Agile Leadership Development

For as long as I can remember, leadership development has been driven off of projects and programs -- new launches, updated curriculum, big bang re-branded programs oriented to a specific audience segment. New program launches -- High Potential, Executive, Front line, Middle Manager, etc. Typically to get to these programs off the ground, a number of steps come beforehand. For example, the classic design/development cycle goes from needs assessment to gap analysis to solution design to program pilot to feedback to revision and finally to steady state implementation. Sound slow and cumbersome? Yes, that's because it is - this cycle can literally take years. And that doesn't even take into account inevitable political delays, vendor selection, attempts to align to other corporate processes, procurement hurdles, stakeholder setbacks and other situations that take the process from just slow to glacial speed. In today's environment, this is simply too slow and puts the leadership development organization's relevance and effectiveness at imminent risk.

If this slow scenario of product development sounds familiar to software development cycles, that's because it is. The comparison is highly relevant. However, in response, the software industry started making the switch to agile decades ago to speed these cycles up, be more responsive to changing business requirements and to be a relevant player in a rapidly evolving competitive landscape. Agile has been revolutionary in software -- speeding up development, accelerating new functionality, and using resources more efficiently to achieve business outcomes -- not just new functionality. However, human resources and specifically learning and development organizations, have been much slower to adopt these agile methods. Why is that? And what should we do about it?

With Moore's law dominating our new operating reality, exponential change constantly happening around us, and disruption becoming the new normal, agile may be the leadership development organization's last best hope to secure or maintain a place of relevance at the table of mind-share and priority. What does agile look like for the leadership development organization? Actually, not that different than it does for IT. Here are some of the most important methods from agile that would change the game in terms of how the LD org delivers its product to its marketplace:

Work iterative -- make constant change to core programs rather than periodically taking them off line to completely refresh / redesign

Fund Capacity Rather than Programs -- based on the priority of leadership development overall and its role in the organization's strategy, fund an amount of resourcing and capacity rather than specific program updates or new launches

Think in Terms of Product vs Programs -- succession planning, exec programs, front line, Hipo are all products. Products need to stay in their market -- they should not be episodic. They should also be based on consumer preference and needs.

Work Adaptive rather than Predictive : rather than trying to come up with the best design and wasting cycles in an effort to perfect the 'un-perfectable' program architecture, just get started, learn as you go, and constantly revise in smaller increments.

Update Pieces Rather than the Whole Thing: Development programs, coaching, assessment, onboarding, High Potentials, etc are all systems -- a connected network of process, technology, program, measurement, documentation and human interaction. For example, a succession system is made up of literally hundreds of pieces -- the talent review, assessments, development plans, potential models, etc. To improve the system, you don't need to take the whole thing off-line. You can work on parts without trying to deconstruct and re-build the entire system. For example, you could improve the talent review component only while keeping the other parts of the succession system in place.

Do Not Try to Overly Stakeholder your Product -- treat leadership development experiences as more of a grass-roots effort. Create great solutions rather than running everything up the flagpole. Gain support through new product releases and end-customer feedback and support rather than the very time-consuming process of trying to get full stakeholder commitment pre-launch.

These are just some of the methods that come from agile that would have a significant impact on the leadership organization's ability to move fast, be more responsive to business requirements, constantly improve its product portfolio and make a bigger difference on the competitive positioning of the organization. While not everybody is bought into agile, there is wide consensus that it has had a tremendous impact on IT's ability to keep up with the pace of business. I would suggest the same applies to the leadership organization's ability to stay relevant in an environment dominated by an accelerating pace of change and disruption.

More to come on this topic......