Tag: training

Two new TTT/F options (and an extra 15% off)

Posted on by Mike Burrows
February TTT/F

The next online Leading with Outcomes: Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator – the first since the one I did in person in India last December – begins a week on Monday on February 24th, spanning four consecutive afternoons UK time, beginning at 13:00 GMT, 14:00 CET, 8am ET, each session lasting no more than four hours.

Since I blogged recently about what’s new content-wise this time round, I’ve made some changes to ticketing options. The default option, the Facilitator ticket, still saves you £479 (your first year’s subscription) on the Leading with Outcomes Facilitator programme. This gives you access to the assessment tools, workshop materials, and so on. For access to training materials you can upgrade that at any time to a Trainer subscription, but if you know that’s what you want from the off, a Trainer ticket will save you a further £100.

In the abovementioned blog and elsewhere, I have said that not everyone who attends TTT/F does it with the intention of becoming a Leading with Outcomes Facilitator or Trainer. If that’s you, or if you’d like to check things out first, there is now a TTT/F Only ticket that comes without the above subscriptions. I do however throw in a regular Academy subscription, giving you access to the video-based, self-paced training material for your own study. Bargain!

As a valued reader of this blog, when making your booking, please use coupon code BLOG15 for 15% off any of the above-described options – Facilitator, Trainer, or TTT/F Only. Book here:

Also in the calendar:

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Agendashift roundup, January 2025

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In what has been a relatively busy month for the blog, this roundup has updates in two main categories, Wholehearted (i.e. book 5 and related) and Leading with Outcomes (curriculum changes, TTT/F, etc).

Wholehearted: Engaging with Complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation

One appendix aside, book 5 is all but complete. I’m happy with the main content, it’s being received well by reviewers, and I’m at the stage of reaching out to publishers. That last part could be a long process though! Two related posts meanwhile. First:

We still welcome new submissions to the global survey by the way. That means 1) you don’t need to wait for the book to see how the assessment is worded, and 2) that you can contribute to the research. Also, there are other ways in which it can be used; check out that post for details.

And second:

Thought-provoking, I hope! Like most posts on this blog, it is closed for comments, but it is discussed on LinkedIn here.  Reactions welcome!

Two upcoming events are also Wholehearted-related – or at least my contributions to them will be:

Leading with Outcomes

The next online Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator comes in late February and incorporates a number of recent improvements. They’re laid out here:

I won’t repeat it all here, but let me pull out this bit:

Not everyone joins TTT/F with the aim of becoming a Facilitator or Trainer. Some come for the challenge to existing ways of doing things that Leading with Outcomes brings. Some come for the conversation. Some come to hone their coaching skills, to add a strategy dimension to those, or, conversely perhaps, to bring a coaching dimension to their work as manager or consultant. Whatever your role, if you’re looking for participatory, outcome-oriented, and generative alternatives to managed change and the solution-driven rollout, you’ll be in the right place. Book now:

24-27 February, four 4-hour sessions online, afternoons UK time:
Leading with Outcomes: Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) (tickettailor.com)

Upcoming

Mentioned already, but brought together in the usual format:

February

March

Top posts

Similarly, three of this month’s top 5 most-read posts have been mentioned already. In positions 4 and 5 there are two popular classics, both of them Wholehearted-related:

  1. The (Wholehearted) Adaptive Organisation Assessment, 2025 edition (January 2025)
  2. Four weeks until the February TTT/F (January 2025)
  3. Verbing the nouns of business agility (January 2025)
  4. Your organisation in 5 networks (November 2022)
  5. What Lies Beneath (Spoiler: Constraints) (October 2023)

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Four weeks until the February TTT/F

Posted on by Mike Burrows
February TTT/F

The next online Leading with Outcomes: Train-the-Trainer – the first since the one I did in person in India last December – begins on February 24th, spanning four consecutive afternoons UK time, beginning at 13:00 GMT, 14:00 CET, 8am ET, each session lasting no more than four hours.

