I Dont Need Another Scrum Master, Get Me a Technical Coach!

GOTO Copenhagen 2024

We’ve had agile coaches and scrum masters working with software teams for years, but technical coaching is different. The focus is not so much on the process and ceremonies of an agile method, but more about how the code is getting written. It’s about raising code quality, learning faster, and better handling the complexity of modern software development.

Software today is built by teams. There may be brilliant individuals and genius coders but in my experience the best designs come from a process of iteration and feedback. The best software developers share what they know and help more junior people to advance. It’s always been part of a Scrum Master’s role to encourage better teamwork and collaboration. It’s not wrong, it’s just not enough. Developers spend much of their time writing code, reviewing code and improving code. If we’re going to make a difference to the way software gets written we need coaches who also know how to code.

I’m technical and I coach teams of developers. I work to influence coding decisions, spread skills and help people build better habits. In this talk I’d like to explain what a technical coach actually does and how this kind of coaching could help you and your development team.