Facilitating the Agile Culture Change: Building an Effective Agile Organization (ICP-TAL)

Course Overview

Part 1: Why Develop an Agile Organization?

A better question may be “what happens if you don’t become an agile organization?”  Experts estimate there will be more technological change in the next 20 years than there has been in the last 300 years. Plus, the generational change in the workforce to Millennials and Generation Z translates into an unprecedented amount of disruption in every organization.  How can an organization succeed in this environment?  By becoming more agile.  We review the following:

• The Oncoming 4th Industrial Revolution
• The Impact of Generational Disruption on Organization
• The Need for People Centric Thinking to Succeed in the Future

Exercise: We have participants considers examples where they have seen the technological and generational disruptions within their organizations and the general market place.  Also, participants discuss how leadership and human resources will need to adapt.

Part 2: Designing a New Way of Working

In order to design work in a new way we have to be open to a new way of thinking.  In this section we discuss Agile Values and Manifesto to uncover the critical people centric elements to Agile’s success.  We also introduce the participants to Dynamic Thinking where we take a holistic, systematic and growth mindset to challenges you face within an organization.  We cover the following:

• Agile Values and Manifesto
• Dynamic Thinking
• Agile / Lean Mindset
• Fixed versus Growth Mindset

Exercise: Participants consider how their organizations would need to change to truly live the Agile Values and Manifesto.  Also, following the introduction to Dynamic Thinking we ask participants to consider the opportunities and challenges to applying the concepts to support the development of an Agile / Lean Mindset within an organization.

Part 3: Realigning an Organization for Agility

The traditional hierarchical or siloed organizational structures has several significant constraints in achieving greater agility.  These include lacking a holistic understanding of shifts in the needs and demands of clients, weaker collaboration between groups attempting to deliver value to clients and disempowered employees.  In this section we discuss the core Agile concept of self-forming collaborative teams tied specifically to delivering value to the client.  We discuss how applying these concepts to an entire organization impacts the skill sets required of the employees, how leadership will have to adapt as well as how many of the traditional tools in Human Resources will need to change.  We cover the following:

• Review of Traditional Organizations
• Aligning Organizations to the Flow of Value
• T-Shaped Employees
• The Theory of Constraints
• Team of Teams

Exercise: Group discussion of the impact of aligning an organization to the value stream with cross-functional teams based on purpose, vision, mission and values.

Part 4: Leadership in Creating an Agile Organization

What is the role of leaders in an organization that empowers its employees to self-organize to create value, encourages proactive critical thinking and rewards performance based on organizational and team objectives?  In this section we share the concepts of Servant Leadership, developing an Agile mindset and achieving a highly engaged workforce. Discussion includes:

• Servant Leadership
• The Meaning of an Agile Mindset
• Creating Cultural Agility
• Developing an Engaged Workforce

Exercise: The participants explore the differences between leadership in their organizations and the concepts of agile leadership.  We also consider ways to develop agile leaders and what changes would be necessary within human resources to achieve a culture of agility and engagement.

Part 5: The Agile HR Mindset

The foundations of Agile run afoul of traditional human resources tools like individual performance reviews, compensation tied to individual performance and education/learning dictated by the organization.  Human Resources must become agile to achieve the desired culture.  In this section we work together to rethinking the role and tools of human resources, so they support the new culture. Discussion includes:

• What Really Motivates High Performance
• A Relook at the HR Toolkit Including:
  • Performance Reviews
  • Compensation
  • Learning
  • Career Planning

Part 6: Developing an Agile Workforce Using Data-Driven Methods

Despite all of the advances in technology we enjoy, most organizations mostly rely on subjective evaluations to identify and develop talent.  For many organizations not much has changed in over 100 years.  In this section we introduce the participants to a comprehensive approach to using data-driven methods to identify, recruit, and develop high performing individuals and teams.  Data analysis has the potential to enhance collaboration, conflict management, career selection, and tap into intrinsic motivations.  Participants are required to complete an online personality assessment prior to the class.  As well as complete some exercises.  The discussion and exercises will use the data from the assessments to help participants uncover valuable insights about themselves and the other participants in the course. Discussion includes:

• Data-driven Discussion of Behaviors, Motivations, and Skills
• Identification of Potential Conflicts Among the Participants and Strategies to Manage Those Conflicts
• The Use of Data-Analysis to Develop Job Descriptions, Improve Recruiting and On-Boarding New Employees

Exercise: Based on the personality assessment each participant completed before the class we review strategies to improve communication, uncover how our individual motivations impact relationships, participate in a job benchmarking brainstorming session to gain greater understanding of how data-analysis can improve hiring and examine how employees will now direct and experience a different sort of career path since organizations will flatter purpose driven organizations.

Prerequisites

Attendance for anyone seeking to have a better understanding of how to effect a cultural change within a team or organization to being more agile.  This would include Human Resources, Leaders & Managers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Agile team members.