From Personal Agility to Executive Agility:
Three Secrets of Agile Leaders
Global Online PM Day 2022

Who is in the room?
• www.menti.com code 1317 2077
• Couple of fun questions
• What is your role?
• Doers – doing the work of the company
• Facilitators –leading, coordinating or monitoring people
• Vital Signs: How effectively can you work?
• Reporting Structures
• Five Dimensions of Effective Leadership

“Agility is for executives… and we have the data to prove it”
- Nayomi Handunnetti, Executive Director of Handun
Villas and Restaurants, Colombo, Sri Lanka
… And leadership skills are for everybody,
and I am collecting the data prove it!

Walter Stulzer, Executive Director, FutureWorks.ch
We wanted to change,
but we literally could not.

Situation
Futureworks
emerges
out
of
the
fission
of
a
larger
partnership
Walter
wants
to
step
back
from
daily
business,
pass
the
torch
to
a
functional
leadership
They
dedicated
10%
of
their
leadership
capacity
to
improvement
and
start
many
initiatives
None
of
the
goals
have
been
achieved
Two years go by…
Image ©2019 Peter Stevens
Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

Second try, with “agility”
Walter
committed
to
being
part
of
the
solution,
trained
with
his
leadership
team
on
Scrum
and
Personal
Agility
They
dedicated
10%
of
their
leadership
capacity
to
improvement
and
start
working
on
a
few
initiatives
at
a
time
All
of
the
goals
had
been
achieved
Six months go by…
Image ©2019 Peter Stevens
Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

Six months later…
We accomplished
everything needed
to achieve our initial
goals.
Half of our initial ideas
proved overlapping –
no need to do them
twice
The results were
quickly visible in our
finances!
We were able to
achieve all our goals
with ½ the work and
¼ of the time

I’m excited
about Agility
Peter Stevens

Agility means hope

Agility is the search for a better way
New Ways Of Working VUCA World Digital Transformation

Coming DECEMBER 1!
PersonalAgilityInstitute.org/book

Hot off the press
Inside the Scrum Team
One-day Introduction to
Scrum in 15 minutes
https://bit.ly/insideScrum

Three Secrets of Agile Leaders
What are the
challenges
executives face
today?

Three Secrets of Agile Leaders
What are the
challenges
executives face
today?
What is agility?

Three Secrets of Agile Leaders
What are the
challenges
executives face
today?
What is agility?
Three
problems
and
one
solution

Three Secrets of Agile Leaders
What are the
challenges
executives face
today?

Listen before you talk
Ask before you tell
First Secret

Uncertainty

Pandemic

Conflict

Hacker attacks

Customers

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Today’s top concerns for executives
Resilience Attractiveness
Relevance
Keep the lights on

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
These are complex problems
Resilience Attractiveness
Relevance
Keep the lights on

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Root causes of organizational challenges
Alignment Decisiveness
Multitasking
Purpose
Lack of

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Net result of organizational challenges
Achieve
Inability to

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Let’s look at our vital signs
Alignment Decisiveness
Multitasking
Purpose Achievement
(data from RSG SL 2022)

(data from RSG SL 2022)

(data from RSG SL 2022)

(data from RSG SL 2022)

Three Secrets of Agile Leaders
What are the
challenges
executives face
today?
What is agility?

Agility is a natural thing
for executives
Second Secret

© 2020 Peter Stevens
CONTENT WARNING
MAY CONTAIN ADULT LANGUAGE OR
INCONVENIENT TRUTHS.
MANAGERIAL DISCRETION ADVISED

What do executives ask about agility?
• What are the buzzwords about?
• How can we innovate faster?
• How can we get business and technology to talk to each other?
• How can we develop better products?
• How can we educate our clients?
• How can agile make us better at delighting the customer?
• How can I make it a success?
• What does it mean for me?

It’s not just hype

It’s officially a leadership topic
https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-you-agile-enough-for-agile-management-11565607600
https://hbr.org/2016/05/embracing-agile

You can get real results even in very big projects

Bosch: Prototype to Product in 5 weeks
Copyright 2006-2020 Joe Justice however please recognize noted attributions.
@JoeJustice0 Joe@WIKISPEED.com
You can real results much faster

Denning’s 3 Laws
What does it mean to be agile?
“Agile Manifesto” “Fake” Agility

IMHO the first sentences represents the Agile mindset
Learning
Collaboration
Purpose

Agility is
Purpose
Learning Collaboration

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Elements of Agility
Purpose Celebration Cadence
Choice Dialogue

Purpose
Learning Collaboration
Fake Agility - 1
“This has nothing to do with me”

Agility is
Customer
Network Small Teams

Most wishes
from executives on their organizations
map to
one of the three laws of agility.

Many executives are agile

Many executives are agile (even if they don’t realize it)

Three Secrets of Agile Leaders
What are the
challenges
executives face
today?
What is agility?
Three
problems
and
one
solution

Software Developers have
already solved your problems
Third Secret

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Agile methods enable you to solve leadership challenges
Alignment Decisiveness
Multitasking
Purpose

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Remember the agile methods:
Purpose Celebration Cadence
Choice Dialogue

© 2021 Personal Agility Institute LLC
Let’s see how cadence helps with multitasking
Cadence

Remember Walter?
We wanted to change,
but we literally could not.

Walter had a multitasking problem
Futureworks
emerges
out
of
the
fission
of
a
larger
partnership
Walter
wants
to
step
back
from
daily
business,
pass
the
torch
to
a
functional
leadership
They
dedicated
10%
of
their
leadership
capacity
to
improvement
and
start
many
initiatives
None
of
the
goals
have
been
achieved
Two years go by…
Image ©2019 Peter Stevens
Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

Multitasking is bad for performance: You divide resources

Multitasking is bad for performance: Waste time on switching

Multitasking is bad for performance: Waste time on switching

Multitasking is bad for performance: Waste time on switching

Multitasking is bad for performance: Waste time on switching

Multitasking is bad for performance: Increase time to market

Short Cadence and tangible results limits multitasking

Second try, with cadence
Walter
committed
to
being
part
of
the
solution,
trained
with
his
leadership
team
on
Scrum
and
Personal
Agility
They
dedicated
10%
of
their
leadership
capacity
to
improvement
and
start
working
on
a
few
initiatives
at
a
time
All
of
the
goals
had
been
achieved
Six months go by…
Image ©2019 Peter Stevens
Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

How Walter and his team did it
I committed to making
this a success
We applied agility to
improving the
company
Personal Agility made
me an Agile Leader
Every three weeks or
so, my management
and I got together…

Tip: Start with Yourself
Apply Agility to Leadership

A corporate agile transformation
speed,
responsiveness
value
production
To optimize for
Restructures the company

A personal agile transformation
speed,
responsiveness
value
production
To learn faster
Gives you new
perspectives

A personal agile
transformation
starts with collaboration and learning

A personal agile
transformation
Applies Cadence
For Effective
Decision Making

A personal agile
transformation …
enables focus on
What Really
Matters
to the
Organization

Would you like to be the next Walter?
Walter Stulzer, Executive Director
PersonalAgilityInstitute.org/book
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