I had been at a client engagement where there are several teams that have introduced Scrum and making great progress over the last several Sprints. I had not visited the client for about a week, and needed a way to get up to date quickly on what is happening on each of teams.

The Turk was a chess-playing machine invented in eighteenth century. It was a hoax, a box that contained a person who would move the chess pieces. After reading about the Mechanical Turk, I was thinking that perhaps Agile could benefit from this concept…then I found that such a solution already exists.

Last year, I attended the Amplify Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference hosted by Jerry Weinberg and other noted consultants and facilitators. I brought back with me new learnings that have enhanced my coaching abilities.