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13 Aug
Agile Coaching course

The Importance of a good Agile Coaching course

No-one is born as an Agile Coach. There is so much to this role. An Agile Coach lives and breathes flexibility and versatility. An Agile Coach has a knowledge of psychology, group dynamics, organization science, change management and innovation. An Agile Coach has a strong approach, good communication skills and dares to take risks. He or she is decisive but is also patient and always stays positive. All in all a whole catalogue of requirements. But you don’t need to be a superhero to be a... Learn more
13 Aug
Agile Coaching

The 5 qualities for effective Agile Coaching

There are different kind of Agile Coaches. But what exactly makes a good Agile coach? It’s not easy to give a simple answer, but with Agile Coaching it all begins with the following qualities and skills.      Knowledge of Agile Ideas Agile isn't a standard recipe, but a comprehensive philosophy. It’s a mindset in which change isn't the goal, but rather the starting point. Agile uses methods and frameworks such as Lean, Scrum, DevOps, Continuous Delivery and the... Learn more
13 Aug
Agile Coach or Scrum Master

Agile Coach or Scrum Master: What’s the difference?

There is currently a big demand for Agile Coaches. But what is the difference between an Agile Coach or Scrum Master. People often ask us what such a coach can add to a modern, self-managing organization. Aren’t the teams already coached by the Scrum Master? Yes they are! There are many similarities between the two roles. Both the Scrum Master and Agile Coach help organizations to develop an Agile mindset. They both use similar techniques to support and facilitate teams in this... Learn more
10 Aug

RTE Summit 3.0 provides SAFe Release Train Engineers with latest insights

In November, the third edition of the RTE Summit will take place, an event that provides SAFe Release Train Engineers the opportunity to access the latest trends and insights in their profession and to exchange knowledge with peers.    Agile working is booming across multiple industries, giving organisations of all shapes and sizes a new way to innovate their services, ramp up their operations and improve the effectiveness of team practices. The method has emerged out of a growing... Learn more
11 Jul
Agile Leadership

What is the secret of Agile leadership?

Implementing an Agile leadership approach not only has an impact on employees, but also on management. In an Agile organization, work is done by autonomous, self-managing teams. The employees get more responsibility and work together to decide what needs to be done and how they are going to do it. A traditional, top-down leadership style doesn't fit in with the development of an Agile mindset, but what does?     Why Agile Leadership is needed You may wonder whether we need... Learn more
07 Mar

What is SAFe? The Scaled Agile Framework – part 2

In the previous blog about the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), I explained the motivations  for organizations to use this well-known Agile scaling model. In this blog I will discuss the available content and the use of the framework itself.       Training is needed Nevertheless, it is very necessary to garner information from data, in order to experience practicality in theory. Getting yourself trained is the most common way. You can attend various training... Learn more
06 Mar
Scaled Agile Framework

What is SAFe? The Scaled Agile Framework – part 1

Enter Dean Leffingwell’s SAFe – the Scaled Agile Framework – a framework designed by Scaled Agile, Inc. to allow large organizations to move toward a more Agile Way Of Working.       The purpose of the Scaled Agile Framework The framework is an overview of all sorts of ingenious ideas, conceived over time for problems of inflexible organizations looking for more Agility (Agile in a broader sense). In the words of Dean Leffingwell, SAFe helps companies meet major... Learn more
19 Nov

Book review: Visual Thinking, Empowering people & organizations through visual collaboration

In training, coaching and consulting, the effectiveness of our efforts are dependent on the quality of our work x the acceptance. As a trainer and consultant, therefore, I am always looking for new ways to improve my quality, but also the acceptance.  As I am a firm believer in visual thinking, either for decluttering my own thoughts & argumentation structure or to support collaboration, I recently bought the book "Visual Thinking, Empowering people & organizations through visual... Learn more
09 Nov

Prototyping @local government

During an introductory Agile training at a local government we discovered a desire to start Agile ways of working. I was amazed at first by the current cautious approach of decision making and value delivery at the government: i.e. writing a vision document, then a planning documentation, etc. before talking with customers or creating anything real. We turned amazement to mutual opportunity.   Together with the participants we formulated three problem areas and started working on... Learn more
05 Oct

Gladwell and BlinkLane organise a Summit for SAFe Release Train Engineers

On November 14, Gladwell Academy will organise the RTE Summit for the second time, a two-day event organised for and by SAFe Release Train Engineers. During the event - called RTE Summit 2.0 - Release Train Engineers share knowledge and experiences with each other and participants are presented with an extensive and interactive program.     The role of Release Train Engineer (RTE) is new to many organisations, but determines the success of a Lean/Agile adoption. The main... Learn more
27 Sep

”How do you do Scrum with 200+ teams? You do it SAFe. Pure pragmatism.”

