Agile Coaching. An Ethical reflection

 

Although there is no Agile Coaching Code of Ethics, like PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Agile coaching ethics relies on guidelines adapted from broader professional bodies and community-led initiatives. Some examples of codes and frameworks used by Agile coaches include:

The Agile Coaching Code of Ethical Conduct

(Developed by an open community initiative supported by Agile Alliance and Scrum.org)

This is the primary dedicated code of ethics specifically created for the Agile coaching discipline. It covers 9 core commitments:

1. Protecting Confidentiality, Intellectual Property, and Information Security: Protecting client data and properly attributing ideas.
2. Acting Within My Ability: Remaining transparent about qualifications and stepping aside when client needs exceed personal expertise.
3. Introspection and Continuing Professional Development: Engaging with mentors/peers and pursuing continuous learning.
4. Navigating Conflicts of Interest: Proactively declaring potential conflicts and ensuring decisions benefit the client over personal gain.
5. Ensuring Value in the Relationship: Preventing client dependency and continuously verifying that the coaching engagement adds tangible value.
6. Upholding Social Responsibility, Diversity, and Inclusion: Actively discouraging discrimination and elevating diverse perspectives.
7. Agreeing on Boundaries: Establishing agreed-upon scope without imposing personal preferences or violating Agile principles.
8. Managing Differences in Status and Power: Refraining from misusing influence, authority, or rank.
9. Responsibility to the Profession: Uplifting professional standards and addressing unethical behaviour in the community.

Unlike PMI’s Code and other codes developed by professional bodies, such has Mechanical Engineering, Construction, Electrical Engineering or Medical Association, this code is not structured on certain values, like Responsibility, Respect, Fairness and Honesty, nor has specific mandatory and aspirational standards.

Scrum Alliance Code of Ethics

(Mandated for Scrum Alliance certified practitioners, including Certified Agile Coaches / CEC / CTC)

The Scrum Alliance Code of Ethics governs professional behaviour across five main areas:

• Representation: Truthfulness regarding credentials, background, and capabilities.
• Professionalism: Maintaining courtesy, respecting others, avoiding harassment/discrimination, and upholding hate speech policies.
• Professional Responsibility: Managing conflicts of interest, taking accountability for mistakes, and avoiding safety risks.
• Compliance with Scrum Alliance Policies: Respecting intellectual property and mark usage guidelines.
• Pledge of Ethics & Scrum Values: Aligning behaviour with the 5 Scrum Values (Focus, Courage, Openness, Respect, Commitment).

More ethics-oriented around Scrum values, the code does not have specific mandatory and aspirational standards. Like the Agile Alliance, the Scrum Alliance doesn’t supplement the Code with a framework for investigating and resolving ethics complaints related to violations of the code of ethics there is no body that can order disciplinary or remedial actions.

Complementary & Adjacent Codes

• International Coaching Federation (ICF) Code of Ethics, structured into 4 pillars:

Responsibility to Clients: Confidentiality, clear contracts, avoiding power imbalances, and managing client conflicts.

Responsibility to Practice and Performance: Maintaining personal boundaries, ongoing self-development, and ethical awareness.

Responsibility to Professionalism: Accurate representation of coaching qualifications and respecting intellectual property.

Responsibility to Society: Promoting equality, safety, and social well-being.

• International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Code of Ethics: Followed by Agile coaches emphasizing group facilitation stance (focusing on neutrality, inclusive participation, and group autonomy).
• European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) Global Code of Ethics: Common among UK/European Agile coaches, focusing on professional competence, context awareness, and safety.

Scenarios:

Following are some scenarios to demonstrate how PMI’s Code of Ethics ethical values can be used by Agile Coaches;

Scenario 1: Handling "Off-the-Record" Leadership Information

• Ethical Principle - Responsibility: Protecting Confidentiality & Information Security
• The Situation: During a 1-on-1, a director confides to you that a major restructuring and layoff phase is coming in two months. Later that week, a team member asks you directly, "I heard rumours about layoffs—is our team safe? Should I be updating my resume?"
• In Practice:
• Unethical Approach: Confirming the rumour off-the-record or blabbing to build trust with team members.
• Ethical Approach: Protect confidentiality while maintaining trust. Explain that you cannot comment on organizational rumours but offer space to explore their immediate concerns and direct them to HR or official leadership channels for official updates.

Scenario 2: Knowing When to Say "I'm Out of My Depth"

• Ethical Principle – Honesty: Acting Within My Ability
• The Situation: An executive asks you to lead an enterprise-wide scaling transformation, including redesigning compensation structures and org design. You have strong team-level coaching experience, but zero experience with executive change management or compensation models.
• In Practice:
• Unethical Approach: Accepting the contract or assignment anyway for the prestige, higher pay, or career progression, hoping to "fake it till you make it."
• Ethical Approach: Be transparent about your current scope of expertise. Offer to help co-coach alongside an enterprise specialist or advise the leadership team to bring in an experienced enterprise transformation consultant.

Scenario 3: Firing Yourself When Value Drops

• Ethical Principles - Honesty and Responsibility:Ensuring Value in the Relationship / Preventing Dependency
• The Situation: You have coached a department for 18 months. The teams are high-performing, self-organizing, and successfully resolving their own systemic blockers. However, management wants to keep you on a retainer indefinitely to "keep things smooth."
• In Practice:
• Unethical Approach: Staying on board, creating artificial problems to solve, or making yourself indispensable so the contract keeps rolling.
• Ethical Approach: Point out that the team has achieved self-sustainability. Recommend transitioning out of the daily coaching role, moving to an ad-hoc advisory check-in model, or wrapping up the engagement.

Scenario 4: The Boss Demands "Secret Performance Data"

• Ethical Principles – Respect and Fairness: Managing Differences in Status and Power / Protecting Confidentiality
• The Situation: A VP asks you, "I need you to tell me who the low performers are on Team X so I can decide on year-end bonuses. You observe their retrospectives every week."
• In Practice:
• Unethical Approach: Sharing individual observation notes or evaluating team members' personal contributions based on retrospective participation.
• Ethical Approach: Explain that retrospective observations and coaching interactions are safe, confidential spaces required for psychological safety. Offer instead to help leadership establish transparent, objective metrics for performance evaluating outside the coaching boundary.

Scenario 5: Managing Tool Vendor Kickbacks

• Ethical Principle – Responsibility and Honesty:Navigating Conflicts of Interest
• The Situation: An Agile tooling vendor offers you an affiliate commission or a free ticket to an international conference if you convince your current client company to adopt their enterprise software package.
• In Practice:
• Unethical Approach: Recommending the tool as the "best solution for the organization" without disclosing your financial incentive or alternative options.
• Ethical Approach: Disclose the potential conflict immediately to the client decision-makers. Remain objective by providing an unbiased evaluation of multiple tool options or step back from the selection committee altogether.

Scenario 6: Steering Clear of Dogma

• Ethical Principles – Responsibility, Honesty and Respect: Agreeing on Boundaries & Respecting Client Autonomy
• The Situation: You are a strict advocate for Scrum. A software engineering team at your client company is dealing with unpredictable operational incidents and wants to adopt Kanban.
• In Practice:
• Unethical Approach: Refusing to support them or insisting they stay with 2-week Scrum Sprints because "Kanban isn't really Agile."
• Ethical Approach: Put the client team's contextual needs over personal framework preferences. Help them design a flow-based Kanban system tailored to their operational reality, ensuring alignment with overall Agile principles.