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Agile Team Leadership

Interested in making your leadership role more agile? Are you able to manage tensions and paradoxes? Learn what agile leadership is all about.

Which approaches and mindsets will help ensure successful teamwork in agile contexts? How does innovation succeed? What role can management play in encouraging self-organisation? How do you develop a project culture that supports agility? How does this alter your management style and your role as a leader? In a VUCA world, the performance of teams is influenced by a variety of internal and external disruptions and challenges. In this continuing education course in agile team leadership, you will learn to recognise these issues in advance, understand them and lead your team effectively, even during turbulent times.

Are you a member of an agile organisational unit, someone in a leadership role, a project team member or a member of the project management office and interested in benefiting from the aspects listed below? Then this specialist course is the perfect choice for you:

  • You will acquire an in-depth understanding of the internal forces and drivers of groups and teams.
  • You will learn how to make optimal use of the resources of your teams and actively deal with any unavoidable disruptions.
  • You will become adept in empowerment and team development.
  • You will discover the importance of roles, self-organisation and self-responsibility among team members.
  • You will become familiar with good practice in group work and will understand how to apply it to specific situations.
  • You will be able to transfer the acquired knowledge to your own team leadership and will have opportunities to discuss and resolve challenges you face in your professional environment.

Factsheet

  • Duration 5 Days
  • Schedule Tuesday, Wednesday
  • Application deadline 6 weeks before start, later registration also possible if places are available
  • ECTS credits None / 3 ECTS credits
  • Costs CHF 2,125
  • Teaching language German
  • Location Bern, Schwarztorstrasse 48
  • School Business School
  • Next session Please visit the German website for more information

Contact

Downloads (in German)

For further information and registration, please visit the German website. 

Content and Structure

Portrait

Promote an agile culture in your organisation. Develop your team. Strengthen your role as a leader. In this continuing education course in agile team leadership, we begin with a one-day introduction where the course participants get to know one another and outline the professional challenges they each face in the area of agile team leadership. From this starting point, we will introduce perspectives and approaches that will provide a theoretical and practical framework throughout the course (based on, among other things, A. Mindell’s Processwork/Deep Democracy and Lukas Hohler’s handbook on ‘Starke Führungskräfte’ (Strong Leaders)).

Training objective

This continuing education course in agile team leadership will help you develop your team leadership skills. On this course, you will be introduced to and be able to practise easily implementable concepts and tailor-made methods of modern, dynamic team leadership. 

The standard approaches to intervention will be used, which the lecturer will employ according to the situation. We will pay special attention to the process work theory, which takes a holistic approach to disruptions in order to use these as opportunities: 

  • Perception models and pattern recognition 

  • Signal orientation, traffic light principle and double signals 

  • Amplify and convert signals 

  • Change of perspective, framing and reframing 

  • Multiple roles matrix, rank signals and limits 

  • Phases of developing group dynamics and self-organisation 

  • Establishing roles and trends in the field 

  • Embodying tendencies and expanding your intuition 

  • Hacking roles as a facilitation principle

  • Methods of decision-making in groups 

  • Hotspots and conflict management cycle 

  • The Rank-Privileges diagram 

  • Recognising ranks and making them usable 

  • Ambiguity as a motor for change 

  • Facilitative leadership as a leadership approach 

Do you as a leader want to strengthen the positive aspects of your company? This continuing education course will enhance and boost your leadership skills. 

  • Positive leadership: the basics and the current status of research. 

  • Three levels: managing yourself positively, managing people positively, managing teams and organisations positively. 

  • Positive interventions: with little effort and a lot of fun you can develop your own character strengths. 

  • Strengths interview: motivate and coach employees by recognising and acknowledging their strengths. 

  • Clifton StrengthsFinder test: helps you identify your own strengths and manage their use in your everyday leadership activities. 

  • Appreciative enquiry: analyse situations through positive questions and influence them positively. 

  • Positive leadership in action: implementation of your strengths in your everyday management activities. 

