This Professional Agile Leadership – Essentials training course is designed to leave delegates more confident in five key areas:

1. 1. Why agile matters to organisations
   2. How to develop people
   3. Measuring the performance and competitive advantage of agility
   4. The role leaders play in growing agility
   5. How to overcome the challenges faced by agile leaders

Course Content

Why Agile Matters
Agile is not the only way to manage work – traditional, plan-driven approaches have long-established practices and benefits. As a leader, you need to convince yourself of the best approach for your context. In this section you will have the opportunity to identify and develop some key themes and challenges faced by your organisation, decide whether agile techniques can help, and then lead others to buy-in to it.

Developing People
Learn how to create an environment where people can thrive, and develop confidence in your decision-making in an agile environment. Specific topics in this section include:

• Understanding levels of team maturity, and how to adapt your leadership style to the situation
• Levels of delegation and how they should change as a team matures
• Leading people in a way that they take ownership
• Case studies and pit-falls to watch out for
• How to respond to requests or disagreements from scrum masters and product owners on how decisions should be made
• The impact that leadership style has on long-term team maturity

Measuring Agility
Measurement is a powerful tool: if you measure something, it is likely to improve, especially if it is done so prominently or in a way that is incentivised. It’s critical therefore to measure the right things and to use the information in the right way. In this section, we’ll review the evidence-based management approach as a way of focusing the mind on the real competitive advantage you want to achieve for your organisation.

Leaders Grow Agility
This section takes a comprehensive look at the potential of agile leaders to cause long-lasting change in their departments and organisations. This will include:

• Servant leadership in practice
• Knowing how and when to intervene
• Hiring effectively to build high-performing teams
• The leaders role in the scrum principles and values
• Causing organisational impediments to be removed

Challenges of an Agile Leader
An agile leader relies heavily on the roles within the scrum team – the developers, product owners and scrum masters that make things happen. There are many challenges the leader might face in creating an environment to enable them to succeed and reach high performance. This final section allows delegates to explore real examples arising from the shift from traditional to agile; fears of losing control of risk and rigour; how people respond to change; and more.

Professional Agile Leadership Essentials – Outcomes

By the end of the class, agile leaders will have new insights into their current challenges, and an actionable set of tools and techniques to put into practice. Participating in the exercises is intended to stimulate attendees to develop their own leadership style based on organisational objectives. Once these objectives are established, leaders will come to realised that the most effective way to deliver them is by establishing happy, motivated, high-performing teams.