Hello. My name is Bas van Haren-Suarez, and I coach agile teams for a living. This blog is where I think in public about the part of that work no certificate covers: the human edge.
I came into agile in 2019, when I traded waterfall project management (advertising, game development, more Gantt charts than I care to admit) for a Scrum Master role at a web development agency. The framework opened the door. What kept me inside is what happens in the rooms: the moment something shifts in a team and you can see it on a face. Frustration becoming calm. Confusion becoming clarity. I have built my working life around that moment. Today I work as an Agile Coach at a global software development company, helping teams get from where they are to where they want to become.
What you will find here
Kingmaker started as a Scrum blog. Read back far enough and you will find sprint mechanics, backlog refinement, and debunked YouTube videos. Those posts still stand, and I still stand behind most of them. But the centre of gravity has moved. The questions that keep me writing now sit underneath the framework: how psychological safety is built in a live room, why the skills we call soft are the hardest ones to master, and what a facilitator does before the first word is spoken.
That last question grew into something with its own name. Hostcraft treats hosting (creating and holding the conditions a group needs to do its truest work) as a learnable craft, borrowed from professional hospitality. It has its own home at hostcraft.eu; the thinking behind it happens here first, in the open.
None of it is a manual. I won’t prescribe the one right way. I show you tools and perspectives and trust you to judge what fits your own rooms. My way is one way. Yours may be better.
So why ‘kingmaker’?
A kingmaker puts someone else on the throne. In the history books (and in shows like Game of Thrones) they tend to be schemers. In this line of work the word means something kinder: the best compliment I know is a team that succeeds and can no longer quite remember what I did. I make kings. The throne is theirs. (The name also betrays my weakness for a little drama.)
More about me
I live in The Hague, the city of peace and justice, with my spouse and two black cats. I am an avid gamer, a devoted eater, and someone who takes life’s pleasures seriously. If you want the professional version of me, visit my personal website or my LinkedIn profile.
Certificates
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Master I
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Master II
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Master III
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Product Owner I
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Product Owner II
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum Developer I
- Scrum.org – Professional Agile Leadership I
- Scrum.org – Professional Agile Leadership – Evidence-based Management
- Scrum.org – Scaled Professional Scrum
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum with Kanban I
- Scrum.org – Professional Scrum with User Experience I
- Scrum.org – Professional Product Discovery and Validation
- International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) Certified Professional – Agile Certified Coaching
- International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) Certified Professional – Agile Team Facilitation
- International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) Certified Professional – Enterprise Agile Coaching