Beyond Agile: Product and Delivery Leadership
Product and Delivery Leadership is een tweedaagse-plus-avond training voor managers, product owners, delivery leads en anderen die verantwoordelijk zijn voor teams die producten of diensten leveren. De training bouwt voort op Agile en Scrum, maar kijkt verder: hoe geef je richting aan het product, hoe blijf je het ontwikkelen en hoe zorg je dat het team daadwerkelijk kan leveren? Vanuit product leadership en delivery leadership werken we met productvisie, product ownership, team- en deliverymanagement, kwaliteit en continue verbetering. Theorie wordt gecombineerd met praktijk, workshops en een uitgebreide teamsimulatie. De training is ontwikkeld met het Amerikaanse The Shakti Company en wordt in het Engels gegeven.
De training is bedoeld voor situaties waarin het werk op zichzelf goed loopt, maar echte vooruitgang moeilijk blijft. Het team is druk met de dagelijkse werkzaamheden, verbeteringen blijven liggen, prioriteiten wisselen of er wordt veel geleverd zonder dat duidelijk is of het product daadwerkelijk beter wordt. Ook goed presterende teams kunnen productvisie, eigenaarschap of aandacht voor hun verdere ontwikkeling missen.
Veel managers herkennen daarbij de paradox van zelforganiserende teams: je wilt professionals ruimte geven, maar bent wel verantwoordelijk voor de richting en ontwikkeling van het team. Zeker bij technisch of inhoudelijk complex werk kan afstand ontstaan en kijkt de manager steeds meer vanaf de zijlijn mee. Hoe geef je richting zonder op de stoel van de specialist te gaan zitten? En hoe voer je een zinvol gesprek over product, kwaliteit en teamcapaciteiten als je zelf niet alle inhoudelijke kennis hebt?
Product and Delivery Leadership helpt die rol opnieuw in te vullen. Niet door het werk weer voor het team te organiseren, maar door te leren sturen op waarde, productrichting en het vermogen van het team om te leveren. Je hoeft niet de beste specialist te zijn om samen te bepalen waar het product naartoe gaat, wat het team daarvoor nodig heeft en wat verdere vooruitgang in de weg staat.
Overzicht
Product and Delivery Leadership is a two-day (and one evening) training course for managers, product owners, delivery leads and others responsible for teams that deliver products or services. Many teams are busy dealing with maintenance, incidents, projects and change, but struggle to continuously improve what they deliver. Agile and Scrum help organize the work, but do not answer every question. This course builds on principles covered in courses such as our Werken met Scrum, and takes them further: how do you create a clear product vision, continuously develop the product, and make sure the team is actually able to deliver?
We approach this from two complementary perspectives: product leadership and delivery leadership. Topics include product ownership, product vision, use cases and data models, team and delivery management, quality, testing, and improving both efficiency and proficiency. We use the term product in its broadest sense: from software and IT services to healthcare, manufacturing, publishing and public services. The course combines theory, practical experience, workshops and exercises, including an extensive team simulation on the first evening. The course has been developed in collaboration with the US-based The Shakti Company and is delivered in English.
Curriculum
Curriculum
- 10 secties
- 62 lessen
- 20 weken
- Course GuideIn this section, we introduce the course, the trainers and our two-day journey from understanding value to improving delivery. You will also take a first look at your own team, what it delivers and where you would like to see improvement.5
- Why Go Beyond Agile?Being busy and delivering work is not necessarily the same as moving forward. We explore why capable teams can struggle to improve what they deliver, what Agile helps us achieve, and where leadership needs to go beyond the framework.3
- Understanding ValueBefore we can lead a product or its delivery, we need to understand the value it is meant to create. We explore what value means, who receives it, and how to recognize the product behind the activities of a team.4
- Understanding the ProductOnce we understand the value we want to deliver, we need a shared understanding of the product that delivers it. We explore actors, their goals and use cases to describe what the product needs to do, without getting distracted by how it will be implemented. By breaking the product down into recognizable functions, we create a model that people can discuss, challenge and develop together.9
- 4.1From Value to Product
- 4.2From Idea to a Product Vision
- 4.3Actors, Goals and Use Cases
- 4.4The “Goals, Use Cases or Solutions?” quiz15 minuten15 vragen
- 4.5The Find the Actors exercise
- 4.6Breaking Down the Product
- 4.7The Draw the Product workshop
- 4.8Don’t Build it Yet
- 4.9The “About Product Leadership” quiz12 minuten15 vragen
- Making the Product ExplicitMake the product concrete enough to discuss, challenge and develop together. We combine use cases with simple data models to create a shared understanding of what the product does, what it needs to know about, and where its boundaries lie.7
- The Organizational Maze experience (evening programme)Working as a team, you will navigate an unfamiliar maze in pursuit of a shared goal. Along the way you will encounter limited resources, unexpected dependencies, competing choices and obstacles that are not always what they seem. What happens in the maze will provide the shared experience we use to explore leadership, delivery and organizational improvement on Day Two.6
- Leading the ProductA product does not develop itself. Someone needs to keep sight of the value to be delivered, build and maintain a product vision, make choices and bring stakeholders and the team together around that direction. We explore product ownership as a leadership responsibility, and how product leadership keeps the destination visible while the organization and its priorities keep changing.8
- Leading the DeliveryA clear product direction only creates value when a team can turn it into results. We explore the delivery-lead perspective: building and developing the team, organizing the work, managing quality and testing, removing obstacles and keeping delivery moving. Delivery leadership is not about pushing people to work harder, but about creating the conditions in which a capable team can consistently deliver.8
- 8.1Someone Has to Lead the Delivery
- 8.2Building a Team That Can Deliver
- 8.3The Can This Team Deliver? exercise
- 8.4Flow: From Starting to Finishing
- 8.5The Where Did the Work Stop? exercise
- 8.6Quality Is Part of Delivery
- 8.7The When Delivery Starts to Slip workshop
- 8.8The Product Leadership + Delivery Leadership discussion
- Efficiency & ProficiencyBeing efficient is not the same as being capable. We use the Efficiency & Proficiency matrix to assess how well a team delivers today, how capable it is of taking on tomorrow’s challenges, and what kind of leadership is needed to move it forward. We also take a look at the Drefus model to assess the needs of people with different levels of expertise.7
- Improving the OrganizationBring the course together: diagnose what prevents your organization from moving forward, decide where product and delivery leadership can make a difference, and turn that into a small number of concrete improvements you can actually start.7






