Agile leadership is a modern way that helps cope with the complexity and new, innovative ideas within an organization through stimulation of agility, together, and quick adaptation to let teams work smoothly in the face of change.

According to a study conducted by the Project Management Institute, agile projects come out 28% more successful than traditional projects. 

This blog gives insights into 11 key learnings from successful agile consulting companies with respect to agile leading practices, skills, and development. Leaders can use it to develop an agile culture in their companies, adapt to the changing business environment with their teams, and grow the company.

DO YOU KNOW? Deloitte reports that organizations high in agile leaders outperform their peers in many areas; for example, they are 2.5 times more likely to achieve their business results. 

The Power of Agile Leadership in Today’s Organizations 

Agile leadership is a kind of dynamic and adaptive approach with the highly required ability to lead organizations through complexities within the rapidly moving business world today. Essentially, the backbone of Agility will perhaps underline teamwork, flexibility, and continuous improvement as the gadgets it uses to make moves executed through uncertainties.

Unlike most of the orthodox methods of leadership derived from top-down dictations, Agile management starts a culture of enablement whereby teams get empowered and hence begin to self-organize and innovate.

11 Essential Lessons for Successful Agile Transformation

By adopting Agile, an organization can achieve adaptability, and innovation, and become more successful in today’s rapidly changing business context.

The following 11 key lessons learned are from Successfully Creating Agile Organizations: these touch critical areas concerning Agile Practices.

1. Know your ‘why’

Knowing the why is the basis for effective leadership when adopting Agile. 

The first one relates to the alignment of vision with goals through communicating the vision using clear communication with stakeholders.

• Definition of an Agile Leader: Agile Leader supports an agile leading mindset, and guides, and promotes teamwork in teams.

• Goals Definition: The clearer the goals are, the more definite the direction will be, and the more feasible the rate of success can be measured. Thus, it’s easier to communicate the vision and underline resistance towards change.

2. Growth Mindset

This grounds the development of an environment oriented toward experimentation and learning from failure.

• Agile Leadership Mindset: A growth mindset supports continuous improvement and adaptability, hallmarks of Agile success.
• Agile Leadership Skills: Ability to develop leaders with agile skills, resiliency, and openness to change. This should support team risk-taking and learning.

3. Investment in Training and Coaching

Training and coaching continuously are aimed at ensuring that the teams possess the necessary knowledge of Agile principles and practices.

(Source: pmi)

• Agile Leadership Development: It is designed in such a way that the effective implementation of Agile takes place.
• Agile Leadership Coaching: Regular coaching enhances the skills of the leaders to guide the teams better.

4. Start Small and Iterate

Begin gradually with small projects so that your teams do not get overwhelmed in Agile change management.

• Agile Practices: Agile practices shall be picked up incrementally to build increased confidence and competence amongst teams.
• Agile Theory of Leadership: Since Agile is an incremental methodology, process refinement is inbuilt for your teams.

5. Measure Success

There should be identified indicators of success that tell the effectiveness of Agile implementation.

• Agile Metrics for Leadership: Team Velocity, Lead Time, and Customer Satisfaction are some of the key metrics to be defined for performance measurement.
• Regular Measurement: Frequent measurements allow the organization to gauge what’s going right and what is lacking for the goals to be achieved.

6. Let Teams Collaborate

Teams working in Agile environments must collaborate regularly amongst themselves and with the stakeholders.

• Agile Behaviors: Leaders must foster such behaviors so that an open line of communication should be retained.
• Cross-functional collaboration: This levels out objectives and makes any kind of change that may occur easily addressed quickly hence developing a sense of collective responsibility.

7. Build a Culture of Feedback

Organizations in the Agile methodology work based on regular feedback, almost daily.

• Agile Assessment: Feedback loops have been helpful in improving and enhancing processes and performance in teams.
• Continuous Improvement: It is upon the leader to establish a culture where feedback has been welcomed and taken into consideration for the betterment of team dynamics.

8. Lead by Example

Leaders should model principles of Agile by example through actions.

