The agile way of working becomes a buzzword, especially after seeing Spotify, Netflix, and Zappos’s success. Today many more companies are moving to the agile way of working, including banks, insurance companies, and telecoms. Even government functions or government-funded organizations are becoming agile, and we hear some great stories about them.

The agile way of working is not the same as agile software development. It is a fundamental shift in how an organization does business and requires changes in doing business, organization structures, policies, and operational activities. Organizations need more coaches than traditional bosses in new ways of working. The majority of coaches today come from software development and IT service industries, and many of them lack a basic understanding of organizational functions beyond IT. There is a need for agile coaches coming from core functions such as marketing, sales, HR, operations, and quality. Similarly, traditional organizational design consultants, process consultants, quality assurance coaches, and people coaches have to upgrade themselves to agile coaching.