Some people ask why an agile software development team needs a coach. After all, the basics of agile techniques are very simple. How hard could it possibly be to remember them? People wonder whether the present trend toward using team coaches is just a fad or a tricky way for consultants to relieve customers of their excess cash.
Like any truly useful tools, agile development techniques are indeed simple. That's not the problem. The problem is that teams don't remain at the same level of effectiveness forever if left on autopilot. Teams are made up of humans, and humans get careless when they repeat similar work again and again. Besides that, things change. If the team doesn't pay attention and change as well, they will become very proficient at solving yesterday's problems.
It's neither bad nor good. It's just one of those things, you know.
There are these two fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"
— David Foster Wallace, "The Capital T Truth"
