What Does an Agile Coach Do?
An Agile coach is a senior practitioner who guides organizations, teams, and leaders through the adoption of Agile principles and scaled frameworks such as SAFe, LeSS, or Scrum@Scale — operating at the program, portfolio, or enterprise level.
Unlike a Scrum Master — who facilitates ceremonies and removes impediments for a single team — an Agile coach works across multiple teams, release trains, or the entire organization. Their responsibilities include:
- Coaching leadership teams on servant leadership and Lean-Agile mindset
- Facilitating Program Increment (PI) Planning across multiple Agile Release Trains
- Identifying and resolving systemic impediments that block value delivery
- Measuring transformation progress using flow metrics and business outcomes
- Building internal coaching capability so organizations can sustain improvement independently
ICON Agility's coaches hold SPCT, SPC, or equivalent credentials, with an average of 11 years of Agile experience and 7 years of tenure with ICON — ensuring you work with practitioners who have guided real transformations, not just theorists.
Cultural Transformation Artists
ICON Coaches are more than technical experts—they are cultural transformation artists who have a reputation for showing heart in their work and rolling up their sleeves to help our clients in collaborative partnership.
By ensuring that our clients fully understand, contribute to, and own their transformations, our coaches enable companies to sustain and succeed on their own. We invite you to learn more about some of our best coaches, their diverse leadership experience, and their coaching philosophies.
Become an ICON Coach!
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SPCTs & SAFe Fellows
The SAFe Practice Consultant Trainer (SPCT) certification recognizes individuals who demonstrate superior knowledge, competency, and in-depth field experience in adopting Agile across an enterprise with SAFe.
SPCTs are often the leading change agents in an organization's Lean-Agile transformation. They are the only ones authorized to train aspiring SAFe Practice Consultants (SPCs). There are fewer than 75 SPCTs worldwide.
"If you're hiring someone who has [an] SPCT certification, you can be confident that they do have experience in these areas, as well as experience with SAFe implementation at multiple organizations."
Two of our SPCTs are also SAFe Fellows, an even rarer recognition of mastery within the SAFe Community.
Kathy Marshak
SAFe Fellow, SPCT, IC Agile certified EBA Trainer
Kathy Marshak is a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Fellow and Agile Transformation Coach and instructor with ICON. For more than 20 years, she...
Charlene M. Cuenca
SAFe Fellow, SPCT, SAFe Contributor
With over 3 decades of professional experience, Charlene has been a leader in transforming organizations, teams and executives, achieving po...
Matt Aaron
SPCT
Matt has been helping people build better business solutions for over twenty years. He has consulted or worked full-time for trave...
Duane Bushman
SPCT
Duane Bushman is a Consultant, Trainer, and Agile Transformation Coach with a genuine passion for helping organizations to understand and re...
Doug Less
SPCT
Doug is an energetic and relentless Agile Transformation Coach passionate about helping organizations navigate their journey to agility &mda...
John Miller
SPCT, Transformation Coach
John is a Transformation Coach, Trainer, RTE, POPM, SSM, and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) SPCT5 with 20 years of experi...
Charlene Newton
Principal Consultant
Charlene coaches executives and teams delivering software and hardware products to help them create and communicate a shared vision, sense a...
Our SPC Coaches
Our SAFe Practice Consultants (SPCs) work hands-on with teams, leaders, and Agile Release Trains to accelerate value delivery and ensure lasting adoption.