Coaching Circles

Coaching circles are an opportunity to share your experience and to learn from your peers.
Coaching circles kick off usually every quarter and run for about three months meeting once every 2 weeks at a time and venue that best suits the members of the circle. SUGSA usually has a number of concurrent circles running at any one time. Once a quarter members from all circles get together and retrospect on how it is working, after that we kick off another set of circles.
The circles have been running for over a year now, and in the last round we had 5 concurrent circles in Cape Town. The next kickoff session is 17-October-2011. Make sure you join SUGSA to get the notification about the kick off session.
What’s the format?
  • Coaching circles are usually 6 to 8 people
  • Circles usually have a host who provides the venue (home or office)
  • Circles usually have a co-ordinator who makes sure everyone knows when the next circle is happening, what the topic is and who is facilitating
  • Facilitation is share between all the members of the circle, so this rotates to different members. If this is a bit intimidating, why not check out the mentoring circles.
  • Circles usually meet every 2 weeks on a week night
Who are coaching circles for:
  • People actively practicing Scrum either 6 months in an agile company or 1 year in a company trying to adopt Scrum. If you are just starting out check out the mentoring circles.
  • People who are passionate about Scrum and want to get involved in the Scrum community
  • People with enough experience to facilitate sessions on topics of interest to them
  • People with intermediate to advanced Scrum knowledge
  • People in any role and any size company, diversity is better.
Interested in joining a coaching circle? Contact info [at] scrum <dot> org <dot> za to find out when the next circles start.
Looking for something more? Been doing Scrum for several years? Don’t want to talk about all the problems companies have adopting Scrum? Want to really take the discussion to the next level? Focus on honing your facilitation and coaching skills? We have a circle that might be just for you.
SUGSA is now introducing Coaching Master Circles. Deepen your knowledge, learn new techniques, advance your skills, coach your peers. Unlike regular coaching circles, the master circles will follow a coaching dojo approach. We will role play real life case studies and take turns at coaching and facilitating. The focus will be on your skills as a coach or facilitator than on Scrum knowledge which is taken as given. Topics will most likely be focused on high performing teams, rather than common Scrum adoption problems.
If this sounds right for you, then please contact info [at] scrum <dot> org <dot> za. Acceptance into Coaching Master Circles will be dependent on a recommendation. If you are new to our community but experienced in Scrum/Agile we invite you to meet with us to assess if this circle would be right for you.