Agile Leadership

New Scrum Alliance Program

Submitted by Andreas Schliep on 05/07/2016
Agile Leadership

Agile Leadership – what is that supposed to mean? If you ask a leader or manager today, the claim to having been agile ever since. Particularly corporate leaders like the idea of being able to deliver more in less time, while being able to influence the scope. This was the promise of „Agile“, after all? The „Manifesto for Agile Software Development“ might have sounded revolutionary 15 years ago. Nowadays, managers and consultancies have „adopted“ the topic. Sometimes they twist the idea, proposing „agile“ approaches that are quite opposite to the original ideas, values and principles.

Their confusing buzz word cloud contains terms like „bi-modal IT“, „Business Agility“, „Agile Management“ that can mean everything or nothing. That leads to a row of biases and misunderstandings: * Agile is seen as an attribute of a department rather than an orientation of an organization. * Agile as a modus operandi that you can switch on or off as you like * Forced Agile opposed to Agility as a offer

There are other ways, we have been able to discover with a number of leaders and employees. We have conducted workshops with leaders about the agile principles and their applicability to leadership challenges. We have coached and consulted principals and managers in the transformation of their organization. We have emphasized the adoption of an agile mindset. And we have seen, that the foundations and their practical application needs to be spread further to create a solid foundation for agile leadership. Agile elements act as a change agent that transforms the structure of the organization. Leaders need to understand and handle this process wisely.

So we assisted the Scrum Alliance in creating the new „Certified Agile Leadership“ program. Not because we think the world needs another certification. But the formulation of common learning objectives and evaluation criteria for Agile Leadership can fight the obscurity, address the misconceptions, spread the mindset and provide the guidance for individuals and organizations engaged in transforming the world of work.

The Scrum Alliance is offering a webinar with Pete Behrens about „Agile Leadership“ on May 11, 2016. Participation is free for Scrum Alliance members. You can find more information here.

Andreas Schliep

About the author

Andreas Schliep

Andreas Schliep is a founding member and executive partner of DasScrumTeam. He is a Scrum coach and trainer. He studied at the technical university of Bremerhaven, and worked as a software developer, project manager, team lead and group lead. Andreas has worked with Scrum since 2003. He became a full-time Scrummer in 2006.

Since then, he has helped to introduce and improve Scrum and agile practices in numerous companies all over the world. His favorite topics are quality management and scaling.

  • Experienced ScrumMaster, Product Owner, Coach and Trainer
  • Introduced Scrum at WEB.DE
  • Coaching of internationally distributed teams
  • Transition from RUP to Scrum at UOL Brazil
  • Scrum Trainings and Coaching in Germany, Switzerland and Austria

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