Agile Leadership Principles and Practices

University System of Maryland and University of Maryland, College Park via edX

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Go to class

Provider

edX
Pricing

Free Online Course (Audit)
Languages

English
Certificate

$249.00 Certificate Available
Duration & workload

4 weeks, 2-3 hours a week
Sessions

On-Demand
Level

Advanced
Subtitles

English, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Portuguese, Swahili, Telugu, Turkish, Chinese

Found in

Part of

Agile Project Management

4.6

Overview

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Agile can often challenge project managers in the realm of leadership. Old styles of command-control are now a thing of the past, except for the most conservative organizations. While good leaders employ a variety of leadership skills and leadership styles to motivate team members, even this is not enough. Simply setting a common goal and maintaining positive attitudes while raising your emotional intelligence will make you a better leader; but will it truly unlock your team's potential?

Instead of leadership traits, Agile leadership emphasizes facilitation and communication skills. This is teachable and much more powerful. This unique and effective leadership style challenges traditional beliefs in what leadership means.

Great leaders understand that the leader can no longer stand in the way of their team. Modern society, mindsets, and global competition demand new leadership roles, and leadership qualities all together that empower and motivate the team to new levels of productivity. Business leaders that miss this critical shift in leadership styles concede a powerful competitive advantage to the Agile leader.

In this course, you will learn how this new style of leadership redefines and redistributes team roles by:

Motivating through empowerment to gain better decisions
Facilitating the creativity and inclusivity of a high-functioning team
Identifying and managing decision making biases
Negotiating conflicts across individuals, teams, and organizations
Ensuring success through delegation and powerful constraint-based metrics.
You’ll learn to turn one internally motivated and critically thinking mind into many; and driving speed and innovation through leveraging all talents on the team.

While this course will not make you an agile certified practitioner (PMI-ACP), or certified scrum master (CSM), it offers a more fundamental agile certification based on agile principles and how agile leadership is applied in industry today. You'll finish this course more than ready to continue your agile journey, which we hope takes you to the next course in the series on Agile Process, Project, and Program Controls.

Upon successful completion of this course, learners can earn 10 Professional Development Unit (PDU) credits, which are recognized by the Project Management Institute (PMI). PDU credits are essential to those looking to maintain certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP).

Syllabus

Week 1: The first week of this course jumps right into our traditional notions of leadership, defining the concept, the characteristics of a leader, the science of leadership, and the styles that exist today across master and servant models (Primal Leadership, Team Leadership, Situational Leadership, and Transformational Leadership).
Week 2: The second week exposes the reasoning behind servant leadership as the optimal approach and how old philosophies and “modern psychology” reinforce the need for leaders to empower teams. Gamification and the power of play are emphasized to ensure optimal contribution and performance across roles on the scaled Agile teams. Here you'll learn the scrum master's secrets and agile techniques for running highly productive teams.
Week 3: The third week explores human decision making, its power and its faults in the form of biases, and how we can train ourselves through emotional-social intelligence and mindfulness to go faster by slowing down. Negotiation styles and techniques are also covered requiring self-reflection on how one handles conflict and manages competing, accommodating, avoiding, compromising, and collaborating challenges. These techniques are critical for product owners, scrum masters, and those leading in any capacity.
Week 4: The final week focuses on putting these lessons into practice with real-world approaches and tools for managing and facilitating decisions, interactions, and environments for optimal team performance.

Taught by

John Johnson

Reviews

4.5 rating, based on 490 Class Central reviews

4.7 rating at edX based on 61 ratings

Start your review of Agile Leadership Principles and Practices

Ronny De Winter @RonnyDeWinter

A good well-structured overview of agile leadership and how it relates to traditional leadership and powerplay. The course provides insight into the theoretical leadership frameworks. The course is rather theoretical. The lectures have a standard…

A good well-structured overview of agile leadership and how it relates to traditional leadership and powerplay. The course provides insight into the theoretical leadership frameworks.

The course is rather theoretical. The lectures have a standard format, with introducing the goal of the lecture, video material, a textual summary (useful review), a short knowledge check (2 rather easy multiple choice questions, not much added value), a reference section (optional material for those who want to dive deeper, good stuff!), a weekly quiz (which I didn't have access to, I followed the audit mode), and an invitation to put your takeaways per week which make you thinking and reflecting. The takeaways from everybody are used to generate a word cloud (rather sparse, needs some more work, but the intention looks good).

