Since October 2019, I have been involved, as an Agile coach, in the EKIP program in order to help the teams move forward together in an Agile way. From October to January I coached the coordination team, then between February and May, I organized an Agile training program for the beneficiaries of the project.
For the beneficiaries of the program, about 20 Syrian women from different social backgrounds, with different skills and experiences, the challenge was significant: teach them to work together, in a collaborative manner, both by method, tools and their way of being.
Agile training, in an uncertain world …
In order to make them fully enter into the dynamic of Agile working, I conducted my trainings, creating a Business Case close to their reality, the creation of a healthy restaurant. Thank you to the coordination team who helped me make this Business Case as credible as possible!
With the women, we worked both on the construction process of an Agile project (the shared vision, the construction continues with the Kanban Board, the win-win relationship with the client) as on the state of mind (team, values, autonomy, right to make mistakes, culture of feedback and continuous improvement, active listening). All this, in a fun and a constructive way, essential elements of Agile culture!
While we started the program with face-to-face sessions in February, we had to adapt to the COVID19 health crisis, and continue with 6 on line training sessions and 4 on line guided autonomy sessions. Over time, our Zoom sessions have improved with the use of various collaborative tools (Padlet, Trello, Jamboard, Google Docs).
We all have been very Agile to overcome this crisis!
Personally, I really enjoyed leading this group. Despite the communication difficulties linked to translation (I speak English, they speak Arabic), I saw them grow and fully enter Agile dynamic with success: an united team, enthusiasm during the development of their vision of the restaurant, curious to learn and move forward together.
With this training, I hope they will have the keys to work better together when they will be in the full production phase.
I would like to thank everyone who helped me develop this program: Shima and Presica for the translation and co-animation, Emine for coordinating the sessions, Sandrine for the support and the good ideas. Long live to the Ekip project!
Marie-Caroline (Agile Coach)
To find out more about setting up an Agile training program in your context, don’t hesitate to contact me!
The final word – Sandrine Ramboux, co-manager of the Ekip Program:
“The idea came by chance to integrate an Agile project management component into the curriculum. We were especially interested in the project management part, short term vs long term vision, and why not put some Agile in it. But, when all of us we found ourselves suddenly at home, having to deal with uncertainty, the training took on its full meaning for us and our members. It was really interesting to see Marie- Caroline’s approach to deal with the course not on her theoretical notions but “hands on” both on the subject and also on the collaboration part. We were delighted to have her by our side!
