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Mike Bowler

Coach and Trainer

My Coaching Work

Through my company Gargoyle Software, I provide two different kinds of coaching, for two different audiences.

  • Agile Coaching for your business
    I provide Agile coaching to help organizations improve how they deliver value to their clients. This could include workflow, metrics, interpersonal dynamics, agile processes. It will certainly involve working with teams and their management.
  • Personal Coaching for yourself
    I provide personal one-on-one coaching for people wanting to work through issues in their lives. Perhaps they want more confidence, or want to let go of behaviours that are no longer serving them.

Click on the appropriate link to learn more about each of these.

My Training Work

I teach a variety of training classes for Agile topics that are offered as either a fully in-person version or a fully remote version. I find that a mix of in-person and remote in the same class is ineffective, and I strongly discourage this.

These classes are customized for each client and will vary, although the most common classes cover Agile / Scrum / Kanban fundamentals, as well as product development and technical (programming) skills training.

Although I have taught certification classes through both the Scrum Alliance and Prokanban, I'm not offering certifications today.

I've also created some video courses that I sell. Click the links for more details.

Open Source

I’ve been contributing to Open Source for over twenty-five years, with most of my recent contributions being towards the JiraMetrics tool, for extracting useful metrics from Jira.

I offer formal support contracts, as well as pay-as-you-go support for this. If you'd like to support my work in Open Source but don't want an official support contract, then I'd gratefully accept sponsorship through GitHub at the link below.

Book Recommendations

I'm often asked for book recommendations so I maintain two lists.

Where do I write content?

For reasons that likely don't make sense anymore, I have multiple different blogs aimed at different audiences.

  • Unconscious AgileThe intersection of unconscious behaviour and agile. Covers neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis and many other things.
  • Agile Technical ExcellenceA specific focus on the software development side of agile. From TDD to ensemble programming and more.
  • Improving FlowFocusing on the flow of work. How do we keep the work flowing, how do we measure that, and how do we improve it? This is largely Kanban related content although it does cover Scrum as well.
  • Mike's Hard MetricsA single place to find my posts on metrics.

I also publish a newsletter every Tuesday morning and the articles in the newsletter will then end up on one of the blogs. If you like what I write and want to stay on top of it, joining the newsletter is the easiest and most reliable way to do that.

If you've seen me speak recently then the topics below are things I likely spoke about. These links aren't exhaustive, but should give you a starting point into the things I've written on that topic.

Anxiety & Psychological Safety
Autonomy
  • Understanding why giving our people autonomy is so important.
Clean language

A language pattern for deeper conversations

How we think - Systems 1 & 2
Kanban
Learning
Metrics, including probabilistic forecasting
Motivation
Retrospectives
Technical practices

Books I've contributed to

While I haven't published my own books, I have contributed to two books written by others.

  • “Test-Driven Development: A Practical Guide” by Dave Astels, Published: 2003
  • “Mob Programming” by Woody Zuill & Kevin Meadows, Published: 2016

Podcast episodes and Videos

I've been interviewed in a number of podcasts and have had some conference talks recorded.

  • Oct 2025 : Agile Montreal panel on Fluid Ways of Working
  • Apr 2025 : Agile for Agilists : Hosts Drew and Brad welcome seasoned Agile coach and trainer Mike Bowler to talk about psychological safety—through the fascinating lens of brain science, leadership, hypnosis, and LEGO.
  • Nov 2024 : The Mob Mentality Podcast : We talk about how I facilitate ensemble (mobbing) sessions and then dig into some neuroscience to explain some of the benefits of working this way.
  • Nov 2024 : Scrum Master Toolbox Episode 1 : We discuss the notion of “there is no failure, only feedback” and also about coaching management to ensure teams thrive
  • Nov 2024 : Scrum Master Toolbox Episode 2 : Trust and collaboration
  • Nov 2024 : Scrum Master Toolbox Episode 3 : Leading through curiosity and trust
  • Nov 2024 : Scrum Master Toolbox Episode 4 : Using Six Thinking Hats as a retrospective format
  • Nov 2024 : Scrum Master Toolbox Episode 5 : The pitfalls of combining the PO with other roles
  • Jul 2024 : The Agile Within : Neuroscience Strategies for Leading Teams
  • Aug 2019 : Legacy Code Rocks : Unconscious Behaviour in Coding
  • Feb 2017 : Agile Games : Using LEGO to teach technical topics
  • May 2016 : InfoQ Using LEGO to teach technical topics
  • May 2015 : InfoQ Conference session: Continuous Delivery: Responding to Change, Faster than Ever Before
  • Jan 2015 : Agile Coffee Using LEGO to teach technical topics
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