Certified Agile Leader® 1

Why take this course

Most leaders were promoted for being good at the work, then handed a job that runs on other people's judgment. Under pressure the old strength comes back: you answer the question, approve the plan, fix it yourself, and the team waits for you a little more each time.

CAL 1 works on the other half of the job: shaping the conditions so people can see clearly, speak honestly, and decide well when you are not in the room. Mark's shorthand for the two days is from control to conditions.

What you will be able to do afterwards

• Hear what a green status report is hiding, and ask the question that brings it out.
• Answer “Can I?” with “What do you intend to do?”, inside limits you set in advance.
• Find the rule or incentive that makes the behavior you dislike the sensible choice, and change it.
• Tell leadership the truth about capacity: “We can do that if we’re willing to ___, but the trade-off is ___.”
• Leave with a seven-day experiment on a problem you brought into the room.

What your seat includes

• Live and online with Mark, capped at 12 seats.
• Two years of Scrum Alliance membership.
• Lifetime coaching with Mark. Email him, book a call, bring him the reorg or the hard conversation coming up on Thursday. There is no end date on it.
• Hundreds of downloadable leadership resources, kept current after you leave.
• A money-back guarantee.

How the time is spent

Two days, live and online, 9:00 to 5:00 Eastern, in nine working sessions on a shared board. You practice more than you listen, and the last session runs on problems the group brings.

Day 1: leading yourself and your team

• Why command-and-control breaks down in complex work, and which old strengths leaders overuse under pressure.
• Intent-Based Leadership: moving decisions closer to the work without losing sight of the outcome.
• A skills circuit, practiced live: listening, powerful questions, feedback, collaboration, and handing off decisions. Then peer coaching on a real situation.
• Psychological safety and the team conditions that come before high performance, with the research behind them.

Day 2: leading the organization

• Culture as what the system rewards and blocks, and the structures that sit behind the behavior you see.
• Leading change from where you sit, starting with your first followers.
• Project Phoenix, a leadership simulation: a fixed deadline, more demand than capacity, and seven roles with their own agendas.
• Diagnosing a struggling team as a design problem, using a real Capital One case.
• Lean Coffee on the group's own problems, ending with a seven-day experiment you commit to.

Who this is for

• Managers, directors, and executives who lead teams doing complex work and feel the pull to step back in and decide.
• Team leads and newer managers learning to lead through other people.
• Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and change leads who influence leaders without having the title.
• Product Owners and business leaders who need teams and stakeholders to make trade-offs in the open.

Prerequisites

None. You do not need prior Scrum or agile experience. A real leadership problem helps, because the last session is built on the ones people bring.

Who is teaching it

Mark Palmer is a Certified Scrum Trainer and a Certified Team Coach, a pairing most trainers do not hold. He has coached and trained at Capital One, State Street, Anthem, Phillips 66, SWIFT, and federal agencies in Defense, Justice, and Transportation. Before that he held the jobs his students hold, at Advance Auto Parts, Prison Fellowship, FamilyLife, and WMATA. He teaches every Great Fish class himself.

What is different about this class

• Twelve seats. Small enough that you are working, not watching.
• Your own problems are on the agenda. The last session runs on what the group brings.
• Coaching that outlasts the class. No end date, and it is with Mark rather than a support desk.