In the Scaled Agile framework (SAFe), the highest rank is reserved for the SAFe Program Consultant Trainer. There are only about 50 such SPCT-certified SAFe gurus in the world today. Two of these work at Gladwell Academy: the recently certified trainer-consultants Eelco Rustenburg and Anand Murthy Raj. We looked the two of them up in Amsterdam, the Netherlands to discuss how they see the future of Agile project management in the corporate world.   Good day, gentlemen. Let’s get... Learn more
21 Sep

Increase Results of Social Capital with Synthetron

A large international insurance company works hard to transform its operations with Agile ways of working. Blinkane Consulting and Gladwell Academy help drive this transformation.     Derived from the SAFe framework, the company deployed several Agile Release Trains (ARTs): a team of teams mounting to over one hundred people collaborating to deliver value to their customers. On 12 September 2017, an experienced ART held its 3-month Inspect and Adapt meeting. The energy from... Learn more
14 Aug
Product Owner

Product Owner course review

Are you a product owner or do you want to learn more about this role? The Product Owner training of Gladwell Academy gives you great insights into the tasks and responsibilities of product owners, and it addresses common issues which you as a product owner have to deal with in practice.     As a product owner you fulfill a specific and important role in the organization. You are the value optimizer, the product backlog owner and responsible for prioritizing all needs. You are... Learn more
07 Aug

Co-create to motivate

Some time ago, when I did mostly freelance training and consulting work, I wished to be proud of a visible product, something to touch. With some other city-folk we started to grow a community around healthy food, directly from the biological farmers surrounding our city. Each with our own motivation for joining we connected city-people throughout class and culture. Our first successes made us proud, they triggered more action. Yet, when we grew in people and turnover, there were different... Learn more
29 May
SAFe for Teams training

Team Coaching #3: Agile self-organization needs a plan

So here they are, the so-called ‘self-managing’ teams, steered by their Scrum Master (SM) and/or Product Owner (PO). ‘A pity’, some team members call it; ‘too much for my taste’, says an extremely competent freelancer before he decides to leave the team. You can almost see the other members think: ‘this so-called self-management is a nuisance, probably adhering to the new Agile way of working’. And the Scrum Master and Product Owner? They too do not feel comfortable with their... Learn more
15 May
RTE-Summit

Team Coaching #2: Doing it the right way

With a series of articles I’m offering practical guidance to unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers. According to motivational theory, carrot and stick won’t bring more success. Yes, we need enough payment to get money off the table but more than that, knowledge workers need some space to decide for themselves -autonomy, a path of professional growth – mastery, and clarity about their added value to the whole –purpose. Let’s continue. #1: Move authority to where the... Learn more
18 Apr

Team Coaching #1: Taking one for the Team

With a series of articles I’m offering practical guidance to unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers. According to motivational theory, carrot and stick won’t bring more success. Yes, we need enough payment to get money off the table but furthermore, knowledge workers need some space to decide for themselves -autonomy, a path of professional growth –mastery, and clarity about their added value to the whole –purpose. Let’s start at the... Learn more
16 Mar
Introduction Scaling Agile

SAFe Leadership Day

Increasingly, large corporations enjoy the benefits of start-ups while not being hampered by their impediments. Agile ways of working foster a ‘can do’ mentality of self-organizing co-located teams. Yet, as Agile teams turn projects into success, corporations like to scale the benefits, which in turn leads to a new set of challenges and constraints. Only leaders can change the system, and in scaling Agile the system in place needs transformation. Specifically, changes are required in the... Learn more
26 Feb

Agile Consortium conference

This conference took place at KBC Bank in Brussels on Thursday, February 23d. The speakers invariably addressed the social cooperative aspect of Enterprise Agility elaborating on practical usage of Sociocracy and multiple ways of looking at organizing and the organization. We focussed attention on three talks, namely: Organisational development by Jaap Peters, Sociocracy 3.0 by James Priest, and Complexitools by Niels Pflaeging. Together they form a train of thought on what the... Learn more

Agile for Hardware

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