With social-distancing measures gradually being rolled back, Agile trainer Eduardo Alvim looks back to where and how organizations stumbled in handling the crisis. “Time, money, and resources have been wasted where value-driven investments could have been made.”

Okay, here’s a challenge for you. At Gladwell Academy, we recently remotely trained an organization that produces hardware and advanced technology. This training on SAFe practices presented a new threshold for us, as it brought our training to a scale previously unheard of!

Beginning in 2017, Gladwell Academy began offering discounted summer courses in Scrum & SAFe and will continue to do so this year. With summer coming and many organizations slowing down, now is the time to take the initiative on your career path with training that will boost you and your organization in the coming year.

At Gladwell Academy we are moving forward with our Agile Coach courses, adapting them to be offered remotely. According to Agile Coach Trainer Renate Cremer “crises like this are exactly when Agile Coaches are needed most,” and she has already begun to consider how this period of isolation will change the way we work and teach Agile.

With social distancing the norm, and everyone working remote, are you finding it harder to stay relevant for your audience as an Agile Coach? Join Gladwell Academy Agile Coach and trainer Boris de Jong for an informative and interactive Agile Coach webinar on how to stay on everyone’s radar, on May 15, 2020 10:00 AM.

The corona virus has virtually every organization scrambling to adapt: social distancing and other measures have an immense impact on everyone’s business and the way we work. We spoke with Markus Weck-Bonetti, principal consultant and Agile Coach at our German partner Co-Improve. He offers a glimpse into how the Agile mindset allows hardware organizations to work and communicate effectively in this difficult time.

At this year’s upcoming Agile for Hardware conference hosted by Gladwell Academy, Herbert Schönebeck from Co-Improve is planning an interactive workshop where he will offer a deep-dive into the typical problems encountered during an Agile transformation.

The responsibilities of the Agile Coach are many and diverse. Hence, the ‘ Agile Coach Toolkit’ for the AC is equally diverse! Here’s my own take on the collection of skills and best practices that every Agile Coach should employ. It ranges from to ‘how to start out as an Agile Coach’, to Agile Coaching techniques, and to the Agile Coach’s role as a facilitator – to name a few. Supercharge your organization’s Agile transformation with these Agile Coach ‘tools.’

We don’t apply Agile ways to make the simple stuff. We use Agile because what we create is hard. By that, I mean those hardware manufacturers that seek to apply Agile ways of working are usually in complex manufacturing industries: automotive, semiconductors, medical tech. Embracing Agility in such industries is very advisable, and indeed many are attempting this in some way. But it does come with its own manual. Here’s a page from my book.

There are different kind of Agile Coaches. But what exactly makes a good Agile coach? It’s not easy to give a simple answer, but with Agile Coaching it all begins with the following qualities and skills. 

No-one is born as an Agile Coach. There is so much to this role. An Agile Coach lives and breathes flexibility and versatility. An Agile Coach has a knowledge of psychology, group dynamics, organization science, change management and innovation. An Agile Coach has a strong approach, good communication skills and dares to take risks. He or she is decisive but is also patient and always stays positive. Agile Coaching course explains the requirements a good Agile Coach should have. 

There is currently a big demand for Agile Coaches. But what is the difference between an Agile Coach or Scrum Master? People often ask us what such a coach can add to a modern, self-managing organization. Aren’t the teams already coached by the Scrum Master? Yes they are! There are many similarities between the two roles. Both the Scrum Master and Agile Coach help organizations to develop an Agile mindset. They both use similar techniques to support and facilitate teams in this respect. The difference between them lies in their scope.

The advantages of working Agile have been a revolution for software development – and then for services-oriented businesses too. Why is the world of hardware development now suddenly becoming so eager to follow suit? Because, finally, it can.

The experienced ASML Agilists Tanya Kudchadker and Wendy Versteeg are presenting together at the Agile for Hardware event. Here, they prelude on their contribution: applying Agile ways of working to the development of hugely complex lithography machines that cost billions to make.

“I’m not about to ditch old-fashioned project management,“ assures Arjan Tuinhout, senior project manager at the Smart Antenna Solutions product line for NXP, global champion in semiconductors. “But after Scrumming pulled my team through some nasty timeframes, I’m convinced Agile can add to hardware development, too.”

As one of the very few SAFe Program Consultant Trainers in the world, Eelco Rustenburg has become an authority on company-wide Agility. Here, he explores his intended keynote for Agile Munich on May 8^th: a concise review of the specific challenges for several important supporting functions. PM/PO, Finance, and HR: to each their own hurdles to jump.

Ralph Hofman is an experienced consultant in digital transformation. He’s worked with leading industrial manufacturers such as ASML, NXP, JDE and many others. And today, he’s excited. “The Agile way of working has been out of reach for much of the non-software industry for decades. Now, it’s slowly making up to change the history of industry. With this event, we’re bringing it to them.” 

Guido Wiggerink is transformation consultant at Dr. Kraus & Partner – a consultancy firm that has change management itself as its fascinating area of focus. He explains why it was evident for his company to adopt Agile Munich as Gold Partner – and what he hopes to witness at the event on May 8^th.

Most people know that the principles underpinning Agile were born in software development. Niels Pfläging argues that those principles should have been broadened long ago, and that they need to be scaled up to reach beyond their initial domain. ‘Agilists have been somewhat selfish in that respect. The BetaCodex movement and OpenSpace Beta address the gap.”

The future of Agile working looks promising. Agile is not just a hype; it has become a concept. The word Agile even made it onto the list of office clichés in 2018. However, Agile working has become indispensable. After all, we live in a world that is constantly changing and in which time-to-market plays an extremely important role. Agile working makes your organisation flexible and versatile, so that your organisation is better able to hold its own in a world full of change. But what are the trends for Agile in 2019? And which trends can we look back on? You can find out more in our blog.