Agile Leadership Essentials Training

Certified Agile Leadership Essentials Training with Michigan Technology Services

Michigan Technology Services offers instructor-led Certified Agile Leadership Essentials (CAL-E) training, as well as other Agile and Scrum courses, through partnerships with a number of Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Trainers and Agile Leadership Educators.

In a pre-Covid world our training would take place at our location in the Farmington Hills/Novi area, 20 miles outside of Detroit, or at your location anywhere around the world. Our Agile Leadership workshops and Agile coaching sessions are now offered online/virtually, reducing your need to travel.

Pete Behrens and Rachel Weston Rowell are our Agile Leadership instructors and guides. Pete guides leaders to transform themselves and their organizations toward Agile ways of working and improved outcomes. Pete is a Certified Agile Leadership (CAL) Educator. He has been educating Agile leaders since 2011, developed the CAL Program for the Scrum Alliance in 2016 and founded the Agile Leadership Journey Program in 2018. Further, he is a Thought Leader and Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) through the Scrum Alliance. Pete developed the CEC Program for the Scrum Alliance in 2007. Rachel is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and an Agile Leadership Educator.  She has been guiding leadership teams for over twenty years, and is passionate about helping executive teams grow their startup organizations.

Our core group of Agile coaches and trainers live here in metro Detroit and support the local Agile community. We continue to sponsor regional Agile conferences, and have successfully run Agile and Certified Scrum courses for multiple teams in the Great Lakes area, and all over the globe.

About Agile Leadership and Shaping Culture Education

We offer our impactful 2-day Certified Agile Leadership (Shaping Culture) onsite workshop via two independent online programs. The first is focused on the leader (CAL-E) and the second on the organization (CAL-O). Each 60-90 minute online module is combined with pre-work and practice.

Our workshop follows the learning objectives and meets the credentials for Agile Leadership Journey Aware Leader Credentials and the Scrum Alliance Certified Agile Leadership Essentials (CAL E) and Organizations (CAL O) Credentials.

Most people take both our CAL-E and CAL-O in one integrated workshop.  You can take the CAL-E by itself when we offer it as a stand-alone workshop.    If you want to progress to the CAL-2 practice program, however, the Scrum Alliance requires that you have completed CAL-E plus at least one, or both, of the additional CAL offerings.  CAL-O or CAL-T.

 

Agile Leader

Agile Organization

Agile Leader & Org

Developing leadership self-awareness, capacity and situational agility to improve the leader’s impact on organizational health and performance. Developing organization culture awareness and alignment toward agile ways of working to improve cross-team, department and division effectiveness. Combine Agile Leader and Organization Workshops to complete the full awareness curriculum. Workshops will be run consecutively.

OVERVIEW: Agile Leadership Workshop
The Agile Leadership Workshop provides education for leaders in understanding how they can shape micro-culture through their own thinking and behaviors to support agile ways of working and improve business outcomes.
MODULE 1: Workshop Kickoff & Business Agility Context
We introduce online program participants and their guide, build working agreements, and discuss the business case for agility covering the increasing speed and complexity of work and the management trends which have followed.
MODULE 2: Agile Leadership Introduction
We introduce the Leadership Agility development model and illustrate thinking and behaviors at multiple stages. Discuss how expert, achiever, and catalyst leadership approaches can be situationally applied at work.
MODULE 3: Catalyst Leadership
The #1 request we hear from prospective participants is “quit telling leaders what NOT to do and help them with what TO DO”. We provide leaders clarity, beyond a servant leadership approach, in how to situationally adapt, engage others, improve their own awareness and catalyze growth in the organization.
MODULE 4: Catalyst Conversations
We learn and practice a simple, yet powerful, conversational tool to help leaders practice catalyst leadership in every conversation at work (and home!). This tool helps leaders balance their power style and empower employee action.
MODULE 5: Catalyst Feedback
Feedback is a fundamental principle of an adaptive, empirical process. We help Agile Leaders to create safe spaces for effectively giving AND receiving feedback through cognitive awareness and tools to lower the threat of feedback.
MODULE 6: Catalyst Habits
We help leaders self-identify their key habits and show how identifying and practicing new habits will increase their leadership capacity and effectiveness. Agility is not a one-time event, rather it is a life-long mindset of curiosity, learning and adapting.

