Agile Leadership: Introduction to Change

Overview

Class Central Tips

This is a foundational course in the Agile Leadership Specialization. By the end of this course, you will build an understanding of key agile leadership concepts. You will begin building a toolbox that will give you an ability to evaluate and create a baseline for yourself as an agile leader. You will access your team’s readiness for change. You will also analyze to what degree an organization is agile, and evaluate its ability to respond to change triggers.

Syllabus

Introduction to Change

Agile was born out of necessity driven by a changing business environment. But what triggered this change exactly? This week, you will define change and transformation, and examine change intensity levels and the reasons behind change acceleration. Because change management plays a critical role in helping us successfully transform organizations from traditional to agile, you will be introduced to a brief history and the reasons behind the creation of change management theories.

Agile Leader

Agile leadership is a fairly new concept, and it is typically used in contrast to traditional leadership. This week, you will continue to build the foundational vocabulary for this Specialization by defining a traditional and agile leader and identifying their key characteristics. Are you wondering which one is better? You will be able to answer this question by the end of this week (the answer might surprise you). You will complete the week by analyzing yourself as a leader to understand where you fall on the agility scale. You will be using this assessment in Course 2 to benchmark your personal transformation.

Agile Team

In this module, we will transition into the realm of the team. In order to transform your team, you need to understand the difference between a traditional and agile one. You will learn the definitions and key characteristics of both. You will also be introduced to the role and responsibility of a leader in leading an agile team. You will conclude the week by assessing your team’s level of agility. Similarly to your own assessment, you will be using your team’s baseline assessment to design an agile transformation plan later in the specialization.

Agile Organization

In the last module of this course, we will expand the concepts of traditional and agile to an organizational level. You will learn the definitions and key characteristics of a traditional and agile organization. At the end of the module, you will analyze an organization for its agility. By the end of the last module, you will have a strong foundational knowledge of concepts for the continued journey of Agile Leadership. You will use the three completed assessments when building a comprehensive roadmap for agile transformation as a part of the Capstone course.