Workshop Series „Agile Leadership“

This workshop unit is part of a series of workshops that are designed to introduce you to an agile way of working in your daily tasks. You will learn the principles of agile leadership, its methods and application. Together we will examine which elements make agile leadership successful and we will introduce you to one of the most important tools for leadership work: the task board. At the end of this day we will ask you to consider possible areas of application for these methods in your area of responsibility. We will continue to work together on these projects in the following weeks.

Goals/Contents

• Applying new working methods (e.g. Scrum, Design Thinking)
• Agile mindset and the challenges of the new working world
• The role of the manager in the agile working world

That is what real leadership is all about: People follow – they do not have to be forced to do so. Even agile leadership only works if people participate voluntarily. They will do that if they understand why they should do something. An essential part of leadership work is therefore to deal intensively with the purpose of projects, meetings and team assignments and to first find a convincing sense – the “Why” – for oneself. It is the task of the manager to express this meaning through a clear vision. In this way a group of people becomes a team with a clear and strong orientation.

Goals/Contents

• What is a vision – for teams, projects or even meetings?
• How do I develop a vision? Who is involved?
• Circle of Safety – working without fear as a prerequisite for innovation
• Doing is better than talking: How much repetition does the vision need?
• How do I make the vision tangible and liveable in my daily work?

Everyone talks about self-organization – but how does it come about and how can you as a manager promote self-organization? A major strength of agile working methods is that they make invisible knowledge work and thus also bottlenecks visible. This is done with tools such as the “task board”, which displays the current work, and the potential to make the work flow visible, step by step, more efficient and effective. At the same time, the task board is an important management tool for you. Live with your team self-organization through visual management!

In this workshop unit the participants learn to either create their own task board or to improve an existing one. We will talk about what makes visualization so effective, what a good board looks like and how to get team members to use this tool and take over tasks from each other.

Goals/Contents

• The task board as a management tool
• Flow and capacity utilization
• Theory of Constraints

Agility has a clear goal: It’s all about delivery. Because basically people want to be successful. They want to work, create and help shape something. However, we often see that teams do not do what they set out to do. What is the reason for this? Do team members suddenly not want to deliver after all?

In this workshop we show how to deliver. The role of the manager changes to that of problem solver and enabler. We will look at the importance of iterations and incremental delivery and how you can even break each meeting down into sub-steps. We will talk about the importance of impediments and how to solve them. The participants will also support each other in finding solutions.

Goals/Contents

• Focus as a management principle: What we focus on, we get more commitment from
• Delivery
• Eliminate disturbances
• Daily stand-up

The work of knowledge workers often takes place in meetings, or at least it should – and yet this is not always one of the most productive forms of work. This is less due to the content than to the way meetings are conducted. Now, an organization is a system of conversations, and managers have a decisive influence on how these conversations take place. Managers have the role of facilitators: they make sure that people “talk” to each other as productively as possible.

You will get to know the instruments of successful facilitation and we will show you how to apply these ideas and tools in everyday life. After this training, you will know how to make your work in meetings productive and how to solve tasks in a team more quickly in a results-oriented manner. You may even find a way to do away with meetings altogether, or at least transfer them to workshops.

Ziele/Inhalte

• The role of the manager as a facilitator
• Lean Coffee
• Flash-Working
• Retrospectives

Participants in the workshop series will reflect on their work from the past weeks and, among other things, learn more about the format of the retrospective. Using the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) methodological toolkit, we will analyze the successes of the previous weeks and make them available for the next tasks and projects. The goal is to reflect and integrate what has been learned into one’s own actions.

Goals/Contents

• Appreciative Inquiry
• Self-reflection and discussion
• The format of the retrospective
• Next Steps for your own actions