Agile is at risk of becoming a buzzword in L&D and misinterpreted, watered down or disregarded as just a fad. However, it’s working to help Sky move at pace, achieve more and achieve real results. In this episode, Tracey Waters, Director of People Experience at Sky, talks about her team’s adoption of Agile, what this actually means, and how it is experienced - from all sides.

Discover today on The Learning & Development Podcast why we need to be disruptive with our L&D approaches (e.g. classroom learning), what technologies we can utilise inside our business, how you can influence more value to the team, how Agile can help you and your team’s perfomance, and many more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why transition to Agile? It encourages better understanding of each team member, it’s built it on iterations, and it’s data-driven. It delivers capacity, flexibility, responsiveness and adaptability.
• Tracey believes that classroom learning has not been very effective and only brings little to no benefits. It does not improve how people work. Here are the 4 R’s that classroom learning causes:
  • Relationships – People get a lot from meeting others in the same boat as them and learning from their experience.
  • Recuperation – It gives them a chance to get away from tasks even just for a while.
  • Recognition – They get motivated to complete the training because of the awarded certificate.
  • Reward – People felt good about being nominated or accepted onto a programme.
• Focus instead on how every operation can be valuable to each individual. If they see that what they’re doing have beneficial outputs, it’s easier for them to get influenced and motivated to perform well. With this approach, they can still build relationships, learn new things, and improve themselves.
• Utilise technological innovations (i.e. Agile). There’s better understanding, and reaching out becomes easier when the data is always available when you need it. You also make every moment memorable for them and offer invaluable support when there is full awareness of the situation.
• Some might have doubts on incorporating Agile. The key thing to remember here is it helps distinguish what works and what doesn’t anymore in your business. And with these as the basis, we can choose what to improve and what to change.
• Visual management is very useful. You need two softwares: one is where the team can communicate (e.g. Slack, Microsoft Teams) and the other one is a visual planning board where the work flow can be tracked (e.g. Trello).
• Before looking into different approaches such as Agile, know your WHY. Take the time to go back to your planning board and evaluate your goals, visions, and objectives. If you think Agile is the vehicle that will get you to all of them, then it’s easier to get started from there.

BEST MOMENTS

• “If we run L&D, we should be embracing a philosophy that is fundamentally built in learning and high-performing teams.”
• “When you also learn from psychology perspective and neuroscience perspective how people learn, it makes classroom learning more bonkers.”
• “If you start with a consumer-grade technology experience and build around that, then you can actually be flexible of what you offer to people.”
• “The whole emphasis is on we’ll get better at this together, we’ll make mistakes together, and we’ll make sure that we get better.”
• “If you aren’t getting resistance, then I’m not sure you’re disrupting the model.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Agile Software | Wikipedia

The Learning & Development Podcast: How People Learn With Nick Shackleton-Jones | Apple | Spotify | Omny

How People Learn: Designing Education and Training that Works to Improve Performance by Nick Shackleton-Jones

Slack

Microsoft Teams

Trello

ABOUT THE GUEST

Tracey Waters is Director of People Experience at Sky UK and a pioneer in the application of Agile to Learning & Development.

With over 15 years of experience in the profession, Tracey has overseen Sky’s transition from a traditional L&D operating model to fully embracing Agile to move at speed and solve real business problems.

You can find out more about Tracey’s work and the Agile HR Community via:

• Agile In Learning Blog: https://medium.com/agile-in-learning

Fosway Innovation Profile on Sky: http://www.fosway.com/innovation-profile-sky/

Agile HR Community: https://www.agilehrcommunity.com/new-events

ABOUT THE HOST

David James

David has been a People Development professional for over 20 years, most notably as Director of Talent, Learning & OD for The Walt Disney Company across Europe, the Middle East & Africa.

As well as being the Chief Learning Strategist at Looop, David is a prominent writer and speaker on topics around modern and digital L&D as well as an active member of the CIPD L&D Advisory Board.

CONTACT METHOD

• Twitter:  https://twitter.com/davidinlearning/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjameslinkedin/
• Website: https://www.looop.co/