Lately I’ve been appreciating the Top 100 Agile Websites compiled by Oikosofy.

Just out of curiosity, I thought I’d check out Number 100, just to see who was the lucky guy who wasn’t listed as number 101.

What I found was a delightfully surprising and pleasantly entertaining blog by a coach named Yves Hanoulle. One article which particularly caught my attention is called “Getting out of your comfort zone.”

8 key points for coaches creating safety for their teams

1. Getting out of your comfort zone is important for personal improvement  
2. When you do experiements as a coach to learn people about this, people might see things differently, because of their earlier experiences.  
3. Give people a safe environment so they can learn to push their boundaries.  
4. People need to feel safe to move out of their comfort zone.  
5. The Safety Zone is bigger then Comfort Zone.
6.  Stepping out of your Comfort zone increases the size of Safety Zone.
7.  Staying to long in your Comfort Zone decreases your safe zone.
8. Safety zone is perceived.

His reflections after a training seminar on the topic really made a lot of sense to me.

Basically, an agile team is striving to create a Safe Zone for themselves and their team-mates so people will take risks and move out of their comfort zone. In order to do this, they are or become really comfortable with that uneasy state of being uncomfortable.

It’s as though it is no longer uncomfortable to be uncomfortable.

When an agile team moves out of its Comfort Zone together and everyone feels safe and supported, the end result is the type of team described in the Agile Manifesto. It’s the type of team companies really get excited about. It’s the type of team people love to work with and in doing so they may find they love their work more than ever.

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