It incorporates a number of recent improvements:

  1. The Foundation module (session 1) is organised now into four sections (from three), making it easier to navigate – a benefit to trainer and participant alike
  2. The two parts of the Inside-out Strategy module (sessions 2 & 3) have been switched around – the easier assessment debrief session now coming before the Discovery session, and the latter ending on a high with the recently reincorporated X-Matrix
  3. Updated material for session 4 also, which includes highlights of the Outside-in Strategy and Adaptive Organisation modules and some relatively new material on workshop design options

TTT/F comes with a year’s free membership of the Facilitator programme, upgradeable to Trainer, both of which include access to our signature assessment tools. It also includes access to the self-paced video-based versions of the Leading with Outcomes modules for your own study (and potentially for use in other ways, but talk to me first).

Not everyone joins TTT/F with the aim of becoming a Facilitator or Trainer. Some come for the challenge to existing ways of doing things that Leading with Outcomes brings. Some come for the conversation. Some come to hone their coaching skills, to add a strategy dimension to those, or, conversely perhaps, to bring a coaching dimension to their work as manager or consultant. Whatever your role, if you’re looking for participatory, outcome-oriented, and generative alternatives to managed change and the solution-driven rollout, you’ll be in the right place. Book now:

Again, that’s four weeks away. This week, it’s roundup day on Friday, and via a conversation on Slack, Silke Noll got me thinking about a blog post with the provisional title “Verbing the nouns of business agility”. There – I’m committed now! Watch out for that midweek, either this week or next.

Also in the calendar:

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

The (Wholehearted) Adaptive Organisation Assessment, 2025 edition

Posted on by Mike Burrows

With grateful thanks to Olivier Bertrand, Marika Gartelius, Philippe Guenet, Ivaylo (Ivo) Gueorguiev, Andrew Kidd, and Craig Lucia, I’m pleased to confirm that the Adaptive Organisation Assessment has completed its recently-announced refresh. This assessment has multiple applications:

As you may have guessed from my opening thanks to our review team, native English speakers were in the minority. That’s great! You may know from the Agendashift Delivery Assessment already that we take very seriously the accessibility of our assessments and seek to eliminate any language that gets in the way of engagement. That includes jargon and prescription; its goal is not to teach, preach, sell, or judge but to get people thinking and talking, not worrying about how it’s worded or what plans those facilitating it may have in store for them.

You can try it now (or revisit your previous input) at agendashift.com/assessments/wholehearted. Get in touch if you see a use for it at your organisation; as hinted at above, there are plenty of options we can discuss.

Quickly while we’re here…

For the most feeble of excuses (my 60th birthday), this week’s office hours moves from Thursday to Friday, 14:00 GMT, 15:00 CET, 9am ET as usual. If you’re an Agendashift Academy subscriber or supporter, you’ll find this week’s event in the Events calendar. Non-subscribers are welcome; you can find the Zoom link on Slack also.

Other upcoming events (the first one a new addition – thank you Morten Elvang for the invitation):

There is also the possibility of doing some or all of Leading in a Transforming Organisation in Malmö in November. I know that’s months away, but if that could be of interest, do please let me know.

Related

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Upcoming

Posted on by Mike Burrows

Happy New Year! Kicking off 2025 with news of:

  1. Office hours – weekly Zoom on Thursdays, beginning this week
  2. Adaptive Organisation assessment – beginning Friday, taking the opportunity to review it before book 5 comes out
  3. The next online Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) – February 24-27, UK afternoons

Office hours

Getting things started right away, regular weekly “office hours” begin this week, Thursdays at 14:00 GMT, 15:00 CET, 9am ET. A quick update from me, then it’s over to you for informal Lean Coffee-style discussions on topics or questions in any way related to Leading with Outcomes. Not just outcome-orientation specifically, but leadership, organisation, strategy, Lean, Agile, systems, complexity, organisation development, and so on – really any topic relevant to the Agendashift and Leading with Outcomes communities.

If you’re an Agendashift Academy subscriber or supporter, you’ll find this week’s event in the Events calendar, and I’ll publish a new one early each week. I’ll post the Zoom link to Slack also.

There will be no meeting on February 27th as it clashes with Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator; more on that below.

Adaptive Organisation assessment

A small group of us drawn mainly from the book 5 review circles and the Leading with Outcomes trainer/facilitator community will be meeting on Friday afternoon UK time this week to review the wording and coverage of the Adaptive Organisation Assessment. The timing is important – book 5 is very close to completion and the assessment features prominently in it! It also plays a big role in the Adaptive Organisation Workshop, the Leading in a Transforming Organisation training and the online Leading with Outcomes modules Adaptive Organisation (I): Business agility at every scale and Adaptive Organisation (II): Between spaces, scopes, and scales. In other words, it’s up there now with the classic Agendashift Delivery Assessment importance-wise and I have no doubt that we can benefit from the experience of improving that one.

