At Spaceteams, we opened a position for a "Team & Product coach”. Within a very short time, we received more than 500 applications, mostly from Agile coaches. And the more applications I reviewed, the stronger one uncomfortable realization became: I did not want to hire a classic Agile Coach.

Not because agility suddenly became irrelevant. Quite the opposite. Many agile principles are more relevant today than ever before. But the expectations for knowledge work have changed. Companies are under economic pressure, teams need to learn faster, deliver products more effectively, and make decisions closer to the actual business.

What I noticed was this: in many organizations, Agile Coaches have moved too far away from the real business. Methodological knowledge was often there — but product understanding, technical proximity, or measurable business impact were much harder to find.

In this talk, I share my personal perspective on the crisis of the Agile Coach role and why I believe that process expertise alone is no longer enough. At the same time, this is not a eulogy for agility. It is a discussion about how the role can evolve.

Because the coaches who will continue to be valuable are, in my view, the ones who help teams solve real problems: closer to product, technology, and business — and further away from process for the sake of process.

No technical requirements, 30 minutes, first public delivery, target audience is agile coaches and agile leaders.