Agility & Innovation

This training provides an overview of common agile techniques. It should serve as a basis for the participants to decide whether and how these techniques can be integrated into their personal daily work. The focus is not on explaining the entire agile methodology, but rather on what you can pick out and implement relatively easily—even in non-agile work. The learning focus is on the application of agile techniques and tips for implementing them. The three themes are: collaboration, communication and time management.

Do you ever wonder what exactly your company's goals are and how your work can help achieve them? Would you like to be informed transparently about corporate values, vision and strategy, so that you, for your part, can work better and more purposefully? Would you like more effective and clear communication within your team and between different departments? If so, it is worth taking a look at “OKR”, an agile leadership and time management framework. The "O" in OKR stands for Objectives, the goals you set for yourself, your team or your company using the OKR methodology. Behind the "K" and the "R" are the Key Results, the key competencies you need to achieve your goals. By thoughtfully and clearly naming objectives and key results, the OKR method creates a clear and transparent focus on what is most important right now and helps organizations achieve a small number of specific goals in a precisely defined way. Does that sound good? Then take a look at our e⁠-⁠training.

Innovations and the testing of new developments are closely interconnected. In this e⁠-⁠training course, we will show you methods for prototyping, how to use them in the most needs-based way with relatively little effort, and how to gain important insights from them at an early stage and thus save costs.

Innovations must always have a place within a company. At the beginning of this e⁠-⁠training course, we will explain which phases characterize innovation processes. We will also take a closer look at a range of possible approaches to innovation development. There is a wealth of different approaches and methods for achieving different goals. In this e⁠-⁠training course, we will look at some of them in detail and show you which goals managers and innovation teams can achieve with them, as well as how they actually work.

Innovative thinking can be learned. Developing an innovative mindset and promoting it in team members follows certain prerequisites and comes with some hidden stumbling blocks. In this e⁠-⁠training course, you will find out how you and your team can overcome what works against innovation and how to get mentally prepared for innovation.

In the e⁠-⁠training "Understanding Digitalization" presenter Christina takes participants on a journey into the digital world. She shows that digitization is not just about converting physical products and applications into digital products and applications. But that it is above all about the data that is generated in the process. In this process, traditional companies are disappearing - and new companies are emerging. In the same way, professions are changing. Even doctors may be replaced by digital technologies. The presenter introduces the new power of customers and the need for customer centricity as another significant change. Through transfer tasks, participants are encouraged to examine their own professional environment and company for digital challenges and potential.

"Agility" is the answer to ever shorter-term planning processes and ever faster change. "Leadership" must also be rethought in this context. This e⁠-⁠training therefore puts the classic leadership tools to the test. It is divided into the areas of mindset (understanding of leadership), skillset (leadership competencies) and toolset (leadership tools). For all three areas, we will examine how thinking and the respective methods and tools must change in order to continue to meet the requirements of successful leadership.

The focus is on video lectures and a workbook. In the video lectures a professional presenter leads through the topic. He interprets the film scenes and uses explanatory films to show the creation and effect of different mindsets. Transfer tasks help the participants to reflect on their own mindset. The workbook serves to systematically develop new perspectives and can be used for self-organized learning as well as for work in learning groups.

To ensure that the participants do not only get to know Kanban in its short form as a planning tool, the e⁠-⁠learning first briefly goes into its development. On the basis of the development in the Japanese automotive industry, they get to know the "flow idea" behind Kanban. This should enable the participants to use the method more creatively and purposefully. A case study from the manufacturing industry will also make Kanban tangible. The participants will learn the different ways to handle a Kanban board. They also learn about the most important elements such as "Work in Progress Limits" and the "Pull Principle".

The e⁠-⁠learning shows the background and development of scrum. This enables the participants to classify and understand scrum. At the center are the basics of scrum as described by Jeff Sutherland in his book "The Scrum Revolution". The references to the Toyota principle and the Plan-Do-Check-Act method show that scrum had a broader horizon than software development from the beginning. Based on this, the essential characteristics of scrum are described: working in teams, focused work and the division into product owner, scrum master and team. The participants also learn what the basic organization of a project looks like according to scrum. The e⁠-⁠learning brings all participants to a high level of knowledge about scrum. It is ideal for the preparation for scrum projects and for the preparation for the different scrum roles.

The e⁠-⁠training was developed by design thinking practitioners. At the center is a real-life, anonymized project. It shows how a manufacturer of garage doors developed new products and solutions using a design thinking process. In this way the participants get to know the so-called problem space and the solution space in a vivid way. They also learn the three steps that lead through the two spaces. The participants learn what prerequisites must be created in order to apply design thinking. And they will be enabled to carry out their own projects along the design thinking method. In a special chapter, the persona concept is also presented in the context of the practical example.

Every company wants creative employees with lots of good ideas. "Be creative!"—has probably never spurred anyone on to imaginative high performance. But creativity can be encouraged and practiced. This e⁠-⁠learning introduces various methods and techniques for finding creative ideas —from classics such as brainstorming to stimulus image analysis. The focus of the training is in animated explanatory films. The video lectures introduce various creativity techniques and explain framework conditions that are necessary to successfully implement the methods. Specifically, the following techniques and methods will be covered: Brainstorming and Brainwriting, the 635 method, the Six Thinking Hats, the Walt Disney Method, and Stimulus Image Analysis. The e⁠-⁠learning contains valuable tips, concrete fields of application and "recipes" for a successful process. Transfer tasks help participants to integrate the methods and techniques into their everyday work. Learning questions after each module and a final test secure the learning results and confirm the achievement of the learning objectives.