SPaMCAST 743 - Diversity, Communication, Essays and Conversations

This week, we take a detour thanks to Extraordinary Badass Agile Coaching. Over the past two chapters, the book has drilled us on recognizing and adapting to situational nuances as a crucial skill for effective coaching. I will admit that my first few years of coaching were formulaic. I did not spend the needed time to understand and address nuances of context or differences in individuals' journeys through life. I do not remember when I learned that roles and situations change the trajectory of coaching, as does the starting point of the person or persons you are coaching. At some point, I got the point. In this chapter, diversity is an omnibus term used to describe inclusiveness across a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, life experiences, and more. Galen-Personick focuses on four specific areas. Rather than recounting the four, what struck me during this read was the impact privilege has on both delivering and being coached. That’s what I discuss in today’s podcast.  Jeremy Berriault brings his QA Corner to the podcast. This week we communicated on the topic of communication.   Re-read Saturday News! Chapter 16 of Extraordinary is titled Situational Awareness as a Badass Agile Coach. This chapter is written by Rhiannon Galen-Personick and focuses on diversity awareness.  The author uses four areas of diversity to help coaches think through their biases, the biases of the people they are coaching, and the biases of the teams around them. This is in an effort to teach all of us to be better coaches and, dare I say, people. Week 15:  -   A quick advertisement: Controlling work entry requires preparation, knowledge, and building to establish a path to control work entry (magic wands are normally not available), which is why Jeremy Willets and I have developed a work entry workshop. Interested? Please email us at tcagley@tomcagley.com or willetsjm@gmail.com Next SPaMCAST In the next Software Process and Measurement Cast, Nikhil Nandagopal and I talked about building teams. Teams are the heart and soul of software development in all of its many aspects.