You are coaching a Team. You organize training sessions and workshops with them. They are polite enough to join. They even seem to enjoy some of the things you do.
Yet, you are not seen as being part of the team. Your are an outsider. At times a useful one, but most often an annoying one. It is not your fault, it is what outsiders are, by nature.
Therefore...
Take your DELL laptop and your Star Wars mug, and go sit with the team.
Details
The benefits of sitting with the team are huge:
- You get to see first hand how the team works
- You can decide to interact with them anytime. Jumping into conversations when you deem appropriate.
- They can decide to interact with you anytime. Pulling from you whatever information or experience they think you may have.
- It makes it much easier for you to GetYourHandsDirty
- It naturally increases your commitment level. Which (while a little scary at first) is a very good thing because who would want to listen to someone who's just "passing by", dropping her presumed wisdom at the team - like seagulls flying by and pooping on a beach - and always getting away with whatever she says or does?
If you are not coaching one collocated team, but multiple or distributed teams, you will have to be a bit more creative and flexible for achieving the above objectives, but the idea remains the same. This may mean:
- Alternating between sitting with team A and team B
- ... or between sitting with the Product Owners / Managers and the development teams.
- Paying people offshore a visit on a regular basis.