If you’re familiar with the Adaptive Organisation Assessment in particular already and would like to join us, shout.

Trainer-the-Trainer / Facilitator

In February, I’ll be holding not only the first TTT/F of the year, but the first online one since making some changes to the Foundation and Inside-out Strategy modules (we had a lot of fun with them in person in India last month). Also, signing up gives you a year’s free access to Facilitator (worth £479), which you can upgrade to Trainer at any time.

Academy subscribers will find their own booking page in the Academy’s Events calendar. Alternatively, you can sign up here:

Those sessions are as follows:

  1. Monday 24th February – Leading with Outcomes: Foundation – a trainer’s eye view on the this core module of the Leading with Outcomes curriculum, introducing the IdOO (“I do”) pattern – Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes
  2. Tuesday 25th February – Inside-out Strategy (I): Fit for maximum impact* – building on the Leading with Outcomes Assessment Debrief Workshop, this session’s exercises include the first of two experiences of our Clean Language coaching game 15-minute FOTO, Option Relationship Mapping, and of course the assessment tools
  3. Wednesday 26th February – Inside-out Strategy (II): On the same page, with purpose* – featuring classic exercises including Celebration-5W, Obstacles Fast and Slow, and the second experience of 15-minute FOTO
  4. Thursday 27th February – Beyond Inside-out – checking out the Adaptive Organisation and Inside-out Strategy modules, and looking behind the scenes at assessment and certificate administration

*Compared to previous runs of this training, the two Inside-out Strategy sessions are reversed, the assessment-related session coming first.

All sessions begin 13:00 GMT, 14:00 CET, 8am ET and finish by 17:00 GMT, 18:00 CET, 12noon ET.

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Agendashift roundup, November 2024

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: In-person and online Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F); Content changes; Templates tidyup; Book 5 update; Upcoming; Top posts

In-person and online Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F)

Glad to repeat last year’s trip (thank you again to my friends at Innovation Roots for the invite), I leave for India early next week:

I have also added an online TTT/F to the calendar:

From purchase, TTT/F now gives you a year’s free Leading with Outcomes: Authorised Facilitator subscription which you can upgrade at any time to Authorised Trainer. That’s quite a saving! On top of that, participants of the Bengaluru training who are based in India get special pricing too.

Content changes

I should probably have done it years ago, but the latest TTT/F and its materials anticipate a couple of changes that I’ll make to the recorded materials in the new year also. First, in Leading with Outcomes v3.0, I’m switching around parts I & II of the Inside-out Strategy module. In workshop terms (the training modules expand on those), the assessment debrief workshop (chapter 2 of the Agendashift book) now comes ahead of the Discovery workshop (chapter 1). I love the Discovery workshop – in TTT/F’s predecessor, the Agendashift Deep Dive workshop, I could make it last a whole day – but if you’re new to the outcome-oriented style, working at a higher level of abstraction compared to the Assessment Debrief workshop is definitely harder work. I should have listened to Steven Mackenzie, who has always done it this way round…

The second change is to the Discovery workshop itself and the Inside-out Strategy module that builds on it. Their v3.0 materials now include Karl Scotland’s TASTE and TASTE-T (“tasty”) X-Matrix tools. With practice, you can use these standalone, but if you’re new to them, they’re much easier to engage with as the climax of a string of Agendashift exercises, such that they organise what has previously been generated. It’s a great addition and I would like to thank Karl for the tool and Philippe Guenet for developing the integration – you may remember that Philippe took over part of day 1 of Leading in a Transforming Organisation in London a few months ago. Credit for “tasty” goes I think to Chris Combe, who was a participant there.

Templates tidyup

Existing facilitators and trainers will know that I have recently tidied up the menu of assessment templates, which, translations included, is getting quite long. The most-used and recommended templates are now at the top the of list. For more info on that, read the announcement.

