New Leadership Workshop for Agile Executives

As more and more companies realize they can’t compete without implementing Agile practices in the Scrum framework, a stampede is beginning of organizations that say they want to “go Agile.” Scrum Inc., founded by the co-creator of Scrum Dr. Jeff Sutherland, has worked with hundreds of organizations and found over and over that management and executive understanding and support are critical to successfully making that switch. Scrum Inc. is now offering Leadership Workshops to executive teams and managers at all levels to help make the transition.

“The key difference is Agile companies look to their executives for leadership rather than management.  This is a real change in mindset,“ says Alex Brown, the COO of Scrum Inc. “ It can be tough to do, but if they want to compete companies have to change. This workshop teaches them how to do it.”

Dr. Sutherland and Mr. Brown worked closely together to create this product, distilling years of experience working with companies of all sizes across the globe. “Traditionally management spends its time telling people what to do. Scrum demands that they actually be leaders. This course gives them the tools and understanding to do that,” says Dr. Sutherland.

The workshop shows how an Agile leadership team is a positive force that works with teams in three important ways:

• They set meaningful and challenging, but achievable, goals to help focus the teams’ effort on activities that create the most business value.
• They work with teams to identify and eliminate impediments that are beyond the team’s ability to remove directly.
• They establish and maintain a system of incentives that reward teams not individuals. If everyone focuses on teamwork rather than personal benefit, more work gets done faster and better…and that needs to be encouraged.

The transition from traditional manager to Agile leader can be difficult…often the Scrum terminology is new and unfamiliar, many of the traditional tools and activities no longer apply, and managers wonder how they should be spending their time if they aren’t busy telling people what to do.  Not every manager can make the transition, and without a clear sense of their new role even the best-intentioned leaders will subconsciously revert to old habits and may become an impediment to increasing team productivity. But this workshop gives managers and executives the tools to truly transform their companies and compete in a marketplace that is changing too rapidly for old methodologies to work.

Scrum Inc., headquartered in Kendall Square, just steps away from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is not only the place where Scrum began, but where it continues to evolve as the world’s leading Agile methodology. The company provides training for individuals, teams, business units and whole companies. Founded by the co-creator of Scrum, Dr. Jeff Sutherland, the team works with people at every level of an organization, from production and development teams, to research scientists and managers, to directors and C-level management. Scrum Inc.’s team of Agile experts train, consult and coach leading companies across the globe, from start-ups to CMMI Level 5 firms. They have experience working in industries as diverse as health care, pharmaceuticals, software, manufacturing, consulting, law, construction, sales, and defense. The company also is the home to thought leaders of the Scrum world. Team members regularly publish scientific papers in leading journals that reflect the latest thinking and research on Scrum and Agile management and processes. CEO Dr. Jeff Sutherland wrote and maintains The Scrum Guide, with Ken Schwaber. It is the definitive document defining what Scrum is, and how it works. He also helped write and is a signatory of the Agile Manifesto the seminal document that introduced the very idea of Agile to the world.

Contact: Christine Hegarty 617.225.4324 christine.hegarty@scruminc.com