Welcome to the world of Agile. After more than thirty years of real world experience it is now well established that a more flexible, adaptable, networked and collaborative approach to implementation, operations and high-level decision-making serves companies far better than the traditional, top-down, commanding approach. The mindset and practices of this new way of approaching work is collectively known as Agile. Modern leadership is all about agility and agile leadership is replacing all other types of leadership. This program offers C-suite leaders the opportunity to fully embrace this new way of working, and become a more effective, more successful, more adaptable leader, to guide and shape their organisations for an ever changing future—to be a leader fit for the 21st century.
Why you should be on this program
There are many "Agile Leadership" programs on offer, most are just two-day classes and target (or tend to attract) operational or functional leaders, managers and coaches. This programme comes from a business perspective, not a technical one, and reflects what it really takes to prepare for success using an agile culture, mindset and organisation design, rather than simply implementing a process in one function or one part of the business—a process that too often fails due to lack of a firm foundation. Taught by two veterans of the field, this programme is the first of its kind, aimed very specifically at C-suite leaders—those actually running organisations and making key business and operating decisions. We will only accept senior leaders onto this program.
The benefits you can expect from this programme
- Better Leadership
Staying contemporary with latest best practice servant leadership, more time to lead, removes the need to micromanage - Better customer/consumer centricity
Due to connective nature of teams and org design, strategy connection is more visible and progress visible at any time via obeya rooms - Better employee engagement
Due to empowerment, motivation and clear accountability, easily retains the right talent by maximising and growing specific contribution, encouraging critical thinking and rewarding risk, drives pride, relieves stress - More Streamlined organisation
Quickly shows poor performers, removes layers of unnecessary 'spreadsheet managers', promotes T-shaped employees, improves ability to recruit using intrinsic motivators rather than extrinsic motivators - Saves time
Constant empirical learning with no need to relearn, learnings applied in real time, stops silo working, empowered faster decision making, shows clearer measurement in real time significantly reducing meeting cadence - Saves money
Encourages rapid removal of unviable activities, increases velocity, encourages use of enabling tech, embeds trust and collaboration
A three-day, face-to-face introduction to C-suite Agile. This practical, interactive course introduces you to today's C-Suite agile philosophy and leadership style. It challenges your mindset, opens up new ways of thinking and acting, allowing you to immediately practise the key aspects of agility with your leadership team in such a way as it will flow into the wider organisation, improving both engagement and productivity. Each cohort is limited to twelve delegates for maximum learning and personal attention.
Outline of the three days
- Learning Agile: Introduction to the principles of the Agile manifesto, and the concept of agile transformational leadership.
- Being Agile: Leveraging the business benefits of change and the new way to think about risk.
- Doing Agile: Scrum, Kanban, OKR measurement, process and practice.
Dates, Venue & Cost
3 Full Days: 28/29/30 January 2025
Institute of Directors, 116 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5ED
Business Rate: £5,100
Non-profit Rate: £4,100
Request more information or set up a conversation with Allisyn James
A two-week Advanced Agile Accelerator challenge. This course takes individuals on a more personal journey allowing time to land principles in the specific business world of each delegate. It allows each delegate to create a strawman of their new organisation design, the communication story, the relevant measurement approach, and the tenants for cross functional teams with associated behaviours that will meet the company strategy.
Outline of the two weeks
- Week 1: Three intense half-day sessions (Monday, Tuesday and Friday). Creating the organisation you need, internalising what it means to become a servant leader.
- Gap Week: Finessing the strawman of OKR measurement with lead and lag indicators, identifying barriers.
- Week 2: Three intense half-day sessions (Monday, Tuesday and Friday). Risk, reward and collaboration. Setting up the right process and crafting the story to the organisation.
Dates & Cost
Dates and rates on request
Bespoke Agile C-suite team consultancy over 6 months. Agile philosophy is about building a company culture of continuous improvement. It requires a C-suite team to empower, trust and delegate better. It changes how you think about risk and measurement. It equips you to move your people into fluid and scalable chapters and tribes. It challenges you to move from traditional leadership to servant leadership, and most importantly it sets you up for the workforce of 2050. It is supported by various methodologies, the most popular being Scrum, which promotes collective input from collaborators, partners and customers to achieve goals faster and of a higher quality.