Book 5 update

The abovementioned announcement also includes an update on book 5, Wholehearted: Engaging with the Complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation. I can now go a little further: after the latest round of comment (thank you Simon Rohrer and Teddy Zetterlund) and revision, I find myself suddenly and unexpectedly a lot happier with it. One comment could easily change that, and there’s still a lot of reaching out and so on to be done before I get to the publication part, but writing-wise at least, it feels like I’m on the home stretch now.

Upcoming

Top posts

It seems my recent hiatus has made room for some old favourites!

  1. Agendashift is not a maturity model (November 2018)
  2. My favourite Clean Language question (January 2018)
  3. Better user stories start with authentic situations of need (October 2016)
  4. Your organisation in 5 networks (November 2022)
  5. From classic Lean-Agile to Outcome-Oriented Enterprise Agility: The 10-year Journey (October 2024)

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Agendashift roundup, September 2024

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Into the fourth quarter; Ten years and more; Top posts (and book 5 clues)

Into the fourth quarter

Earlier this month I posted Clearing the decks and several people were kind enough to reach out in response. As I said at the time, nothing bad was happening, but I did feel the need to create some wiggle room, which I’m now enjoying.

Cancelling the upcoming LIKE and TTT/F trainings does have implications for the Leading with Outcomes Authorised Facilitator and Trainer programmes. For the time being, it is no longer a prerequisite to take one of these trainings; you can subscribe to those programmes directly from the Agendashift Academy’s Store page now. In fairness to those who have attended one of those trainings previously and didn’t take up a discounted subscription at the time, ping me for a discount code and you can have the first year of Facilitator for free or the equivalent amount off Trainer. For attendees of the in-person TTT/F in India – last years’s and the upcoming one – the same applies, and there is India-specific pricing also. Again, ping me.

I’m still doing speaking engagements (both of the October events are free, by the way), and there will likely be some additions. After those changes, my calendar now looks like this:

October

December

Ten years and more

September saw a very nice milestone: it has been ten years since the publication of my first book, Kanban from the Inside (KFTI). There are of course some things I’d do differently were I to write it again (which I won’t!), but I remain very proud of it. Moreover, its approach of using some central perspective to integrate ideas from a diverse range of sources is one that I keep using. For KFTI that central perspective was that of a values model; later books developed an outcome-oriented perspective, and book 5 has a central, organising framework, the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation.

More about that anniversary here:

Thinking about this end of that ten-year period, I will add that although this year’s release Organizing Conversations took two and a half years to write – a long time for a comparatively short book – I don’t regret the delay that this commission brought to what will now be my fifth book. Not only does the delay mean that its ideas are that much better developed, there are some important distinctions brought out in Organizing Conversations that I wouldn’t have thought much about otherwise.

I do now have a complete first draft of book 5, but it won’t be published until next year – sorry! Meanwhile, let me recommend Organizing Conversations and also Right to Left, the latter available also as an audiobook narrated by yours truly. Of my four past books (see my new Amazon Author page for the UK, the US, and Germany), those are the two that together best describe where I will be coming from. And for more clues, see the posts below that I’ve marked with an asterisk, and join me at one of those abovementioned events!

Top posts (and book 5 clues)

  1. Clearing the decks (September)
  2. Your organisation in 5 networks (November 2022)*
  3. It only took me ten years (September)
  4. Better user stories start with authentic situations of need (October 2016)
  5. What Lies Beneath (Spoiler: Constraints) (October 2023)*

*Book 5 clues! These likewise, and they all look set to appear in the top 10 for the year:

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Agendashift roundup, August 2024

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Book 5 update; Heads up on some forthcoming changes; The Great Consolidation: What it means and how it went; Top posts

Book 5 update

For the uninitiated, book 5 is Wholehearted: Engaging with complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, which I hope to publish early next year. It’s “book 5” to distinguish from “book 4” – a very different book – and their development overlapped. Again, if you missed it, book 4 is Organizing Conversations: Preparing Groups to Take On Adaptive Challenges and it’s available both in print and on Kindle.

