The Professional Agile Leader

Hone Your Agile Leadership Skills to Help Your Organization Transform and Thrive To leverage the immense opportunities associated with accelerating change, organizations need teams capable of trying new ideas quickly, learning from their experiences, and adapting based on that learning. Helping these teams to grow and thrive requires agile leaders who support, inspire, and encourage, and who can leave behind the management skills of directing, monitoring, and rewarding or punishing. The Professional Agile Leader is a realistic, practical guide, written by experienced agile leaders who share their collective experiences in helping agile leaders to grow responsive and adaptive teams. They structure powerful lessons around a case study based on decades of experience helping agile leaders achieve and sustain agile transformation. Best of all, they never settle for high-level hand-waving--they show you how it's really done. Reignite once-successful organizations that have lost their way Form cross-functional teams and empower them with purpose Learn to let go, as your teams start taking more responsibility Overcome forces that want to reel you back into the "old rules" Realign the whole organization, since agile and traditional models can't coexist forever Achieve the most challenging goal of all: changing culture Great agile leaders aren't born that way--they're regular people who care deeply about helping others achieve shared goals and have discovered a better way to lead. Whatever your role in the organization, this guide will help you master those skills and mindsets a whole lot faster. "Drawing on vast experience, Ron, Kurt, and Laurens tease out practical tips and patterns for good leadership [and show] how a leader can help shape the environment for agile teams to succeed. . . . The narrative style of the book makes it easy to read, and I am sure there will be many times that you see yourself in it." --From the Foreword by Dave West, CEO and Product Owner, Scrum.org Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Practical, Proven Tools for Leading and Empowering High-Performing Agile Teams A leader is like a farmer, who doesn’t grow crops by pulling them but instead creates the perfect environment for the crops to grow and thrive. If you lead in organizations that have adopted agile methods, you know it’s crucial to create the right environment for your agile teams. Traditional tools such as Gantt charts, detailed plans, and internal KPIs aren’t adequate for complex and fast-changing markets, but merely trusting employees and teams to self-manage is insufficient as well. In Agile Leadership Toolkit, longtime agile leader Peter Koning provides a practical and invaluable steering wheel for agile leaders and their teams. Drawing on his extensive experience helping leaders drive more value from agile, Koning offers a comprehensive toolkit for continuously improving your environment, including structures, metrics, meeting techniques, and governance for creating thriving teams that build disruptive products and services. Koning thoughtfully explains how to lead agile teams at large scale and how team members fit into both the team and the wider organization. Architect environments that help teams learn, grow, and flourish for the long term Get timely feedback everyone can use to improve Co-create goals focused on the customer, not the internal organization Help teams brainstorm and visualize the value of their work to the customer Facilitate team ownership and accelerate team learning Support culture change, and design healthier team habits Make bigger changes faster This actionable guide is for leaders at all levels—whether you’re supervising your first agile team, responsible for multiple teams, or lead the entire company. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Unleash Your Agile Leadership Potential and Guide Your Entire Organization Toward Agility In this complex, fast-changing, and unpredictable world, radically agile organizations thrive when they combine strong local autonomy with deeply shared goals. Leadership is a key factor--individuals who welcome complexity and know how to leverage influence, culture, and organizational design to align widely distributed teams are integral to success. Renowned agile coach Zuzana Sochová presents the skills and techniques you need to become that needed agile leader. Sochová provides inspirational examples drawing on her experience working with leaders in organizations of all sizes, in multiple industries, worldwide. Through practical exercises and assessments, you learn how to unleash your potential, become a better catalyst and community builder, sensibly apply transparency, improve functions from HR to finance, and guide entire organizations toward greater agility. Build a powerful shared vision and change organizations and cultures to achieve it Explore types and models of agile leadership and choose styles that leverage your strengths Practice the competencies and high-level cognitive “meta-skills” of agile leadership Understand and promote agility at the executive and board levels Master practical techniques such as large group facilitation, system coaching, trust building, and team formation Lead in a world of soaring volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity The Agile Leader is for managers, directors, executives, and entrepreneurs--anyone, regardless of position, who is ready to take ownership, challenge the status quo, and become a true agile leader. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Ever feel like you and your team are stretched across multiple demands or that the goal posts change constantly? Never before have businesses felt so acutely this constant need to adapt, pivot and change tack. This book will teach you how you can not only survive in the context of digital transformation, but also thrive and grow, by adopting a powerful agile leadership model. This new and revised edition of The Agile Leader lays out clearly in eight steps how agile leaders empower their team to make decision quickly, evaluate correctly where the biggest opportunities are and mould their strategies around market dynamics and ever-changing needs. If there's one leadership skill that successful businesses have in spades, it's the ability to enable teams to adapt and grow within complex eco-systems of clients, partners and suppliers. By focusing on teamwork and collaboration, as well as promoting shared decision making and ruthless prioritizing, leaders can transform the way they work as well as how their teams function to make them more malleable. Simon Hayward is an agile leadership expert. In this new edition of this successful book, he distills years of leadership and agile research into an actionable 8 step plan, brought to life with examples of agile digital businesses. Learn how to become agile and make digital transformation and delivery part of your business as usual.

