Course Description

The adoption of agile approaches to game development has spread throughout the industry. Still, very few studios have been entirely successful in transforming their organization to become quickly responsive to change and creating an environment where employees use their full creative and productive potential. The main barrier is the mindset shifts required at every level of the organization for a successful transformation. The Certified Agile Leadership—Organizations (CAL-O) class will teach you how to shift your mindset about the culture and employees in your studio. Leading an entire organization to become Agile is challenging. CAL-O will give you the tools necessary to become a change agent and effectively use Agile values and principles to strengthen your organization. In this one-day class, we will take a deep dive into how change can be based on existing organizational culture, and we’ll talk extensively about the influence that culture has on speed, risk, and receptiveness to change. You will learn about the principles and practices of agility and how to apply culture, organizational design, and change by identifying elements you can implement in your organization. You’ll come away with the knowledge, skills, and techniques to achieve sustainable agility. We’ll dive into case studies and real-life examples to help demonstrate how your studio can embrace agility. You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of the relationship between culture and leadership mindset and behaviors.

Course Type

Certified, One-Day Course: This is a single course that takes place over one full eight-hour day with breaks. Upon successful completion of the course, attendees will earn Certified Agile Leadership Organizations (CAL-O) certification from the Scrum Alliance.

Intended Audience

Studio leadership (directors, discipline leads, executives)

Key Takeaways

• The Importance of Leadership and Culture in Enabling Agility.
• Organizational Design, Constraints, and Enablers.
• Proven patterns for profound organizational change.
• The leader’s role in culture-shaping.
• Explore a deeper dive assessment of scaling patterns designed specifically for video game development and implemented on teams of 1000 developers.
• Organization-centric Metrics.
• A case study of an effective studio transition.

Prerequisites

None. However, the CAL-E course is highly recommended.

Instructor Bio

Over the course of thirty years, Clinton Keith has gone from programming on advanced fighter jets and underwater robots to develop and lead on hit video game titles as a CTO and Director of Product Development.  He introduced the video game industry to agile practices in 2003 and is now training and coaching video game teams. Clinton is the author of "Agile Game Development, first and second editions” and “Gear Up! Advanced Game Practices”.  His web site is www.ClintonKeith.com

Preferred Title: Clinton Keith

Company: President, Clinton Keith Consulting