My Own Journey of Agile Coaching

Feb 16 / Evelyn Tian
Since 2009 I have been working with agile coaching, and it has been a journey of continuous learning and each day has been a learning day. I shared my experience at difference conferences, including product, leadership and agile conferences.

Here is a summary - if you are interested in knowing more, you are most invited to reach out. Join our global community - let's network and grow together!
Times flies and I have been working with Agile Coaching for over 13 years now (written in 2021).

I am always asked to share my career development by individuals, at different conferences such as women’s leadership conference, and also other occasions.

Today I am taking the moment o write this out. For some of you who are interested in joining my coaching, mentoring and training programs, you may want to get to know me a bit more. So here it is.

I started my career in software development, and advanced myself as system integrator and then troubleshooter (overall system troubleshooter, highest level of testing and system support) for mobile telecom equipment. I also worked as the project lead for Ericsson’s first CDMA project, and then worked as product manager as well. 

Photo below is me, in front of the system I was responsible for.
Back in 2005 to 2008, Ericsson hired many external consultants and the technology, product, culture, structure and complication in organization history etc were very overwhelming for external consultants. So Ericsson decided to build their own internal coaching capabilities. Given my curiosity, I tried out different roles within Ericsson and had rather good view of end to end process. So in 2009, I had my career change from a system architect (for Ericsson Messaging in One and Ericsson Messaging over IP products) to an agile coach. I was also trained thoroughly in terms of Agile and Scrum, and to certain extend, Kanban as well. I also officially kicked off my full-time Agile Coach role.

In order to grow more internal coaching capability, while I was still learning and growing to be a better agile coach, I started to mentor fellow agile coaches in January, 2011. I was counting on the new agile coaches to support me in different parts of the organization, and in different organizations later on as well. 

Since then, I have been mentoring many agile coaches.

Below photo is when I was keynoting at Agile Tour Montreal, 2019, sharing "A Move Towards Value Drive Strategy". 
Gradually, the mentoring system becomes more and more systematic. It covers different skills we should have, such as teaching, facilitating and professional coaching. In March, 2011, I designed Way to Ericsson Coach (WTEC) which has been offered to thousands of all internal leaders, including managers, technical leaders and Agile Coaches within Ericsson. The system also includes domain knowledge as well, from technical practice, product, leadership, to organization. This is also the program that paves the foundation to my ICF certified coaching training programs.
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To better support leaders who were going through Agile adoption, and to better support organisations which will embark their own journey, I also launched Way to Ericsson Agile Leadership (WTEAL), with a 3 module based structure. WTEAL Module 1 was a 3-day program, which was rolled out to over thousands of leaders in Ericsson globally.

In 2013, I was the head coach for Ericsson and supporting coaches across different organisations. In 2015, I started to head Ericsson Global Transformation Support Center (GTSC), supporting different products and services to advance to their next level utilizing Agile and Lean practices and frameworks as vehicles.

In 2017, I decided to leave Ericsson to explore other areas. Since then I have supported organizations across difficult industrials. To name a few, automotive, banking, insurance, financial services, E-commerce, Pharma and more.

I first started to work with Audi Business Innovation from March, 2017, and then started to work with also Audi head office in Ingolstadt later in 2017 in parallel. I am still grateful for the great opportunities exploring the automotive industry and also the wonderful people I worked with.
As I was travelling to clients’ sites all the time, I started to innovate the business model of my company. I started to offer virtual mentoring sessions through Zoom, and so far, I have mentored Agile Coaches, Product Owners, and/or leaders from 80 (as of Nov. 2023) countries.

To give back to the global community, I offer free monthly coaching circles to our past graduates to stay connected and advance together.

Join our community if you are not part of it yet. You are also invited to connect with me via LinkedIn, and follow our company on LinkedIn, to stay connected.

Professional Coaching

Since 2010, I started to feel the importance of professional coaching. The training from Ericsson Academy about Preparation for Leadership, and Leadership Core Curriculum was not sufficient - there was a touch of coaching but not sufficient. The first time I took Preparation for Leadership was back in 2004, which was great but not sufficient to start to embrace a coaching mindset and also didn't learn enough coaching skills. 

So I went ahead and took professional coaching outside Ericsson, and all the way to 2012, I achieved Certified Master Coach with Behavioral Coaching Institute. While working with leaders in Ericsson, I further noticed the importance of coaching. So in Ericsson Leadership Summit, we launched Coaching Based Leadership back in 2013. 

My passion has continued, and in 2021, I co-founded Enterprise Coaching Institute with partners, which is an ICF accredited training provider supporting passionate learners to learn about professional coaching and grow to ACC and PCC. 

For professional coaching, I am an Advanced Certified Mentor Coach, offering mentor coaching, and a Coach Supervisor offering coaching supervision services. 

Look Forward to Collaborating with You

So that's me - a China born Canadian living in Sweden, and I look forward to collaborating with you!
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