Premier Agile consultancy and training organisation Scrum Sense is leading the way with its Agile Leadership Development Programme. International organisational consultant Dr Siegfried Kaltenecker will join local Agile coach and trainer Peter Hundermark to co-lead two training courses for Agile leaders, in Stellenbosch, during April 2012.
During the past five years, Agile practices have emerged to become a mainstream way to manage IT projects. With this broad adoption has come a growing appreciation for the organisational development implications of Agile adoption. Foremost among these is the need for helping managers develop Agile leadership skills.
Agile is a set of principles for improving the product development process in organisations. It evolved in software development 15 years ago and is now widely adopted within in all kinds of businesses globally. Agile principles mandate teams working collaboratively through self-organisation to achieve common goals. Management agrees the goals, sets appropriate boundaries, and empowers the team to maximise its opportunity to deliver.
“For this to be fully effective, line managers and team leaders need to learn to become facilitators to enable their people to learn to problem-solve, rather than telling them how they should do their daily work,” says Hundermark.
Agile leadership skills development
Agile consultant Marius de Beer recently conducted a study in 18 North American organisations and observed that strategic investment and leadership development are essential to creating lasting benefit from Agile methods.
The Agile Leadership Training for Line Managers course is targeted at middle-, senior and C-level managers-of-managers working in an Agile environment, who need to incorporate agility into the organisation's culture.
Moreover, first-tier leadership, such as Team Leads, Software Architects, Project Managers, Product Managers as well as Scrum Masters and Product Owners (the latter two are roles within the Scrum framework), need to learn “soft” skills to be effective in this way of working. The Team Leadership Skills for Agile Professionals course teaches technical professionals how to listen actively, create trust, deal well with conflict, and provide open, honest and respectful feedback.
Course leaders
Kaltenecker is an organisational consultant with extensive experience in change management and leadership coaching. He is co-owner and managing partner of Loop Consultancy. He is co-editor of the Platform for Agile Management and co-author of the book Kanban in der IT.
Hundermark has worked with iterative and incremental software development processes for more than a decade. He is a Certified Scrum Coach and Trainer and a member of the Stoos Network. He is the author of Do Better Scrum. His passion is helping leaders in organisations achieve lasting change.
Course details
Click here - Team Leadership Skills for Agile Professionals o 12 to 13 April 2012 o Stellenbosch o
Click here - Agile Leadership Training for Line Managers o 16 to 17 April 2012 o Stellenbosch o
Scrum Sense
Established in 2007, Scrum Sense is a leading Agile consulting, training and coaching organisation in South Africa. During this time, Scrum Sense consultants have trained 2 000 people and helped 100 teams adopt Agile methods in a wide range of financial services, media and information communication technology (ICT) organisations.
Contact Chani Macauley for a copy of the report on the research conducted by Marius de Beer, as well as for any information on Agile training courses and Agile consulting services offered by Scrum Sense.
Chani Macauley, Marketing Manager
(083) 565 1008
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