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What is an Agile Facilitator?

Once you’ve learned motivation theory and honed the skills you need to be a facilitator, the next step is to learn the mechanics. The skills of a good facilitator include maintaining an open mind and not criticizing ideas and suggestions offered by group members. The true definition of business agility is a company’s ability to adapt and respond in a dynamic marketplace.

Agile team facilitation

At the end of the training, each participant is invited to a closed group on Slack, where they can ask the trainers any questions, as well as learn about exclusive offers. Agile Team Facilitation (ICP-ATF) is one of the blocks in the Agile Coaching track of the ICAgile training roadmap. Use health checks to explore team effectiveness, building on team strengths and tackling impediments.

You’ll learn

Facilitation is a cornerstone skill for successfully leading agile teams. As much of the work in agile teams occurs through face-to-face communication and involves collaboration in nearly all decisions, the ability to facilitate discussion is paramount to success. The role of agile facilitator is to plan and implement an appropriate process; the rest of the group is responsible for the content of the discussion by contributing expertise. Facilitation aims at being economical (goal-oriented and time-efficient) and promoting the well-being of all participants involved .

He/She aims to assist the whole Agile team in increasing the productivity of the team. However, the facilitator should possess the technical proficiency to guide the team in the right way. As the Agile Facilitator also participates in the discussion, the session becomes very detailed. The Agile Facilitator participation is crucial to make the team understand the Agile dynamics essential for the project. A facilitator with a high-level of understanding of the subject matter makes the Agile facilitator much more effective and trustworthy for the participants. Therefore, it is necessary to have the right skills to be an effective facilitator of an Agile environment.

Starting the Practice:

A well-developed employee development plan can help you retain top talent, improve your team’s skills, and boost productivity. Because this person is often part of the team, in some way, they likely have an opinion about what the team is doing. On top of that the online format has provided me with tons of insights for the reality of facilitating remotely working teams. Scrum Masters, Agile coaches, Lean experts, team coach, project managers, managers working in an agile environment.

In these, the trainees learn the necessary skills for the agile team facilitator. The courses give a lot of importance to the roles and responsibilities that the team facilitator in agile needs to have. Below, we shall briefly understand what these roles and responsibilities are.

  • Her coach training is from Coaches Training Institute and Center for Right Relationships.
  • Give and receive feedback to grow your own facilitation skills and those of others.
  • This class is thaught online using Zoom as our online meeting place where we will discuss, present and experiment with the different stances and roles of an Agile Coach.
  • You are put to work immediately and start learning by doing and experimenting with the tools explained and modeled by your peers and your ICAgile Accredited trainer.
  • We decided to stretch the program over 4 days, which actually gives you more time to practice in between sessions.

Wherever he/she finds the gaps, they just fill the gaps by sharing ideas to create an environment open and safe. He thinks uniquely thereby he/she finds similarities wherever other people see differences to build bridges to consensus. When it comes to the roles of the facilitator, he/she first meet the manager, sets the agenda, organizes rules, and then commences the discussion. However, they also participate in the discussion actively wherever required his/her viewpoints to complete the project successfully.

Who benefits from this certification?

When you successfully complete your class and your post-class survey, you’ll earn a certificate that you can share with employers and your professional network. Certificates are downloadable PDFs configured for uploading and sharing on LinkedIn. Narrow down the agenda of the meeting to only those items which are most important. Successful completion of this course results in the ICAgile Team Facilitation Certification (ICP-ATF) designation from the internationally recognized ICAgile certification body. Upon completing the course and submission and approval of your course assignment, you will receive certification in ICP- https://globalcloudteam.com/ (ICP-ATF).

Agile team facilitation

Although this isn’t always easy, it is important for the facilitator to understand it. If the facilitator takes either one or the other side, then the environment is no longer safe for all to speak. However, they must make sure that the environment is such that the individual is at comfort. Through this, the team members will be able to speak when they have something to say without forcing them. The participant should already own any of the professional coaching credentials. The participant should have at least 1+ years of experience as a team coach.

Moreover, the facilitator motivates the team with an encouraging statement to the closing words of cheer throughout the session so that a strong desire would be developed among the team. Also, he/she is potent enough to carry out every task at a good pace. He creates the vision for the team regarding the importance of holding a meeting. If you have not received an email to create your ICAgile.com profile after ten business days, please contact your ICAgile Member Organization.

Knowledge

The training program is accredited by the International Consortium for Agile . The course is designed for advanced participants with experience in team work and relevant theoretical knowledge. At the end of the training, participants receive the ICAgile Certified Professional – Agile Team Facilitation (ICP-ATF) personal certificate (ICP-ATF) which is recognised worldwide.