(Source: nih)

• Agile Leadership Network: The network of Agile leaders modeling best practice may inspire others within the organization.
• Transparency and Openness: Adaptive and open management challenges the employees to be so too.

9. Prioritize Team Over an Individual

Agile primarily stresses teamwork and collective ownership.

• Team-oriented culture: A culture that orients to teams would seek better collaboration and innovation in succeeding with Agile.
• Empower the Team: Agile leaders empower the team to make decisions and to take ownership of work to create accountability.

10. Openness to Change

(Source: hbr)

Agile is not a universal approach.

• Agile Organizations: There must be flexible practices within organizations and Agile implementation can thus be defined through changing practices based on the needs of the team and the requirements of the project.
• Questions for Agile Stewardship: Leaders must have the courage to ask a few eye-openers Agile questions challenging the status quo and continually innovate.

11. Manage Expectation

Agile transformations take time and patience.

(Source: prosci)

DO YOU KNOW? according to Prosci, 70% of all initiatives that relate to change are unsuccessful due to the opposition of the same by the employees. Proper communication on the challenges and benefits of the transformation journey is necessary for alignment.

• Realistic expectations: These are very important and help in reducing friction among teams and stakeholders during the project. This creates a supportive environment for change.
• Communication: There should be open communication from Agile on challenges and types of benefits expected to accrue through transformation to maintain full team engagement with a clear understanding of it.

These 11 lessons shall help these organizations to provide better Agile within their respective companies. The culture of collaboration, adaptability, and continuous improvement in such a way that visionary swallows up the team performance and sets any organization up for success as long as the business environment keeps on changing at an unprecedented rate.

Subramaniam study on “Agile Organisations Coping with Change and Driving Innovation An emphasis on Team empowerment and Customer learning “The study pays more attention to the requirements of creating an Agile culture, pitfalls to be handled, and emphasizes Agile mindset in achieving success in complex areas.

Our Solutions

How does AITD help in developing Agile Leadership within your Organization?

The requirement for agile in such a dynamic business environment could never be more serious than now. Amity Institute of Training and Development (AITD), offers a range of programs in agile leadership development focused on building agile leaders who are capable of leading from the front in complex situations and who know what will work or will not work toward the success of an organization.

How Does AITD Play Its Part in Agile Leadership Development?

AITD allows for a general framework for Agile development. Generally, through AITD, agile leadership programs focus on the leaders in their general areas of development such as, but not limited to the following:

1. Agile Leadership Workshops

AITD organizes workshops on Agile mentorship to develop the agile mindset among leaders within teams.

2. Agile Management Coaching

The leaders are coached on how to improve their ability to be better leaders and motivators.

3. Agile Metrics for Leadership

 The leaders are taught agile metrics to measure the performance of the team and hence get on with strategies adjustment.

4. Agile Management Assessment

 Assessment from AITD checks the performance of the leaders. It identifies areas that need improvement.

5. Agile Management Network

AITD network connects the leaders with other leaders. This allows them to learn from each other and collaborate.

The following are what organizations can expect to achieve by attending the Agile Leadership Workshops of AITD:

• Improved collaboration and communication among team members: The workshops offer training on open talks and feedback. They also provide agile organization training on how frequently to hold meetings.
• Enable Learning culture: Participants can learn the ways of enabling learning within the teams by trying new practices and following new ways of doing things.
• Agile Accountability: Agile principles get deeply entrenched in the workshops, and they show how one can practice them.

Workshops about Agile mindset conducted by AITD contain working practitioners and consultants who have strong psychological backgrounds and are practical and hands-on.

AITD Commitment to Agile Leadership Development

AITD designed its practice of agile mentorship as it is of the view that the problems of today are unique in many ways. According to the Agile Alliance, organizations that launch agile practices are observed to present 60% development in productivity and 30% growth in employee commitment.

The workshops and assessments involved in AITD help a leader practice the skills and behaviors necessary for effective leadership in an agile environment. AITD provides all the tools and support a leader will need to gain an Agile Mindset and now seriously start leading high-performing teams. Embracing agile mindset today, find innovation that drives growth sustainable.