116: Understanding Agile

Many retailers are increasingly talking and thinking about Agile. The pandemic has caused much uncertainty and required businesses to move at pace and remain flexible. So, Agile has become a key focus. But it’s also easy to misunderstand and there are plenty of mistakes and pitfalls to avoid too. So, Agile coach and trainer, Laurens Bonnema, joins Oliver Banks to help you understand Agile for retail.

Listen now to discover:

• What is Agile and why it might be easier than you imagine.
• The big opportunities with Agile.
• Why a misunderstood expectation could spell disaster.
• How a “Special Forces” mentality could guide you to success.

 

 

Introducing Laurens Bonnema

Laurens Bonnema is an Agile trainer, management consultant, and graphic facilitator.

He helps mentor leaders to create resilient organisations. By guiding leaders to embrace who they are, Laurens aims to ignite their inner strength and capability and lead from love. In turn, leaders can soar beyond their expectations.

An early adopter of Agile, Laurens Bonnema has been experimenting and exploring Agile since 2006, shortly after the Agile Manifesto was first created.

Previously, he has worked as a Certified Scrum Master, Professional Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Certified Agile Master, SAFe Program Consultant, Agile Master Assessor, IPMA Agile Assessor, and PRINCE2 Practitioner. With a rich experience in Agile ways of working, he strives to merge classic and Agile management in the conviction that it is the future of professional management.

As a Professional Scrum Trainer and SAFe Program Consultant, he helps to improve the profession of software delivery, marketing, human resources and finance.

In addition to his Agile background, Laurens is a skilled graphic facilitator. With his engaging sketchnotes, he makes boring business notes fun! In fact, he did sketchnotes for some of the sessions at Retail Transformation Live back in July 2020. So, scroll down a little to see some of these sketchnotes.

Laurens is based in Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Discover more at bonnema.ink.

Or, find Laurens Bonnema on LinkedIn.

Discover more about Agile

During the episode, Laurens shared some useful resources:

Scrum.org – a content rich website full of Agile resources.

Badass Agile – a short actionable podcast, featuring Laurens Bonnema.

Agile For Humans – a podcast focused on individuals and interactions.

Team of Teams, by General Stanley McCrystal – a book exploring how Agile helped in the War on Terror.

Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink – a book by an ex-Navy SEAL exploring leadership principles that will support Agile.

Sketchnotes from Retail Transformation Live

Martin Newman, the Consumer Champion, was the opening keynote speaker. So, to kick off, Martin guided us through the Future Consumer – and Laurens captured the key takeaways.

Also, Martin Newman joined the Retail Transformation Show podcast. Take a listen to episode 97: Customer Centric Cultures.

Then, the closing keynote speaker was Joe Jackman who explored the 5 core elements in the Reinventionist Mindset. Again, Laurens Bonnema captured the key takeaways from this session.

Also, Joe Jackman appeared on the Retail Transformation Show podcast. If you’d like to listen in, then check out episode 87: The Reinventionist Mindset (part 1) and episode 88: (part 2).