Learn the skills of agile leadership

In Strategic Doing: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership, we describe a set of specific practices that anyone can use to foster collaborative conversations – especially when facing challenging times, when the road ahead seems anything but straight. Now, we’re unveiling a companion to the book: an online course to help you explore the skills in more depth and actually begin practicing them in your own work. The Agile Strategy Labs at Purdue University and the University of North Alabama have collaborated to create the course, which is being offered through UNA’s Center for Leadership & Professional Development.

The course begins June 1, and is built around seven modules – one a week – concluding on July 19. Each module includes videos explaining the concepts, followed by a short quiz, a question for discussion with your fellow learners, and practical assignments in a workbook specifically designed to accompany the book. Your instructors will include one or more of the book’s authors.

We’ve added the ability for you to share our news with others – see the buttons above this post. This course is a great opportunity for people who don’t need or want to attend a full 2.5 day training to get a taste of what agile leadership and strategy are all about.

Wondering how this course differs from the 2.5 day training in Strategic Doing? This online course introduces you to skills that any individual can use – no matter what their level in an organization or their job description – in working with others. The 2.5 day in-person training is designed for people facing a different challenge: how to help groups work together toward a common goal, using a structured, guided conversation format (in Strategic Doing, we call this kind of session a “workshop”).

The content of the online course and the 2.5 day training do overlap, but are distinct, and the activities you’ll participate in to help you incorporate these new practices are quite different. You might think of the trainings as a sequence (first learning the individual skills, then the group process); alternatively, some organizations might want a number of people to learn the individual skills and have a smaller cadre of team members prepared to lead groups. Or, just pick the option that makes the most sense for the challenges you’re facing.

You can register for the course now – if you’d like more detail about what the course entails, take a look at the course description. You can also email questions to info@agilestrategylab.org. (And if you’re wondering about the opportunities for a 2.5 day Strategic Doing, we’re working on plans for the second half of 2020, as COVID-19 conditions permit).