LeanDog

Agile Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo

Agile management is an often overlooked part of Agile. There is much information available for Agile developers, testers, and project managers, but very little for development managers and team leaders. However, when organizations adopt Agile software development, not only developers, testers, and project managers need to learn new practices. Development managers and team leaders must also learn a new approach to leading and managing Agile organizations.

Instructed by Jurgen Appelo

www.jurgenappelo.com

Price

$1,595.00
Enter Jurgen 2012 for a $100.00 off early bird special
Group rates are available contact training@leandog.com

Minimum # of students per class: 12
Maximum # of students per class: 35
Refreshments will be provided

What Will You Get From This Course?

Agile management is an often overlooked part of Agile. There is much information available for Agile developers, testers, and project managers, but very little for development managers and team leaders. However, when organizations adopt Agile software development, not only developers, testers, and project managers need to learn new practices. Development managers and team leaders must also learn a new approach to leading and managing Agile organizations.

Several studies indicate that “old-style” managers are the biggest obstacle in transitions to Agile software development. Development managers and team leaders need to learn what their new role is in Agile software development organizations. This course will help them.

Is This Course For You?

This course aims at leaders/managers who want to become Agile, and developers/testers/project managers who want to become great team leaders or line managers. (No practical experience with Agile methods is necessary, though some familiarity with Agile principles and practices is useful.)

Instructor

Jurgen Appelo is a writer, speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, illustrator, developer, manager, blogger, reader, dreamer, leader, freethinker, and… Dutch guy.

Since 2008 Jurgen writes a popular blog at www.noop.nl, which deals with development management, software engineering, business improvement, personal development, and complexity theory. He is the author of the book Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders, which describes the role of the manager in agile organizations. He is also a speaker, being regularly invited to talk at business seminars and conferences around the world.

After studying Software Engineering at the Delft University of Technology, and earning his Master’s degree in 1994, Jurgen Appelo has busied himself starting up and leading a variety of Dutch businesses, always in the position of team leader, manager, or executive. Jurgen has experience in leading a horde of 100 software developers, development managers, project managers, business consultants, quality managers, service managers, and kangaroos, some of which he hired accidentally.

Nowadays he works full-time developing innovative courseware, books, and other types of original content. But sometimes Jurgen puts it all aside to do some programming himself, or to spend time on his ever-growing collection of science fiction and fantasy literature, which he stacks in a self-designed book case. It is 4 meters high.

Jurgen lives in Rotterdam (The Netherlands)—and sometimes in Brussels (Belgium)—with his partner Raoul. He has two kids, and an imaginary hamster called George.

Course Outline

Day One:

1. Agile and Lean software development are the new golden standards for software teams. You will learn about different Agile methods, popular best practices, the 7 dimensions of looking at software projects, challenges in Agile adoption around the world, and the contribution of the manager and team leader in Agile organizations;

2. People are the most important parts of an organization and managers must do all they can to keep people active, creative, and motivated. You will learn about the difference between extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation, the 10 intrinsic desires, and common techniques for understanding what is important to the people in your teams, such as one-on-one meetings, personal assessments, the 12 most important questions, and 360 degree meetings;

3. Teams are able to self-organize, and this requires empowerment, authorization, and trust from management. You will learn how to make self-organization work, how to distribute authorization in an organization, the challenges of empowerment, how to grow relationships of trust, and several techniques for distributed control, such as the 7 levels of delegation, and authority boards;

4. Self-organization can lead to anything, and it’s therefore necessary to protect people and shared resources, and to give people a clear purpose and defined goals. You will learn when to manage and when to lead, how to use different criteria to create useful goals, about the challenges around management by objectives, and how to protect people and shared resources from any bad effects of self-organization.

Day Two:

1. Complexity science and systems thinking are the cornerstones of an Agile mindset. You will learn about causal loop diagrams, what complexity theory is, how to think in terms of systems, about Black Swans and Jokers, about the difference between complex and complicated, and the 7 principles of complexity thinking;

2. Teams aren’t able to achieve their goals if team members aren’t capable enough, and managers must therefore contribute to the development of competence. You will learn about skill levels and discipline levels, how and when to apply the seven approaches of competence development, how to measure progress in a complex system, the effect of sub-optimization, and several tips for useful metrics;

3. Many teams operate within the context of a complex organization, and thus it is important to consider structures that enhance communication. You will learn how to grow an organizational structure as a fractal, how to balance specialization and generalization, how to choose between functional and cross-functional teams, about informal leadership and widening job titles, and about treating teams as value units in a value network;

4. People, teams, and organizations need to improve continuously, in order to defer failure for as long as possible. You will learn about approaches and strategies for continuous improvement, about the Red Queen’s Race, about the three drivers of improvement, about linear versus non-linear improvement, and how to perform an adaptive walk over a fitness landscape.

Games and Exercises

Each of the four topics includes at least one game or exercise where people put into practice the ideas of the course in groups of five. Sometimes the attendees play as different managers against each other. Sometimes they act together as one manager, sharing their thoughts while working on a problem.

Every social activity ends with a debrief and a discussion, so that people can relate what they’ve learned to their own situation, and bring up questions and experiences to be addressed by the whole group.

Prerequisites

This course aims at leaders/managers who want to become Agile, and developers/testers/project managers who want to become great team leaders or line managers. (No practical experience with Agile methods is necessary, though some familiarity with Agile principles and practices is useful.)