How We Engage with You Online

Personal 15-30 Member or Less Cohorts
We break large classes into small 15-person or less cohorts to foster safety, engagement and discussion. Each cohort is led by a professional Agile Leadership Journey Guide. The small cohorts create a natural shared accountability engagement, with little reason or desire to disengage from the sessions. Cohort members build relationships and journey together through the workshop schedule.

Flexible Modular Scheduling
We break our programs into 6 modules each delivered in 60-90 minute sessions per day with flexible daily schedules. For example, public workshops are run Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays for 2 weeks and private workshops can be modified to Tuesday/Thursday for 3 weeks, every day for a week, or customized to fit into a corporate schedule.Different cohorts can use different times of day and different weekly schedules.

Powerful Visual Collaboration Platforms
We build our online programs on Mural and Open EdX, powerful visual management and online learning platforms to fully engage leaders in the learning process.Through structured module-based visual boards, leaders are provided the structure required for program learning clarity, personal engagement to connect to the learning and the visual connection to others learning in their same cohort.

Khan Academy Style Learning
We leverage an industry standard online learning approach using Khan Academy Style learning where participants explore the education through videos and self-discovery and leverage our online engagements for discussion and practice.

Secure Zoom Video Conferencing
We use secure Zoom video conferencing and request all participants enable video to further connect to their peers and the guide.


Note: CAL-E and CAL-O have been discontinued by the Scrum Alliance, and replaced by the CAL-1.

Schedule:

Online:

Scott Dunn will teach our online October Certified Agile Leadership workshop (CAL 1).  Monday and Tuesday, October 21 and 22, 2024.   The regular course fee is $2,250/student, but early enrollment prior to October 14 is $1,695/student.  Info on the following page:  Certified Agile Leadership workshop (CAL 1).

In-person

Pete Behrens teaches our in-person Agile Leadership workshops.  Our training takes place in Troy, Michigan.  The regular course fee is $2,250/student, but early enrollment for our in-person training is $1,995/student.

Dates for our next in-person leadership workshop with Pete are Tuesday and Wednesday, November 12 and 13, 2024.  Info on the following page:  Certified Agile Leadership workshop (CAL 1).

Want a CAL workshop for your team in Michigan? Or anywhere in the US….

Private Certified Agile Leadership workshops for groups or companies are available upon request. We have conducted numerous onsite and/or online CAL classes for clients all over the globe. Onsite, these days, pending public health concerns.  We can also customize a workshop for you, and address specific needs with a selection of modules.

Our Agile Leadership educator is also available for coaching and consulting. Contact us for additional details.

For complete information on Agile Leadership Training or to request a class date contact Michigan Technology Services. 248-489-0408

Who should attend this workshop?

Certified Agile Leadership Essentials (CAL-E) courses bring awareness and understanding to the foundations of agile leadership.

 

The Certified Agile Leadership Essentials course is designed for managers and those in leadership roles who are responsible for the introduction and establishment of Agile methods and techniques in an IT organization/division.

Certification

All participants that successfully complete the Certified Agile Leadership - Essentials course will receive the CAL-E certification

 

You will be required to attend the full workshop to earn the CAL-E.  If you feel like you may miss more than 30- 45 minutes of the workshop you should plan on attending a future CAL-E instructor led session.

Prerequisites

We do not require you to be a Certified ScrumMaster or Product Owner to attend. We do, however, expect participants to have a core knowledge of Scrum and Agile Learning Objectives.

 

If you are coming in with little to no agile experience or education, we will send out some pre-reading and video watching to catch you up to speed on the basics.

Student Successes

Programs and Certifications