Can Agile principles work outside of software?
- Are you a leader in an organisation and know you have to change, but don't know how?
- Have you come across terms like 'Agile', 'Lean', ;'Responsive', 'B-Corp', 'Beyond Budgeting', 'Teal', 'Ulab', ..... etc., and would like to better understand them?
- Would you like the opportunity to talk about these new approaches with peers and consider how they might relate to your organisation?
If so, this 1-day workshop is for you:
AGILE AT SCALE BEYOND SOFTWARE
Enabling Pan-Organisational Responsiveness in a Dynamic World
1-day Learning Workshop for leaders seeking to reinvent their organisations
Why?
The world is changing fast and in uncertain complex ways. We are facing a major crises, economically, environmentally and spiritually. Many organisations are trying to reivent themselves. They know that have to change, but don't know what to change, what to change to and how. Smaller organisations appear more nimble and are embracing new ways, dramatically out-competing the bigger brothers out of the market. Others are slower to follow, too large to feel the ripples or too big to free themselves from the chains of older forms of organising.
Most leaders know at heart that something needs to change; we have to re-shape our organisations to ensure they are fit for purpose and fit for the humans who work in them. Even large corporations will eventually have to adapt to the changing demands of the world or face extinction like the dinosaurs. And there are a myriad of new methods and approaches out there. This makes it all the more confusing. Are they competiing methodologies? Are they all proven? Do they work for all types of companies? How do I go about choosing which one(s) is (are) right for us?
Lean - Agile - Responsive Lineage
Probably the most common and most well known methodsis Agile. Agile developed in the software development industry, and as most organisations have an IT department of some form, many organisations may already have some Agile capabilities in-house. Agile itself grew out of Lean, which itself grew out of Toyota Management System, famous for Just-in-time, Kaizen and PDCA problem-solving. While Lean lends itself to routine repetitive activities (like manufacturing, hospitals, transportation etc), Agile works for creative product development (software, design etc). But Agile is relevant to all forms of organisational activity, well beyond software. Responsive is an example of an approach taking lean and agile principles a step further.
New Approaches
The menu may include aspect of the following:
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Workshop Outline and Delivery:
The workshop itself will be delivered in a non-conventional way. It will apply some of the principles of new ways of working, organising and leading to new a way of learning. The workshop will thus not be run in a classical training format with a trainer at the front, giving a well polished presentation of the various methodologies, with exercises, role-plays, practice, discussions, all facilitated from the top. It will be run using some of the new co-creative methodologies being explored.
The purpose is to give participants a feel for the newer ways of working, operating and organising. It is also wholly practical. Rather than learn intellectually what the various approaches are, participants actually experience them. There is no set curriculum or points to cover, but rather a menu from which participants can select and teach each other in an completely self-organised way (but don't worry, we'll initially show you how to do this). The workshop should reflect a learner-centered style of education.
Self-Organised Learning Environment - Open Space Technology
The workshop style is based on the principles of Open Space Technology and peer-based Self-Organising Learning Environments. The workshop will be structured on the spot by the participants themselves, to meet their collective needs. It will include principles of peer-to-peer teaching (see Ackoff quote below) - we will provide the tools and resources to enable this.
“Anyone who’s ever taught a course is aware of the fact that the one who learns the most is the teacher. So schools are upside down. The students ought to be teaching. You cannot teach unless you learn. The faculty ought to be learning, that’s what it knows how to do, it doesn’t know how to teach. The old fashioned Roman school house was a room in which student taught student – the teacher was simply a resource to ask for help, not someone who spoke at them, spurning out knowledge. We need to remake schools to be built around learning, instead of around teaching, and that’s a fundamental revision.” (Former Wharton Business School professor Russell Ackoff in BBC Interview with Peter Day):
Who is it for:
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What you will learn:
Companies today are expected to be flexible as well as both rapidly responsive and resilient to change. This basically asks them to be Agile. Yet, doing Agile (the mechanics) is not the same as being Agile (the mindset). The mindset lets you apply flexible Agile patterns not only for software development teams but for the whole organisation. In this workshop we will examine what being Agile really means, and how it can be implemented by combining principles from the Agile Manifesto, Sociocracy, Beyond Budgeting, Open Space Technology, Teal practice, Lean-flow thinking and Ulab. These will enable an organisation to transform itself, so that it can easily change and adapt by itself henceforth.
We will draw from everyone's experience to show a path to transforming a company into an entrepreneurial agile organisation which can embrace and engage multiple viewpoints, from janitor to board, with concrete tools and methods participants can apply right away. As the Entrepreneurial Organisation at Scale Report of the SD Learning Consortium of 2016 says, in asking whether large organisations, even big old firms, can act in an entrepreneurial way and innovate systematically at scale, there is a gradual shift towards delighting customers: An obsession with continuously adding value for customers and users, as well as a recognition of the current need to generate instant, intimate, friction-less value at scale, anywhere, anytime on any device. As Peter Drucker predicted 50 years ago, a 'Copernican Revolution in Management' is happening, a shift from the company being at the centre of economic activity (and measurement) to the customer being at the centre. And this requires a completely different mindset and operational structure from the old predict and control approach.
Part of the focus of the workshop will be about change itself. Many of the methods applied the transforming organisations (often called change management) are blunt and outdated and no longer suited to 21st century. As Prof Gary Hamel has said what we need is not change interventions, but change platforms. In change platform thinking an organisation is in permanent flux, able to change and adapt by itsellf n a sel-organinisd way..... The traditional tools of "managing resistance" are woefully out of date, and out of wack with the new styles of working and organising.
What will you get out of it:
Each participant will probably get something different out of the workshop, depending what they came for. But generally most participants should at least get these benefits
- A better grasp of the rationale and essence of new ways of working and organising
- An overview understanding of the various new approaches around
- Experience of working in a self-organising (learning) environment
- Peer-to-peer exchange of experiences as they relate to your organisation
- Practical tools you can use at work immediately
- An understanding the 21st century approach to organisational transformation (beyond "change management")
- Some understanding as to where and how you might start
- A very rich thought-provoking learning experience
How much and how do I register:
Cost for running the 1-day workshop is £99.- per person, with group discounts available, if we have a sponsored venue available. If we have to hire a venue for the day the cost of the workshop in London including all arrangement costs will be £199.- per person, again with group discounts available. Depending on location and venue cost the workshop fees may vary.
There is no workshop currently scheduled. However, if you would like to attend one and there is enough demand, then we will be happy to run the workshop. If you are enquiring on your own, then we may have to wait until we have sufficient demand. If you have a group of people interested or want to run the workshop as part of an organisation, then we can run the workshop at a time convenient to you, depending on venue availability. If you can also supply the venue, then we should be able to run the workshop quickly at a convenient time for you.
To express interest please call us on 020 7117 8648, or use the form below. Thank you.
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