Last month, I was pushed to the limit on completing chapter 4 as planned because I was also updating the preceding chapters to take into account the great response to this blog post:

It being the holidays (our disability-adapted accommodation on a farm in the Peak District was perfect for us, by the way), I didn’t make a firm commitment on when I would finish chapter 5 (“Organising without reorganising”, previously advertised as “Organising at human scale”). Nevertheless, there’s a decent chance that I’ll get it out to my review team today. That leaves just chapter 6 (“What Lies Beneath”) and, um, everything else. These things take time…

As mentioned last month, the blog post most relevant to chapter 5 is this one:

From networks we go to Adaptive Space (Michael Arena), Teaming (Amy Edmonsdon), Dynamic reteaming (Heidi Helfand) and more. And here’s a blog post for that final chapter, chapter 6:

Heads up on some forthcoming changes

in the next 10 days or so, watch out for an update on not just the calendar below but some exciting changes not only to content but also access to the assessment tools and other Agendashift / Leading with Outcomes resources. If the delay to the online TTT/F is a problem for you meanwhile, drop me a line and we’ll see what we can work out.

Meanwhile:

*Offers:

  • TTT/F and LIKE events include free one-year membership of the Leading with Outcomes Authorised Facilitator programme, upgradeable to Authorised Trainer at any time.
  • If you’ve attended a TTT/F before, you can re-attend the online one for free. I can’t make the same offer for in-person training, but for the Southampton one at least, there are generous discounts for past attendees of either kind of training.
  • There are generous discounts also for employees in the public, educational, and non-profit sectors, etc. Ping me for coupon codes!

The Great Consolidation: What it means and how it went

What it means: the Agendashift Academy is off the Kajabi platform and running completely on Circle, which has hosted most of our self-paced training content for some time now. I had a DNS-related glitch when rehearsing the move a couple of weeks prior to the main event, but everything went smoothly on the day. Old community.agendashift.com links redirect automatically to academy.agendashift.com, so there’s no great need to update your bookmarks.

For the last few months we have been using the Circle’s inbuilt subscription system, and if you have an older subscription, you can almost certainly save some money by switching. Get in touch if that might be you. And if you’re not already a subscriber, what are you waiting for? Check out (pun intended) the Store page now!

Top posts

  1. Engage, Invite, Celebrate: Leading “wholeheartedly” for innovation (July)
  2. From Flow to Business Agility (January)
  3. Agile’s Great Rebalancing: My next book’s take on the Agile manifesto (April)
  4. Your organisation in 5 networks (November 2022)
  5. What Lies Beneath (Spoiler: Constraints) (October 2023)

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Further to last week’s roundup

Posted on by Mike Burrows

Further to last week’s roundup, two announcements:

  • Advance warning of service disruption tomorrow (Tuesday, August 6th)
  • Foundation 3.0 release

Advance warning of service disruption tomorrow

As I mentioned in the roundup, I intend to complete the consolidation of the Agendashift Academy’s two learning platforms onto the newer this week. Fingers crossed it will all be done tomorrow, but it will involve some downtime.

The gist of what’s happening:

  • The newer platform, which today lives at community.agendashift.com, will take over the domain of the old one, academy.agendashift.com
  • Links and bookmarks will automatically redirect, as will certain vanity URLs
  • Affected internal and external links that I control will get updated over time, minimising redirects and hopefully improving search engine performance

None of that is difficult, but because domain mappings take time to propagate around the world, some disruption is inevitable. I’ll begin tomorrow morning (UK time) and post another update when it’s done.

Foundation 3.0 release

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation Developing and pursuing strategy in the language of outcomes

Remember last month’s big post, Engage, Invite, Celebrate: Leading “wholeheartedly” for innovation? I mentioned in the roundup that it was triggered by some fruitful conversations in Berlin and London in June and that it is prompting changes to all my active projects. One of those is the Leading with Outcomes material, and today, as part of that, I’ll be releasing to authorised trainers a slicker, flatter, and more wholehearted version 3.0 of the deck and workbook for Leading with Outcomes: Foundation.

The Foundation module is the first item on the agenda for both Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading for Innovation in the Knowledge Economy (formerly Leading in a Transforming Organisation). There are two of the former and one of the latter in the calendar, so you can experience it for yourself soon:

Offers:

  • All of the above both include membership of the Leading with Outcomes Authorised Facilitator programme free for one year; you can upgrade your subscription to Authorised Trainer at any time
  • If you’ve attended a TTT/F before, you can re-attend the online one for free. I can’t make the same offer for in-person training, but for the Southampton one at least, there are generous discounts for past attendees of either kind of training. Likewise for employees in the public, educational, and non-profit sectors, etc. Ping me for coupon codes!

