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Description

Agile Coach: Facilitating Ceremonies, Supporting Teams and Removing Blockers

Move from project manager to agile coach, helping the team progress without deciding in its place

  • 2 days — 14 h
  • In-person or virtual
  • Foundation
  • Up to 6 participants

A team can hold every ceremony and still deliver little: retrospectives that end without decisions, a poorly sliced backlog, sprint commitments that are never met, and trade-offs escalated to the project manager. The agile coach then inherits an unclear role, somewhere between meeting facilitator and delivery owner, with no clear mandate over how the work is organised.

Two days to establish the coaching posture, master the facilitation of ceremonies and build a practical diagnostic toolkit for a team. Each participant leaves with a reading grid for their own team and a support plan covering the coming sprints.

Learning objectives

  • Distinguish the coaching posture from that of a manager or subject-matter expert
  • Facilitate the ceremonies of an agile team while holding the framework and the timebox
  • Diagnose how a team operates on the basis of observable facts
  • Run a retrospective that leads to actions that are actually followed up
  • Support scaling across teams without multiplying governance forums

What makes this programme different

Each participant describes their real team beforehand and works on it throughout the two days
Ceremony facilitation is practised in sub-groups and then debriefed from observed behaviours
A three-sprint support plan is written and dated by the end of the session

Programme

1Posture and scope of intervention

Coaching without taking back control

  • Clarify your mandate with management
  • Distinguish coaching, facilitation and consulting
  • Set a support agreement with the team
  • Identify situations that fall outside the coaching role

2Facilitating ceremonies

Rituals that produce decisions

  • Frame planning and the slicing of work
  • Run a short and genuinely useful daily stand-up
  • Prepare a review focused on the delivered product
  • Manage participants who dominate or stay silent

3Diagnosis and team dynamics

Reading what is genuinely blocking progress

  • Observe work flows and work in progress
  • Identify sources of external dependency
  • Address tensions between members without arbitrating on their behalf
  • Measure progress with indicators chosen by the team

4Continuous improvement and scaling up

Embedding progress over time

  • Vary retrospective formats according to the need
  • Turn findings into assigned and dated actions
  • Support several teams working on the same product
  • Prepare the coach's exit and the team's autonomy

Who is it for

Project managers · Scrum Masters · product owners · team managers and future agile coaches expected to support one or more teams.

Prerequisites

Having taken part in a project run in agile mode or being familiar with the vocabulary of common agile frameworks.

Dates & locations

36 scheduled dates between November 2026 and December 2027. Seats are confirmed in the order enquiries are received.

November 2026

December 2026

January 2027

February 2027

March 2027

April 2027

May 2027

June 2027

September 2027

October 2027

November 2027

December 2027

None of these dates suit you? We open additional sessions on request, and any programme can be run privately for your team.

Practical details

Before the programme
Online positioning questionnaire. Your development objectives are shared with the trainer, who tailors the practical case studies to your context.
Teaching methods
Theoretical input, workshops and practical case studies. Digital course materials and method sheets provided.
Assessment
Multiple-choice tests and role-play exercises. Assessment of learning at the start and end of the programme, with immediate and 60-day follow-up evaluations.
After the programme
One year of access to the e-learning platform. Self-assessment of the skills acquired and a 30-day follow-up session with your trainer.
How to register
Registration online or on the basis of a quotation.
Lead time
11 working days after confirmation of registration.
Accessibility
Accessible to people of determination. Contact our accessibility coordinator to design a suitable solution: contact@mpf-academy.ae
Start dates
Rolling intake: in addition to the scheduled sessions, this programme can start on request.