Agile Management – The Faster Way to Better Results

What is the course about?

Facebook, Uber, Airbnb – for managers of established corporates these superstars of the digital economy are simultaneously an inspiration and a threat, as agile companies increasingly change the rules for entire industries and shake up traditional business
Especially established organisations and their leadership are nowadays faced with an enormous challenge. Darwin’s rule of evolution in biology also matters for businesses: „It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.“
Adaptation and customer focus are at the core of Agile Management. Managing complex situations in markets that transform rapidly requires managers to frequently reassess which is the right path that leads to the intended goal.

In this course you will learn how to prepare your organisation, your team and your projects for times of uncertainty:

• How do you develop products and services that resonate with the customer?

• How do you validate business models before they are implemented?

• How do you shorten development cycles yet remain able to respond quickly to change, even if and when parameters change?

• How do you create an organisational culture that perceives innovation as a common task and what does it mean for leadership and teams?

Didactics

Learning is about having fun. This is why in this course you will dive into the case of a fictitious company and a situation that you may very well be familiar with: You will be called on to help prevent the failure of a project by implementing an agile product innovation approach.
In each chapter you will get to know the basics in terms of theory and methods, which you will then apply and adapt to your own course project.
Short videos, case studies as well as training assignments will engage you practically on top of learning the theoretical framework. The practical engagement will help you transfer your newly gained knowledge into your own professional context.
Participation is possible either completely online and self-paced or within a blended learning format in which our trainers can accompany participants on premise or from anywhere in the world in a virtual class room.

Chapter 1 - Innovation in the digital age

• Strategic Relevance: The context of digitalisation that forces companies to question old thought patterns as well as the existing paradigms of their industry.
  
• Failure of Innovation: Learn how to analyse why projects fail and how to reflect which changes can create success.
• The Course Project: Get to know the details of the fictitious project that it will be your task to save from failure throughout the course.
  

Chapter 2 - Basic Principles of Agile Management

• The New Paradigm: customer centric development, holistic thinking and iterative processes as basic principles of Agile Management.
  
• Innovation- and Decision Making Theory: Learn to assess which process is best suited given the specific conditions within which you operate.
  
• Agile Methods: Gain an overview of Scrum, Design Thinking and Lean Startup.
  

Chapter 3 - Understand your customer’s needs

• Customer Research: Learn how to ask the right questions when you talk to your customers in order discern new opportunities.
  
• Value Proposition Design: Learn how to structure customer insights and how to systematically derive features for your product / your service.
  
• Your Idea: Develop an original idea for your course project based on your customer research.
  

Chapter 4 - Business Modeling

• Business model vs. business plan: Differentiate between a business model, a business plan and a business case to determine the best way to position your case.
  
• Business Model Generation: Learn how to draft holistic business models which reflects the complete value chain.
  
• Your Business Model: Using our methodology, develop your own business model for your product or service.
  

Chapter 5 - Business Experimentation

• Evidence-based Management: Learn to differentiate between assumption-based and evidence-based approaches in order to minimise risks early.
  
• Critical Assumptions: Learn to identify critical assumptions that lie at the core of a business model and prioritise according to their potential risks.
  
• Business Experimentation: Gain an overview of different low-risk experimental methods to test critical assumptions and apply fast iterative improvements.
  
• Your Experiment: Do your own experiment to test one aspect of your business model.
  

Chapter 6 - Transfer to your professional life

• Case Study „Agile Development“: A real life example to show you how a business model can incrementally change through focused experimentation.
  
• Personal Experiences: Business professionals will showcase how their companies were able to progress quickly by using agile methods.
  
• Reality Check: Reflect your own role, potential use cases and potential obstacles when implementing the new methods in your company or project. Plan your next steps for the implementation of agile methods in your day to day business.
  

Who should take this course?

The course is for people who need to understand how to manage projects and build teams in the digital age across grades and industries but especially to the following groups:

• Top-level managers responsible for high-level business and revenue-driving strategies.
  
• Middle and entry-level management looking to move into higher positions of responsibility.
  
• All Product Managers looking for creating customer-centric processes.
  
• Entrepreneurs building a digital business or a business relying on digital communication.
  
• Anyone looking to change their career in the direction of managing digital products and processes.

What is included in this course?

By enrolling in this course, you will gain access to:

• All Course Material
  
• Challenging & Fun Assignments
  
• Interactive Global Community
  
• Flexible Time Management
  

Upon completion of this course, you will receive :

• A Statement of Participation
  

In addition, this course offers flexible time management. With a workload of 12-16 hours (which is equal to 2 days of on-site training) and the suggested course length is about 4 weeks. If you can’t spare 3-4 hours a week or would rather finish the course faster, you can do so as well. Take as little or as much time as you need and complete the course at your own pace.

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This course is a co-production of:

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Course instructors