Agile Intervision: A Peer Coaching Format for Sustainable Growth

As Agile Coaches, we spend most of our time supporting others – but who supports us?

In the emotionally demanding world of facilitation and transformation, it’s easy to feel isolated. You hold space for retrospectives, mediate between teams and management, and act as a mirror for organizational dysfunction. But where do you reflect?

Several years ago I found a great solution: Agile Intervision. It’s a lightweight, peer-based format designed specifically for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches to support each other – without hierarchy or value judgment.

What is Agile Intervision?

Agile Intervision is a peer consulting practice where participants bring real work challenges into a structured, time-boxed meeting for exploration. It’s built on three principles:

Equality – everyone is a peer; there are no more or less important participants.
Safety – judgment is off the table.
Clarity – structure helps keep the conversation useful and focused.

Each session revolves around a “case owner” who shares a challenge. The group listens, reflects, and offers ideas – but only when invited. This isn’t a coaching fishbowl or therapy session. It’s mutual reflection with intent.

Why It Works

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” – the number one rule of Intervision.

That means you’re free to be honest. Bring the messy team dynamics, the stakeholder standoff, the retro that didn’t land. Sometimes you’ll get advice, but sometimes you will get insight.

More reasons to give it a try:

🌱 You avoid burnout by not solving everything alone.
🧠 You sharpen your own thinking by hearing others’ thoughts.
🤝 You create deeper bonds within your coaching community.

Where It Works

One of the great things about Agile Intervision is its flexibility. You can run it internally within your company – or openly, with peers from outside your organization. Both formats have their place.

🔸 Internal Intervision

This is perfect when you have a network of Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, or facilitators in your organization. It helps strengthen your internal coaching culture, foster mutual support, and align practices across teams.

🔹 Open Intervision

This becomes especially valuable when:

You’re the only Agile expert in your company
You want to escape organizational bias or assumptions
You need a fresh perspective or “outside mirror”
You’re building a broader professional network

Stepping outside your company removes unspoken rules and politics from the room. It creates a freer, cleaner space for exploration – and can lead to unexpected breakthroughs in how you see your own context.

How a Session Works

⏱ One case = 20 minutes

🗣 The case owner tells their story and formulates a request (5 minutes)
❔ Participants ask clarifying questions (5 minutes)
💡 Participants answer case owner request (8 minutes)
✅ The case owner makes a summary

Rules:

Vegas Rule
Respectness
Participants avoid evaluations and criticism
All participants are equal
The facilitator can moderate the discussion
The case owner can stop the discussion at any moment

Getting Started

Want to host your first Agile Intervision?

✅ Invite 3-12 fellow Scrum Masters or Agile Coaches
✅ Set ground rules (confidentiality, respect, no critique)
✅ Rotate roles every session

If your group is small and meets bi-weekly, a 60-minute format is a solid start:

10-15 for check-in activities
Two Intervision session (20+20 minutes)
5-10 minutes for check-out

For big groups or if you meet rarely you may need more than one hour for one meeting.

You don’t need a license or a platform – just intention and presence.

Online Intervision life hacks

Remote sessions work beautifully, but they demand trust. To help your online group stay connected:

🎥 Cameras on – visual contact builds empathy and psychological safety
⏰ Join on time — be ready before the first case starts
🔇 Ensure privacy — join from a place where others can’t overhear sensitive discussion
❌ Avoid: open offices, cafés, coworking spaces
✅ Better: private meeting room, quiet home office, or breakout room

Intervision at Agile Events

If you plan to lead Agile Intervision at any Agile Event: conference, meetup, communities etc, you could do it like basic Agile Intervision in open format.

📅 Schedule the meeting for 1-1.5 hours.

👥 If you have too many applicants you may make several Intervision groups parally, but of course you have to find a facilitator for every group.

Final Thought

Agile Intervision is more than a meeting format. It’s a practice of care, reflection, and mutual growth. In a world where being the helper often means going unseen, Intervision gives us a place to be seen, heard, and held.