In 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.

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.

Before 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.

Once 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.

Make 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.

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.

A 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.

Being 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.

Bring 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.