In many organizations, management is the biggest obstacle to successful Agile development. Unfortunately, reliable guidance on Agile management has been scarce indeed. Now, leading Agile manager Jurgen Appelo fills that gap, introducing a realistic approach to leading, managing, and growing your Agile team or organization. Writing for current managers and developers moving into management, Appelo shares insights that are grounded in modern complex systems theory, reflecting the intense complexity of modern software development. Appelo's Management 3.0 model recognizes that today's organizations are living, networked systems; and that management is primarily about people and relationships. Management 3.0 doesn't offer mere checklists or prescriptions to follow slavishly; rather, it deepens your understanding of how organizations and Agile teams work and gives you tools to solve your own problems. Drawing on his extensive experience as an Agile manager, the author identifies the most important practices of Agile management and helps you improve each of them. Coverage includes • Getting beyond “Management 1.0” control and “Management 2.0” fads • Understanding how complexity affects your organization • Keeping your people active, creative, innovative, and motivated • Giving teams the care and authority they need to grow on their own • Defining boundaries so teams can succeed in alignment with business goals • Sowing the seeds for a culture of software craftsmanship • Crafting an organizational network that promotes success • Implementing continuous improvement that actually works Thoroughly pragmatic–and never trendy–Jurgen Appelo's Management 3.0 helps you bring greater agility to any software organization, team, or project.

Question Bank for PAL

As the world rapidly changes, so are consumers' needs and expectations, the global marketplace, and the necessity for organizations to evolve equally fast. Many companies are attempting agile transformation, but without a shift in traditional leadership mindsets, abilities, and development, they will not succeed. To navigate change and achieve success, you need to become an Agile Leader(TM). Today's leaders need to be agile in order to develop and drive agile teams, organizations, culture, and results. Author Chuck Mollor, an experienced executive coach and former CEO, shares his story of self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-development, while demonstrating a new leadership paradigm, a roadmap of what makes a great leader, and what organizations must do to develop great leaders. Discover a new approach in what it means to lead in today's environment. Learn the key traits of great leaders and how to inspire your team to break through, achieve, and build high performing teams and organizations. Gain the self-awareness, knowledge, skills and behaviors to realize what is holding you back and how to manage your own triggers so you can reach the next level. Are you ready to make the shift? What Leaders Are Saying "This is not your typical theory-based leadership book. Chuck Mollor artfully couples his framework with specific tactics, and provides a blueprint for what organizations need to do to develop their current and future leaders.... Mollor's decades of experience add a tried and true human element to the subject matter, making this an entertaining and highly valuable read." Peter P. Dhillon Chairman of the Board, Ocean Spray Cranberries "Chuck Mollor cuts to the heart of key pitfalls and opportunities in leadership today. Reading The Rise of the Agile Leader is like having your own executive coach in the room...." Deniz Razon Chief Commercial Officer, Servier Pharmaceuticals "Now more than ever, leaders must be agile - able to respond to ever changing market conditions and employee needs and expectations. The Rise of the Agile Leader is a practical handbook to help you improve your leadership skills and effectiveness.... Chuck Mollor gives a roadmap to true talent optimization." Kirk Arnold Executive in Residence, General Catalyst. Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management "Chuck Mollor's agile leadership framework perfectly captures what all leaders and managers should aspire to be. Best of all, this book spells out exactly how to develop those critical leadership skills, no matter where you are in your career. In my experience leading HR in several industries and companies, a resource like this is invaluable to leadership development." Erin McSweeney EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer, Optum

Leadership Agility is the master competency needed for sustained success in today’s complex, fast-paced business environment. Richly illustrated with stories based on original research and decades of work with clients, this groundbreaking book identifies five levels that leaders move through in developing their agility. Significantly, only 10% have mastered the level of agility needed for consistent effectiveness in our turbulent era of global competition. Written in an engaging, down-to-earth style, this book not only provides a map that guides readers in identifying their current level of agility. It also provides practical advice and concrete examples that show managers and leadership development professionals how they can bring greater agility to the initiatives they take every day.