Agile Transformation coaches work at an enterprise level. The role of an Agile Coach at an “enterprise-level” is very different from a normal team-level “Agile Coach” role. An Agile Transformation Coach must possess knowledge of Agile culture, Agile mindset, Digital transformation, Business Transformation, Organizational design, Enterprise Change Management, Leadership in a VUCA world, Transforming culture, Agile Transformation, and Executive Leadership Coaching. Beyond the team-level Agile Coach role, an Agile Transformation Coach:

• Helps companies design and come up with a roadmap to effective Agile transformation for their business utilizing Culture, Strategy, and Technologies in an integrated fashion.
• Works at a more strategic level to implement the transformation using a structured approach and best practices.

At the same time, they also should have a good grasp of at least some enterprise Scaled Agile frameworks like Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Large-scale Scrum (LeSS) or Disciplined Agile Delivery (DaD).

An Agile Transformation Coach is less involved in the day to day tasks of helping teams to implement Agile and is more concerned with helping to change the overall structure of the company to facilitate the Agile principles. This task requires working with the senior leadership and helping them understand the benefits of Agile as well as the structure needed to make it sustainable within the organization.

Waterfall to Agile Transformation can help streamline processes, but it is not easy to make significant changes in an organization. Encouraging everyone to get on board with a new method requires significant effort on the part of management.

Having an Agile Transformation Coach in place to give guidance can help a team navigate through the rough patches in the early period when the team or management questions the value of agile.

Agile Transformation Coach helps organizations in several ways:

• Outline requirements on the core processes, people, and technology to enable agility
• Identify required changes in culture and mindsets
• Decide on Agile Transformation Approach
• Develop high-level road map to Agile Adoption and Transformation
• Create backlog list
• Prioritize for immediate next steps
• Facilitate organizational impediment resolution pertaining to Agile Transformation

The Agile Transformation Coach serves as an objective party to help navigate common roadblocks and pain points in the adoption and/or transformation process. Before he or she leaves, the goal is to have a fully functioning agile organization that is energized and ready to embrace the Agile at all levels. In another words, he or she lays out a solid foundation for sustained Agile Transformation.

The role of Agile Transformation Coach can be temporary or permanent, depending on the organization’s needs. Larger businesses might want to keep an Agile Transformation Coach on staff to help oversee the sustained transformation on a long term basis, but the position is typically temporary or contracted. For most businesses, especially midsize and small organizations, it’s more useful to hire an Agile Transformation Coach on a contract basis to help get jump start the Agile Adoption and Transformation efforts.

Part of [the job] for Agile Transformation Coaches is leveraging experience and teaching the basics to bring people up to speed with an agile way of working. 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.

As an Agile Transformation 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 is often quietly 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 Transformation Coach include:

• Encourages employees and stakeholders buy-in
• Collaborates on the creation and evolution of the Agile transformation road-map and owns driving activities across the organization
• Supports development and monitoring of Agile adoption/maturity metrics to aid in accelerating overall Agile transformation efforts and to gauge the maturity progress of new and existing teams
• Helps define and ensure consistent agile standards and best practices in alignment with the organization’s vision
• Advances best practices for scaling and optimizing the agile practice
• Develops and monitors metrics to track progress of Agile adoption and maturity to aid in accelerating overall Agile transformation efforts
• Develops training materials and deliver across the organization
• Provides individual coaching to delivery team members, managers, executives, and other employees throughout the company
• Participates, organizes, facilitates communities of practice to help foster lean and agile thinking Mentors Agile delivery teams, their coaches, stakeholders and leaders to help them adopt the mindset and practices needed to transform the organization

Agile Transformation Coaches earn between $125/Hour to $200/Hour ($237,500 to $380,000 annually) if they work on a contract basis. For full time employees, earnings between $135,000 and $260,000 with benefits is prevalent within the US. Demand for Agile Transformation 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 Transformation Coaches.

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

• Enterprise Agile Transformation Coach
• Agile Transformation Coach
• Enterprise Agility Coach
• Lead Agile Transformation Coach
• Senior Transformation Coach

Past participants of our Certified Enterprise Agility Coach 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 Transformation Coaches. Agile Transformation Coaches can pursue to attend one or more of the following training offered by us:

1. Certified Agile Facilitator (CAF)
2. Certified Agility Coach (CAC)
3. Certified Enterprise Agility Coach (CEAC)
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 Transformation Coaches can earn a Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (MCAM) by completing training programs 1-4 in addition to Certified Agile Transformation Coach (CATC) 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!