As a Scrum Master you have various roles. Just toname a few, you will be empowered to teach, inform, lobby and most importantly coach.
Coaching in particular is a craft. One gets carried by theplethora of information available to learn and know about becoming an effective coach. Not to mention thereexists a wealth of interesting tools and means to make use of.
One such tool is GROW. GROW is powerful yet pragmatic instrument for coaching individuals and teamsin an effectual manner. GROW supports the coaches in achieving their goals. In making them overcome impediments.
GROW stands for
Goal
Reality
Opportunities
Will
My motivation for using GROW is its ease of use and that it allows space to relieve your excuses, fears and worries without confronting their inception, which is part of yourself. GROW helps your coachee in finding a way to work around these natural but hindering sentimentsand to reach their goals.
Last, and most important, GROW
helps the coachee to put positive intentions truly into action.
Here is how GROW works in a nutshell:
Goal
As Scrum Master we know all about goals.
How they have to be specific and inspiring.
How they need to be narrow enough to be clear and broad enough to give room to creativity. So no more about ‘goal’.
Reality
After defining what the coachee or team wants to realize, you pursue to identify as many as possiblemental obstacles the coachee is struggling with. Don’t debate them, just make an inventory. The more the marrier.
Be honest to yourself. You cannot overcome your obstacles and prevail without recognition of their existence.
Opportunities
Again, brainstorm till you can do no more.
Make the coachee name as many detour-idears as possible. Silence is a good coach-trade here. Keep in mind that your coachee is not used to generating possible solutions. So give it some time.
Will
Will is the icing on the cake.
As a coach you may ask the following questions:
What do you choose to actually do? What is your plan of action? What obstacles might you encounter and how will you cope with them? What do you need to make sure you’re going to succeed?
Needless to say: have your coachee make it SMART.