These are best defined by the person with the most at stake from the outcome. Change Management consultant, Agile Coach and Trainer working on Program&Portfolio / Enterprise levels as well as Team level. Working in Software Development industry both Outsourcing and Product Development from 2004. Responsible for effective collaboration of software developers and business and occupying managerial positions since 2008. Facilitation cannot be taught in a traditional classroom setting alone. It is a practice that is best learned through doing and learning.

The ATF 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. The world is changing rapidly, and it’s hard to find universal specialists who have all the necessary competencies to create the product you want. The importance of having teams with diverse specialties and experience is growing, and Agile has emerged as a way to help bring those varied voices together. Successful Agile implementation can’t be done without the effective work of an Agile team facilitator bringing together the experience and know-how of each member of the team. Another fun way to innovate is a game-based technique known as spider-webbing, which is essentially a type of context diagramming with your own set of rules woven into proceedings.

Agile team facilitation

Through obtaining this certification, course participants will develop an appreciation for the art of facilitation as the key to fostering collaboration and enabling self-organising teams. In addition, participants will build their facilitator toolkits and gain experience facilitating specific agile practices most relevant to their organisational context. Agile leadership should possess the skills to plan and conduct efficient team meetings to make sure that the team is working together with full dedication. The good facilitation abilities of the Agile team facilitator decide the right collaboration between the team to bring value and higher levels of performance to the organization. The Agile team facilitator role is beyond the activities like conducting meetings as they have to guide the whole Agile team about the paradigm shifts needed in Agile team environments.

What are some facilitation techniques in project management?

In this article, we discuss facilitation theory and structure, who facilitators are, as well as their key skills, techniques, and responsibilities. Whilst brainstorming is not a new concept, by any means, it’s still an effective way to kick-start your meeting. Also known as ‘affinity mapping’, it’s a great way to get ideas out there that otherwise might not see the light of day. From agile coaches to agile project managers, there are ways to map out ideas that balance the team overall. The Agile Team Facilitation course is the first step towards achieving the coveted expert level in ICAgile’s Agile Coaching track (ICP-ATF certification).

Splitting User Stories — What it is and techniques used

To experience Agile transformation in the organization, Agile facilitation is very essential. However, the facilitator must implement the Agile facilitation in the right manner. Only the facilitator of the Agile team can fulfill the requirements of present Project Managers and other members of the team. The facilitators have been trained to run meetings effectively to produce better results in the very end. Therefore, if you want to become a good facilitator of Agile, you should pursue an Agile facilitation course so that you can be equipped with potential Agile skills and abilities. Of course, Agile facilitation is an effective tool for any Agile-based organization if used in the right way.

This course provides an in-depth understanding of how collaborative activities can be planned, organised and run. Participants in this course will have the opportunity to update their facilitator toolkits and gain practical experience to facilitate specific agile practices towards successful team outcomes. Such environment is challenging in planning and managing group activities in an effective and efficient way. It is important for the team leader or scrum master to understand group dynamics and possess facilitation skills to effectively facilitate group activities.

While Agile’s goal is to keep meetings collaborative and engaging, that’s certainly not always the reality. We’re sure that everyone has experienced a Scrum Master dominating a meeting while the rest of the team sits quietly waiting for the meeting agile team facilitation to finally end. Mitigating and preventing those types of meetings is one of the primary goals of facilitation. Nowadays, facilitation techniques are an essential toolkit for a good manager, whether you’re using Agile or classic techniques.

A facilitator must be able to keep the meeting focused on achieving the outcome identified at the outset. Facilitator responsibilities include active listening and hearing what every team member is saying. I could probably continue that list of fears, but you might notice the theme of my fears were all about me. Teams can be greatly influenced by a slight comment or over-attention to one idea over another. When you’re trying to pay attention to the content in the process, there’s a danger you’re missing what is happening inside of the process.

Employee Development Plan

Agile facilitation has a specialized role in making Agile transformation in the organization with the details that go beyond Agile practices. It is better to pursue Agile Team Facilitation (ICP-ATF) certification to become an Agile facilitator of a particular company. An Agile facilitator is the one who has the right to conduct a meeting and even participates in the discussions to encourage the conditions of effective group processes to meet the goals of the organization. Let us check out the other facts of Agile facilitation in detail below. Enterprise Agile Coaching Develop enterprise coaching capabilities that enable business agility. Improve business processes by understanding organization structure and design.