Agile For Executives & Senior Managers

"Look, we are doing Agile, but something is off." This is one of the comments I hear the most from my clients, senior managers and business leaders. When the formalities are over, perhaps over a cup of tea or a drink. In this Udemy course, I will share with you the things that need to be in place to address that.

My name is Shirin Danesh, and I'm a management consultant. Specialize in business transformation and business agility. I have worked with over a thousand executive and senior leaders in many companies, large global enterprises, small startups and scale-ups. When it comes to embedding the Agile framework, there are always three types of work:

You either are cooking, or you're standing next to people while they're cooking, and you make some refinements, or you're setting up a space for them to cook. Delivery, Coaching, and Transformation are the three different types of work.

This course is about the latter. It's about setting the environment for other team members so they can operate both Agile practitioners and delivery teams. Even if you, as a senior manager, are not an Agile practitioner.

We're going to start this course with a method for you to get an understanding of the current estate so you know what's working and what is not working. Then, we're going to go towards prioritization.

You're not going to be able to work on everything at the same time. You don't want to!

You will be able to communicate what's working, what's not working and what has been prioritized with the team. So everyone is on the same page. Then you start with applying the change and putting things in place, and teams will start working. Happy days!

Next, as a leader, you must always have your fingers on the pulse.

I'm going to show you what are the things that you need to monitor and when is the time for you to stop and re-baseline or measure again how things are going and what's the progress.

Well, do you think your work stops there?

No. I will show you the next step, which is the ability to demonstrate progress. The point I'm making is how to make a point of progress, not Agile.

As a leader, your ability to demonstrate that you have moved a team from point A to B is a meta-skill that moves you from a manager to a leader.

Also, it is super important for you to create a track record for yourself. Demonstrate that I'm doing more than just managing this work. I am improving the system. The ability to demonstrate progress is tightly associated with the big words of "Continuous Improvement".

What I'm teaching you here is what large consulting firms do. They come on board,  do an assessment, they prioritize what needs to be done.

They apply to change, measure it, monitor it, and at the end, they will present a success case.

For that, they charge something between 2000 to 6000 per day, about two to three weeks' worth of effort over three months. There usually are two or three practitioners that will join your team, and they work with you and the team you can do them.

I know that for a fact because I used to work with big consulting firms. I know the numbers. I also have done a lot of independent consulting work, so the savings are noticeable.

This is a practical course. The lessons are short. You do not need a lot of lectures from me.

Also, the effort that is required is about two weeks, and after that, you will be able to see tangible results.

Well, my friend, let's start with the good work.