Transformational C-suite teams need all the following in place.
Dates & Cost
Dates and rates on request
Allisyn James and Tobias Mayer are veterans of the business world and the Agile community, having spent a combined fifty-plus years immersed in both. Allisyn designed this C-suite program based on the need she identified from working extensively with executives and leadership teams. She invited Tobias to partner with her on this venture to bring his deep understanding and experience of agility, collaboration and organisational transformation.
Allisyn James
An independent consultant and practitioner with over 25 years' commercial experience, Allisyn is an experienced C-suite commercial director, specialising in agile leadership. She brings a wealth of industry experience having held senior commercial positions in both client and agency side across multiple categories and in multiple geographies, e.g. Safeway, GSK, Cadbury Schweppes, Accenture, Oystercatchers, working in both private and public sector, B2B and B2C
Allisyn has completed agile leadership projects as a consultant with companies such as EY, Standard Chartered Bank, GSK, Gilead Sciences, Thai Union & Tesco as well as running open courses with many government bodies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.
An accredited Agile leadership coach, scrum master and Belbin collaboration coach, a certified innovation leader and holding an MBA, Allisyn believes that in today's business environment understanding the principles of agility, personal style preference, having high EQ, sharpened critical thinking skills, and soaring with your strengths sets everyone up for success.
Read Allisyn's full biography and a description of her Agile journey here, find her on LinkedIn or learn more about her C-suite consultancy, Ambidextrous.
Tobias Mayer
Discovering Extreme Programming (XP) in 1998 set Tobias Mayer on a journey of discovery into all things Agile. He has been practising Scrum since 2003, and in 2005 was among the first twenty-five people, worldwide, certified to teach Scrum by Ken Schwaber, its co-founder.
Skilled as a developer, tester and engineering manager, Tobias also has a background in publishing, theatre arts, facilitation and community service work, and currently studies theology and psychotherapy. He skilfully blends this unusual mix of experiences when teaching and coaching teams and individuals in the art of Agile, creating a lively and engaging experience.
Tobias is the author of the highly acclaimed, and somewhat controversial book, The People's Scrum, is co-presenter of The 800lb Agile Gorilla, and has written extensively on leadership, citizenship and corporate transformation. He also speaks regularly at Agile conferences and has been interviewed for various Agile podcasts and videocasts. To learn more about Tobias's own Scrum journey and his views and approach to Scrum, please watch this 60-minute 'Agile to Agility' video where he is interviewed by fellow Scrum trainer, Miljan Bajic: Scrum, Co-training, and Metaphors.
Read more about Tobias on his personal website, or on LinkedIn.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again, anything Tobias Mayer does is worth going to, spending money on, and participating in. I guarantee you will get something out of attending. It might not be what you expected; it will most likely be better!"
— Simon Powers, CEO and Founder of AWA
"Tobias has the ability to excite a little bit of disorder which resonated well with our group of innovators and business and civic leaders. He was able to create a group process and an environment where new ideas were shared and embraced. We left the session with the passion to make our organization grow and thrive."
— Dale Eldridge Kaye, CEO, Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group
"Enlightening and amusing. Tobias's Scrum training was one of the best seminars I've ever taken—and I do Executive Training frequently with the brightest minds on the planet. I only wish I would have taken it years before!"
— Raul Cristian Aguirre, CEO, Tango/04, Spain
"Tobias Mayer is an iconoclast. I've long seen him as a kind of prophetic figure in the fray of conversation about how to be human at work, how to build high performing teams, and how to create effective human centred organisations."
— Daniel Susser, agility coach, writer & podcaster
"Culturally astute. Logical. Bold"
— Standard Chartered Bank
"Leading edge. Insightful. Challenging."
— Unilever
All images from Yago Partal's Zoo Portraits series, © the artist.
These limited-edition prints are available for purchase, directly from the artist.
Page published: 01/10/2024
Last updated: