Context
The Agile soft skills development method is based on a complete personal development cycle alternating: audit of key skills, training, workshops, coaching, follow-up and transfer.
The spread over time (typically 2-3 months) of this evolution and learning process reinforces anchoring, rapid application and favors transformations through the adoption or reinforcement of relevant attitudes.
The development program is the participant's own. It immerses him/her in the posture of "leader-servant" and will train him/her to think and act immediately thanks to the Agile soft skills.
Learning is contextual, meaning that it is centered on the individual who evolves within an organization. In practice, it is the work environment and the method is generic enough to adapt to any collaboration context.
The method is the result of years of practice, reading and experimentation. It has been constructively criticized by coaches, managers and leaders. Now it is your turn to experiment and develop the attitudes or soft skills that make sense for you. This is a continuation of your personal history, based on your current knowledge and your context...
Objectives of the method
- Determine the Agile leadership training (personal and team) and development path
- To provide the knowledge and skills that participants need in their daily lives.
- Experiment with the new knowledge acquired through exchanges and simulations with other participants, in inter-company or intra-company settings.
- Confirm the progress made during the session and to be made after the training session.
- Build and identify the contents of their future progression.
- To propose learning and experimentation actions to be planned in the future.
Throughout the journey, the focus will be on the talents and strengths of each person, each one has knowledge, skills and know-how... let's also make sure that participants develop their know-how.
Target audience
- Anyone who works in one or more groups or teams.
- People managers
- Line managers and Chapter leads
- Functional managers (Product Owners, Scrum Master and other Agile roles)
- The project managers
- Experts contributing to the projects
- The leaders
- Agility coaches and consultants
Conditions of access
No prerequisite is necessary. However, the exercise of a "management" or "project management" function, Agile or not, will help the path proposed in the method. The exercise of leadership is indeed an interesting experience to bring during the training.
This is a training for collaboration within a group or a team: a program that takes into account both the context and the personal resources of each person. It is based on :
- practices that make sense today and
- the current level of each
It is necessary to determine the resources that each person needs in the current and future exercise of his or her leadership, management and function.
Content
1 - The VICA context
An acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexityand Ambiguity, the VICA decoding of today's world, following the waves of globalization, digitalization and accelerating speed of change, comes to us originally from the military world.
VICA is taken into account in professional environments that are part of the Agility research process. Unfortunately, this approach is too often focused solely on "hard skills". It's good to be aware of this! Finding and applying solutions is better! The goal here is to be Agile rather than to do Agility.
V - Volatility
Constant, rapid, sudden, indefinite changes.
Parade: The strategic vision.
The related competencies included in the skills audit:
- Making complex decisions
- Applying the company's values
- Implementing the company's mission
I - Uncertainty
A process that has worked in the past will not necessarily produce the same results again.
Parade: Understanding, especially the context.
Related skills, included in the audit:
- Empathy
- Active listening
- Living with stress, without stressing
- Error, fault, failure: how to deal with it?
- Managing conflicts
C - Complexity
Increased interdependence between components of increasingly interconnected systems. Cause-and-effect relationships diminish or even disappear. Complexity is distinguished here from complication. Complexity contains a random, non-predictable aspect that can at best be modeled. A car is complicated by its number of parts that can nevertheless be assembled with the right plans and not without a certain know-how. Traffic is "complex".
Parade: Clarity.
Related skills, included in the audit:
- Feedback
- Convincing
- Assertiveness
- Delegating
A - Ambiguity
Observations, requests, communications are subject to interpretation. The vagueness of things and subjects leads to misunderstandings, hesitations and therefore anxiety.
Parade: Collective intelligence.
Related skills, included in the audit:
- Negotiating
- Having and trusting
- Responsibility
- Team harmony and collaborative teams
2 - The recommended posture: the servant leader
The Servant Leader is a gateway to a different kind of leadership than that emanating from the great currents of thought and the traditional schools. Let's remember a positioning with paradigms such as humility, benevolence, unconditional support, conviction, support for the evolution of people.
The Servant Leader posture advocates self-confidence, psychological security, active listening among others. Within this framework, each participant will be invited to position himself/herself, with the help of the trainer, according to the following scheme:
FRAME: Your motivations, personal goals, desires.
ANALYZE: Your strengths, your skills, your talents.
ACTIVATE: Your life situations, your learnings, your natural strengths.
CHANGE: Your daily impact, your efficiency, your credibility.
EVALUATE: Your effects, your evolutions, your positive points.
PROGRESS: Your modifications, your well-being, your desires, your foundations, your meaning.
3 - Evaluation: the online audit (Digital Journey of the Manager aka the "DJM")
The online audit is one of the learning modules and an integral part of the method. During the audit, the person who undertakes the audit answers questions that allow him/her to situate his/her level of knowledge on the topics related to agile soft skills. The person can (1) have knowledge, (2) have knowledge and be able to apply it and (3) have knowledge, be able to apply it and also be able to teach it. Each of us has strengths, more on certain attitudes than others. The audit allows us to objectify the levels of maturity, to identify the strengths on which we can rely and those to develop. A personal document and a debriefing with a coach finalize the audit.
The online audit is built according to an original methodology of "Sextant":
a) Constitution and use of a common reference system. It is made up of 16 competences, which are themselves made up of abilities.
b) Establishment of a questionnaire with proposed answers. All proposed answers must be validated or invalidated.
c) Depending on the level of competence shown by the respondent through his/her answers, the system automatically asks to provide evidence; this involves uploading one or more "proof" documents.
d) The system automatically produces an individual and confidential report in which the competences are listed, the level reached on a scale of 0 to 2 (0 = insufficient / 1 = knowledge / 2 = know-how), the recommendations for development.
Security and confidentiality: The online audit is accessible via a triple verification, including sending a code by SMS. Participants have no access to other people's audits. Answers and documents are stored in a secure database and accessible to the trainer. GDPR regulations are applied.
4 - Monograph
On the basis of a Template given by the trainer, the participant elaborates his own vision and understanding of his profession as an expert, leader and manager. He/she integrates his/her achievements, strengths, points of attention and development intentions on both a personal and collegial level. Its contents are part of the development of collective intelligence. It will also include his or her intentions for development within the organization in which he or she works.
Details
A typical complete training cycle is conducted in person (3 days) with 3 hours of remote follow-up (at the beginning, after the 2nd day of training, at the end). The online audit is performed before the training.