We asked Michael Hamman, the workshop leader and author of the book “Evolvagility” to answer questions about this workshop. He will help you enable leaders that will create a resilient, decentralized and self-learning organization.
Q: Why should I take this workshop?
Because, whether you think of yourself this way or not, if you have any kind of role in making Agile real, you are at various moments a leader. And, everyday you face the challenges which Agile both addresses, but also–perhaps paradoxically–creates in organizations: volatility, uncertainty, accelerating change, and ambiguity.
Inner and Outer Agility Practices
We live in a complex world, and while Agile is designed to address those challenges, the frameworks and processes it so far has taught us are insufficient by themselves. What we need, in addition to the outer Agility of practice frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, and scaled frameworks–and in addition to the business agility practices we see more and more of–we also need inner agility practices. These are skills and practices which help us grow our emotional, cognitive and relationship skills so that we are better able both to address the complexity we face each and every day, as well as help others do the same.
Relationship Dynamics and Unpredictability
In this workshop, you will learn specific skills and practices which help you better deal with, and lead in the face of, the confounding challenges of team dynamics, team conflict, stakeholder alignment, clarity of goals, relationship issues. You will also learn the skills to handle the day-to-day anxiety and stress which come with working in a world of high complexity and unpredictability.
Rather than fighting these challenges, you want to work with them, and to even achieve mastery–not merely of those challenges, but of the situational and relationship dynamics that are at the very source of those challenges.
If you can relate to any of this, and you want to improve your own inner capacity to deal effectively with it all, this workshop is definitely for you.
Q: Who is this workshop for?
For anyone who leads any kind of transformation–whether at the level of a team, at the level of a program, at the level of a department, or at the level of an enterprise.
Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, Product Owners, HR, managers, change agents, executive leaders. Anyone who in any way plays a part in helping others (and themselves) grow their capacity to perform in the face of the volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity which Agile both addresses and–to considerable degree–generates in organizations.
Incidentally, this includes anyone in a “supporting” role, particularly those who hold HR kinds of roles in which you bring leadership in supporting any kind of Agile effort.
Q: What is covered in this workshop?
In this workshop you will deepen your capacity for leadership–whether you lead a single team (as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach), a program, or an entire organization–across three domains of impact.
Inner Leadership
The first is your own inner leadership: specifically your capacity to make internal sense–cognitively and emotionally–of the uncertainty and complexity of the situations you encounter in your day-to-day world in ways that grow capacity in yourself and in others around you.
Relationship Skillset
The second domain of impact is relationship. In this workshop you will significantly grow your skillfulness in relationship and communication, both in service of key partnership and in the collaborative group and team settings that are so critical to the success of any agile endeavor. You will uncover and transcend your own inner barriers to effective communication, and learn to help others do the same.
Organizational Systems
The third domain of impact is in the area of organizational systems. Here you will develop a powerful new way of looking at organizational systems and learn how to think about organizational challenges in ways which provide greater ease and aptitude.
Throughout the workshop, the inherent synergy among these three domains of impact are fully exploited as you engage in a transformational leadership journey that is at once personal and also deeply relational.
