Crafting an Effective Agile Coach Job Description

Reviewed by Madhur Kathuria

There are a lot of misleading job descriptions out there for agile coach roles. Because it's not a traditional corporate job, the role is often misunderstood. A good agile coach can influence culture change at your organization without being authoritarian. By writing an effective job description, you can attract stellar candidates with the right skills and get fewer applicants who don't meet the qualifications.

What is an agile coach?

An agile coach works with teams and the organization to effectively transform the company from traditional ways of working to agile ways of working. The agile coach uses the principles of the Agile Manifesto to guide the organization in their adoption of new ways of working. The four values that are understood across the agile coaching profession are:

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

In an agile environment, the coach looks to influence the behaviors to be more about the values on the left of those statements above rather than on the right.

In addition to nurturing the mindset change that occurs during a shift to agile ways of working, an agile coach helps the organization learn to incorporate and become proficient at agile practices. If the organization adopts scrum, the coach may guide teams through creating and maintaining a product backlog, conducting a sprint planning meeting, or holding a retrospective.

Depending on the needs of your organization, the agile coach may need to possess certain technical skills along with outstanding soft skills. This person needs to be great at influencing people without telling them how to work, delicately managing the difficult emotions that come with change, and helping people to accept new ways of doing things.

A question that often gets asked is, "What's the difference between an agile coach and a scrum master?" A scrum master typically spends more time working on the day-to-day problems with the team and removing blockers, whereas the agile coach may have a wider reach with more teams or people in the organization. An agile coach typically begins as a scrum master and, with more experience and coaching certification, grows into this more advanced role.

When you understand that an agile coach must interact with all levels of the company, have outstanding people skills, and know how to support an agile transformation, then you can write compelling job descriptions that attract people with the right skills and experience. While there are a lot of people who have worked on an agile team, not many of them possess the skills of a coach.

How to write an agile coach job description

The best way to write an agile coach job description is with clarity and clear, concise language, avoiding internal company jargon and words that don't quickly get to the point.

Writing an Effective Title

You want to stick to the title "Agile Coach" or "Scrum Coach" as those are clearly understood by prospective candidates. Avoid trying to use terms such as "Agile Project Manager" or "Agile Process Manager" as those terms can be confusing as the word "manager" is contrary to agile, which is not about managing people or work, but about empowering people and culture change.

Introduction

In the introduction, make sure to summarize the skills that an agile coach needs to have at your organization. Common skills for this role are coaching, facilitation, leading, training, and mentoring. You'll also want to highlight the key aspects that the role will be responsible for and who they'll interact with at the company.

Objectives of this Role

While there may be several objectives for the role, try to highlight the most important four to six and use bulleted lists for easy readability. Here are a few good examples:

"Help scrum teams to analyze current ways of working and design a strategy for adopting agile best practices."

"Guide scrum teams on how to incorporate agile techniques to ensure that the overall transformation strategy is being met."

Responsibilities

Use clear and concise bulleted lists to show what the main responsibilities are for an agile coach at your company. Here are some good examples:

"Create learning and development opportunities for teams and leaders through individual and team coaching."

"Coach senior leaders in agile practices to ensure buy-in and understanding of how their team members are expected to work."

Qualifications

In this section, make sure you're not searching for a unicorn (something mythical and real only in fantasy!). Make these required skills something that agile coaches can obtain, such as industry certifications that demonstrate their commitment to deeper learning in their profession. 

The Certified Scrum Master® (CSM®) or Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) certifications are entry-level ones in the profession, and most companies require one of these at a minimum. Certified Scrum Professional® - Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Professional® - Product Owner are the next level of certification and have CSM and CSPO as prerequisites. They are a stepping stone to the highest level of coaching certification from Scrum Alliance, Certified Team Coach and Certified Enterprise Coach.

Preferred Qualifications

If you're looking for someone who has extensive training in agile coaching, you'll want to seek someone out with more advanced certifications, such as a Certified Team Coach (CTC) if they'll be primarily working at the team level, or a Certified Enterprise Coach™ (CEC™) if they’re leading an enterprise-wide transformation.

Find the right agile coach

If you want to attract great agile coach candidates, it's important to fully understand what an agile coach does for your company and whether or not they have the right qualifications for the job. It's best to look for candidates with prior scrum master or agile coaching experience. Also, agile coaches who are passionate about their careers tend to spend a lot of time on professional development and obtaining advanced coaching certifications.

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