A lot of attention goes to the content structure and learning process (planning, reflection, repetition) making the course a professional well-thought product. What can be improved is introducing the practical application, for example, by weekly agile leadership exercises that learners can apply in their day-to-day work, for example writing down short dissertation about their experiences and let them be peer-reviewed.

I took this course when starting on an assignment in an agile environment, after coming from a more traditionally managed project. It was a welcome refreshment of the agile principles and how they contrast with traditional leadership.

I can recommend this course to everybody who starts working in a new environment, to investigate to what extend they can apply agile leadership.
Anonymous

Low level material - basically a summary of some popular books made by a guy who put some slides together. By the way he seems to not know basic grammar and spelling (too many times had I to see that he could not still figure out the difference bet…

Low level material - basically a summary of some popular books made by a guy who put some slides together.
By the way he seems to not know basic grammar and spelling (too many times had I to see that he could not still figure out the difference between the possessive its and the verbal form it’s). How can I consider him credible?
But also the rest of summaries are sloppy and unedited bunch of dot points, full of buzzwords and little more.
Why using videos if it’s (for the guy presenting - if you read this it means “it is”) a simple reading of slides?
Make case studies, fish bowls of a scrum master leading a team, a team discussing and somebody facilitating, real life problems managed by the team, comment interactions etc etc. This would be a useful course. Its purpose (for the guy presenting, this is the possessive, it means “the purpose of the course”) would be to help understand practical behaviors.
Case studies (The same two or three are repeatedly superficially mentioned around the whole programme) are just mentioned without any explanation in detail (they sent a rocket in the space in half the time and spending the budget using four principles! Thank you, now it’s clear, I know what to do)
Robin Ste

There were some topics in this course that I really liked, but also some parts that I disliked. The first 2 weeks are interesting from a theoretical point of view. The 4th week adds some tools/suggestions on how to practically incorporate what you h…

There were some topics in this course that I really liked, but also some parts that I disliked. The first 2 weeks are interesting from a theoretical point of view. The 4th week adds some tools/suggestions on how to practically incorporate what you have learned into your Agile leadership role.

However especially week 3 ('Empowering the mind') needs some further work in making both the parts about decision biases and mindfullness more concrete for the intended audience. How do we actually use this?

What was also confusing to me is that while this course is about Agile Leadership in general, the viewpoint of the Agile Project Manager gets the most attention (considering it comes from a PM institute this is understandable though).

Lastly I feel the short knowledge checks and sometimes even questions in the week quizzes focused on testing the wrong parts of attained knowledge. In my feeling this course is about creating the correct mindset with Agile leaders, meanwhile providing them with tools to cope with their difficult role. The questions could reflect this more.

When cleaning up these points, my rating would go to 4 stars or even higher.

All in all thanks to this course I added both some theory and tools in my Agile backpack. I will continue to follow other courses by USMx.
Serena Bonini @serenabonini

This was a very interesting course. I appreciated the external reading suggestions and real world examples. The course provided scope for self evaluation and insight on how to leverage skills in negotiations and leadership. I can see this being useful at work.
Anonymous

The Agile Leadership Principles and Practices course provided a comprehensive overview of the essential concepts and methodologies that underpin effective agile leadership. The curriculum was well-structured, which facilitated a deeper understanding of agile principles practices in an organization.

Overall, the Agile Leadership Principles and Practices course is an excellent investment for anyone looking to enhance their leadership capabilities in an agile environment. The blend of theory, practical application, and peer interaction makes it a valuable experience for current and aspiring leaders.
Anonymous

Overall, the course equipped with practical tools and strategies to implement Agile principles within organizations, enhancing team dynamics and driving successful project outcomes. The course also encourages ongoing reflection and adaptation of leadership styles to meet the evolving needs of teams and projects.
Anonymous

Information is presented in a clear and understandable manner. Straight to the point. The instructor's enthusiasm makes you want to lean and retain the information. You can't wait to get to the next section. I have completed 2 modules to date and am excited about completing the remaining 3.
Anonymous

This a great course for anyone leading or aspiring to lead a data science team. I find the course very relevant in driving agile projects, most especially understanding the interface between scrum master, product owner, technical teams and project sponsors.

