can further their advancement by earning Advanced Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (AMCAM) by completing training programs 5–9. Both the Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (MCAM) and the Advanced Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (AMCAM) are the first and only such programs in the world!