This specialist course is part of the CAS Advanced Project Management course. The CAS course comprises the following three courses: 

  • Specialist course in Project Management 

  • Specialist course in Project Portfolio Management 

  • Specialist course in Agile Team Leadership 

Adults learn differently. That is why the continuing education at the BFH Business school is committed to modern adult education. Our mission with «brain, heart and hand» is an important principle in the design of our offers. Questions in the lessons are based on the participants' professional and practical life experiences. Contact study and self-study phases are combined in a meaningful way, analogue learning environments are combined with digital tools. Microsoft Teams is available as a supplementary tool: you have access to documents, messages and information as well as a chat function within the class.

In a practice-oriented environment, we will employ the latest teaching methods, conceptual and methodological input, self-reflection, group dialogues, tandem exercises, group work and feedback processes. You will develop your own solutions for leading your team, creating fundamental added value for your project and your organisation. You will work on concrete challenges from your everyday management environment. The teaching is experience-based and interactive. Learning takes place in the here and now. You will benefit from a willingness to get involved, to question your own assumptions and to try out new things.

State-of-the-art teaching methods, conceptual and methodological input, self-reflection, group dialogues, tandem exercises, group work and feedback processes will be employed in a practice-orientated environment. You will be able to develop your own solutions for leadership of your team and thus create fundamental added value for your project and your company. You will work on concrete challenges from your everyday management life. The lessons will be experienced-based and interactive. Learning will take place in the here and now. You will benefit from a willingness to get involved, to question your own assumptions and to try out new things. 

You will be required to write a case report on a selected challenge associated with your team leadership.

Lecturers

Our lecturers are proven experts with extensive practical and theoretical knowledge in their subject areas. They have at least a university degree plus many years of experience in higher education. 

Partner

This specialist course is offered in cooperation with the Institut für Prozessarbeit in Zurich. 

Requirements + Admission

The specialist course in Agile Team Leadership is aimed at leaders in different organisational settings, such as line, project and social government managers, who want to develop their team leadership skills to meet the current challenges of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA world).

Typical participants are:

  • Members of an agile organisational unit
  • Senior managers
  • Project team members
  • Members of project management offices

You do not need to meet any specific admission requirements to participate in this specialist course. If you wish to obtain ECTS credits, the general conditions for continuing education will apply: you will require a university degree or equivalent qualification and at least two years' professional experience. If you have any questions, please contact the study administration or the course coordinator. 

General admission requirements (in German)

You have experience in leading teams and groups in different organisational contexts. You are willing to bring challenges from your practice into the classroom and to reflect and develop your leadership role in the team.

Specialist course in Agile Team Leadership at Bern University of Applied Sciences. 

All participants will receive a confirmation of participation. Participants who meet the admission requirements for studying at university level and who successfully complete the proof of competence will be awarded 3 ECTS credits. These will be shown on the course confirmation certificate. 

The specialised course can be credited to:
CAS Advanced Project Management

Organisation + Registration

The duration of the course is 5 course days. There will be a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 24 participants. Two lecturers will be involved if there are more than 12 participants.

For further information and registration, please visit the German website. 

Documents required for registration

You can register online via registration form. For registration we require following documents (in PDF format, max. 1 MB per document): 

  • Diplomas 

  • Curriculum Vitae 

  • Passport-sized photo (in JPG format) 

Please upload these documents even if you have already submitted them for another application. 

Organisational aspects

6 weeks before start, later registration also possible if places are available

CHF 2,125

Mandatory literature, course materials and proofs of competence are included in the fee. 

The continuing education regulations of the Bern University of Applied Sciences and the implementation regulations for the continuing education regulations apply. The right to make changes is reserved. In case of doubt, the wording of the legal provisions and regulations shall prevail.

Continuing Education Regulations of Bern University of Applied Sciences (WBR) (PDF, 133 KB)
Implementation Provisions for the Continuing Education Regulations WBR in the Business School (PDF, 81 KB)
Implementation Provisions for the Continuing Education Regulations (PDF, 77 KB)
Framework Study Regulations at Bern University of Applied Sciences (PDF, 127 KB)
Regulations on Scientific Integrity at Bern University of Applied Sciences (WissIR) (PDF, 140 KB)
Legal foundations

Advice and Information Events

Study Counselling

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Course coordinator

Administration

Information events

In addition to the information events we offer you our personal advice. By telephone or directly online via MS Teams.

Please contact us!

E-mail: weiterbildung.wirtschaft@bfh.ch 
Phone: 031 848 34 02

Location + facilities

Bern Schwarztorstrasse 48