I highly recommend!
Anonymous

The Agile Leadership Principles and Practises course was very insightful and helped me develop a completely different view on Leadership and Management. The course was well rounded , starting from the old fashioned leadership and progressed towards to the Agile leadership; helping me to clearly understand the benefits of Agile. I am looking forward to implement the principles and practises in my professional life.
Omar M.Selim

A good well-structured overview of agile leadership and how it relates to traditional leadership and powerplay. The course provides insight into the theoretical leadership frameworks. The course is rather theoretical. The lectures have a standard f…

A good well-structured overview of agile leadership and how it relates to traditional leadership and powerplay. The course provides insight into the theoretical leadership frameworks.

The course is rather theoretical. The lectures have a standard format, with introducing the goal of the lecture, video material, a textual summary (useful review), a short knowledge check (2 rather easy multiple choice questions, not much added value), a reference section (optional material for those who want to dive deeper, good stuff!), a weekly quiz (which I didn't have access to, I followed the audit mode), and an invitation to put your takeaways per week which make you thinking and reflecting. The takeaways from everybody are used to generate a word cloud (rather sparse, needs some more work, but the intention looks good).
Anonymous

Agile leadership can be considered a critical skill in leading teams; specifically, when it comes to leading complex businesses such as manufacturing in the aluminum industry. Too often, most technological progress has been done to improve processe…

Agile leadership can be considered a critical skill in leading teams; specifically, when it comes to leading complex businesses such as manufacturing in the aluminum industry.
Too often, most technological progress has been done to improve processes. In many cases, production systems have reached maximum technical efficiency as machines work close to saturation. In order to improve productivity of the production function, companies have raised the intensity to maximum capability of the cells. The system sensibility to variations has increased dramatically. Stringent operations and procedures must be put in place to minimize variations and losses. The only actionable tool remaining to controlling these variations is enhancing performance through unleashing human contribution.
Agile leadership can allow companies achieve such aim through different techniques. For instance, going-slow-to go fast is an important concept to implementing when it comes to continuously improving team environment when technical efficiency is saturated; nudging can also be a useful option within the going-slow-to go fast principles.
 Employee and team empowerment, agile system engineering,
 Framing the purpose of the team (the starting point),
 Adapting team members to new roles in agile workplace,
 Building inclusive group interactions to source truth & solutions,
Are potentially, immediate techniques that I will be applying very quickly in my workplace.

Thanks for your comprehensive thoughts in this modern way of leading.
Anonymous

Everything you need about agile leadership is in this course. I really like this course and learned real information and skills that I need for my daily work. Don’t miss it.
Anonymous

This course was informative, I learned a lot at my own pace. I recommend it for anyone wanting to transition in their career without taking the traditional route.
Anonymous

Very impactful learning experience. Learnt a lot about Agile leadership and applying this knowledge will improve on my job and Team bonding experience.
Anonymous

This course provided a concise set of insights into becoming a better agile leader. It was well organized and offers great reference reading lists.
Anonymous

I enjoyed very much this course, I was searching for leadership information and more knowledge and found a lot in it. Highly recommended
Anonymous

mainly a good course. my proposal will be to make the videos more "situational", at least some of them would be great to have more acting examples... i think we will be more attached as if we only listen someone talking
Anonymous

I was quite fascinated with the manner of providing information, style of presentations and lecturer. Straight and forward. Clear and easy to understand. You can work on your own path to follow the course and revise what you whant. The additional sources of information were very useful and the intermidiary check-ups were of great help to understand wheather you are on a good way of learning. I DO recommend this course!
Anonymous

I found this course very interesting, and I think it's going to be useful at work. It helps in reevaluating the decision-making processes we normally apply in everyday life. I particularly appreciated the external reading suggestions and examples from the real world.
Angelina Zubac

The course was extremely interested and helped me understand how agile works and what I need to do to lead a team and develop myself to be an effective agile leader. I liked how a contrast was provided to traditional leadership and it was made clear how agile is different to lean management but also what they have in common. I thought the courses was well paced, although there were a few tricky terminology interpretation tasks I had to sort out to succeed. I scored 98% even though it took me a few goes to answer the questions that required me to choose the best of 3 answers out of a possible 5. They were trickier than I thought but they helped me better understand Agile. Congratulations to the facilitator and to University of Maryland.