In time for TTT/F and Leading in a Transforming Organisation I will also be updating the Inside-out Strategy and Adaptive Organisation modules, respectively. Announcements on those will follow over the coming weeks.

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.

Agendashift roundup, July 2024

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In this edition: Engage, Invite, Celebrate! Summer reading and writing; Autumn programme; The Great Consolidation

Engage, Invite, Celebrate!

When it’s your job to “create the conditions” for an adaptive, innovative, and resilient organisation, where do you start? What’s your agenda? That was the focus of this month’s big blog post and much of this month’s roundup will link back to it, so let’s start there:

  1. Engage, Invite, Celebrate: Leading “wholeheartedly” for innovation

The rest of this month’s most-read posts are all referenced by that:

  1. From Flow to Business Agility (October 2023)
  2. Agile’s Great Rebalancing: My next book’s take on the Agile manifesto (April 2024)
  3. Towards the wholehearted organisation, outside in (May 2018)
  4. What Lies Beneath (Spoiler: Constraints) (October 2023)
  5. Help our research: an “Organisational DNA test” (May 2024)

The Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings in Berlin and (especially) London last month really helped to crystallise something. It is prompting some changes in all my active projects, in particular the Leading with Outcomes training material, the writing of my next book, and the Agendashift home, Wholehearted, and (per the image below) Framework pages. Updates on some of those below, and watch this space – there’s something happening here!

We keep asking these questions (and you can too) – leadership principles, meta-strategies for high-engagement transformation. 1. What if we put agreement on outcomes before solutions? 2. How do we keep bringing outcomes to the foreground? 3. Where – and where else – should we be engaging?

Summer reading and writing

Book 4, Organizing Conversations: Preparing Groups to Take On Adaptive Challenges is of course recently out. If you haven’t yet read it, it’s short enough that you can easily add it to your summer book pile. It doesn’t have many Amazon reviews yet but at least they’re all five stars! Do please add yours!

Meanwhile this month on book 5, Wholehearted: Engaging with complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, I have written the fourth of six chapters, The Space Between. I’m fascinated by what happens between different levels of organisation – between teams and their team-of-teams, for example – and find this space frustratingly under-explored in the literature. I can’t help thinking that many scale-related problems and, more generally, a lack of organisational agility both relate to that neglect. And process-centric approaches are ill-equipped to fix them!

As for “Engage, Invite, Celebrate”, that new chapter and, as of last week, the preceding three chapters all finish with a reflection with that title and that structure. It means that the reflective thread that already runs through the book is more explicitly anchored in the kind leadership described in my post. Definitely a change for the better.

Chapter 5 will be called Organizing at Human Scale. For an insight into where it begins, check out this post:

The language has changed a bit in the two years since that was written, but the idea stands. Then from networks of people we go to flexible webs of organisational scopes. Teaming (Edmondson), Dynamic Reteaming (Helfand), and Team Topologies (Skelton & Pais) are a selection of my references. I will enjoy dipping back into those over the summer holiday period.

Autumn programme

I mentioned that there will be changes to the Leading with Outcomes training material, and my autumn schedule makes those quite urgent. Including two conferences, here’s what my calendar looks like:

If you’ve attended a TTT/F previously, you might like to re-attend the online one for free. I can’t make the same offer for in-person training, but for the Southampton one at least, there are generous discounts not only for repeat attendees but for past TTT/F attendees also. Likewise for employees in the public sector, educational sector, non-profits, etc.

The Great Consolidation

Just a heads up: I intend to complete the consolidation of the Agendashift Academy’s two learning platforms onto the newer one next week. It will involve some downtime, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday next week. I’ll post updates while it’s happening.

That’s it for July – have a great August! We’ve found some suitably accessible accommodation equipped with the hoists & stuff our daughter needs so we’ll be taking some time away together for the first time in a long while. Can’t wait.

Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:

  1. Foundation module:
  2. Inside-out Strategy:
  3. Adaptive Organisation:
  4. Outside-in Strategy:

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 £18.40 per month after a 7-day free trial, with discounts available for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors. For bulk subscriptions, ask for our Agendashift for Business brochure.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes training or workshops yourself, see our Authorised Trainer and Authorised Facilitator programmes. See our events calendar for Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) and Leading in a Transforming Organisation trainings.

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Trainer and Facilitator Programmes | Store

At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.