Agile Leadership & OKR

Agile Leadership & OKR The two-day seminar for everyone who sets goals and notices that they reach nobody: you learn what agile really means, how to distinguish good OKRs from bad ones and how to introduce a rhythm that does not vanish in daily business. By the end you have a goal system for your team.

Agile Leadership & OKR at a glance

• Format: 2 days on site + self-learning track
• Level: basic to advanced
• Participants: max. 16 people
• Language: German (English on request)
• Certificate: AEI certificate of attendance
• Investment: €490.00 plus VAT

Agile has become a word that means everything and nothing. It is used for meetings, for software development and for an attitude — and often for an organisation that really just wants more speed.

OKRs usually end in the same pattern. Once a year goals are formulated that sound like tasks, then daily business arrives, and in the fourth quarter somebody remembers them. The system did not fail, it was never operated.

This seminar works on both: a clear understanding of when agile fits and when it does not, and a goal system that has a rhythm. You work on your own goals, not on examples from Silicon Valley.

What you take away

• A clear definition of what agile means in your context — and what it does not.
• A set of objectives and key results that describes outcome instead of activity.
• A checklist for spotting bad OKRs within five minutes.
• A rhythm with review and adjustment that fits daily business.
• An answer to the question of how decisions can be made decentrally.

Your learning objectives

• You distinguish agile work from agile rhetoric.
• You assess whether an initiative should be led agilely or not.
• You formulate objectives that give direction and key results that can be checked.
• You recognise OKRs that are only task lists.
• You connect goals with daily business instead of placing them beside it.

The levers at a glance

Agile does not mean fast, it means adaptable. Whoever keeps cycles short in order to correct more often works agilely. Whoever only shortens the schedule works under pressure and calls it agile.

An objective is a state, not a project. “We introduce a new platform” is a task. “Customers find their product in under thirty seconds” is a state — and it can be measured.

Key results describe outcome, not effort. “We train twenty people” is effort. “Four of five teams deliver their reports without a follow-up question” is outcome.

Without a rhythm every goal system dies. One review every thirteen weeks, one check every two weeks, one sentence in the weekly. Whoever does not schedule the rhythm effectively cancels it.

A goal nobody can miss is not a goal. If every key result is reached, they were set too low — as a control instrument they teach nothing. A healthy set has one result you are not sure about, and that is the one worth talking about in the review.

Who is this seminar for?

For leaders and owners who want to reorder goals and ways of working.

• Team and department leads facing growing complexity.
• Managing directors introducing a goal system.
• Project owners between department and IT.
• Subject-matter leads steering results instead of attendance.

Experience with goal systems helps but is not required. The terms are explained during the seminar; the hard part is the formulation, not the theory.

The seminar is not suitable for teams looking for a specific framework certification. We work on goals and leadership, not on certificates.

Investment and dates

Participation costs €490.00 plus VAT, including the self-learning track, materials and certificate of attendance. There are six dates per year in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and live online, plus an in-house variant for teams. You will find all dates in the list on this page.

For the exercises bring the current goals of your team or company. Anyone without any formulates the first three during the seminar — that is often the most useful part.

After the seminar

You keep the materials, your OKR set and a checklist with eight questions that reliably exposes bad goals. With that you can start a first cycle within a week.

The checklist asks among other things: can this result fail? Who would notice? If both answers are missing it is not a goal but a description of planned work.

Transparency is part of the design, not a reporting duty. When every team can see the others' objectives, coordination happens without a meeting — and the quarterly review turns into a conversation instead of a presentation.

Two weeks after the seminar you receive a short follow-up: your goal set and the question which key results actually moved.

For teams the seminar is available as an in-house event with your own goals. The procedure stays the same, the examples come from your company.

Programme: 2 days

Day 1 – Agile thinking

• What agile really means
• When agile fits
• Objectives and key results
• Distinguishing good from bad OKRs
• Rhythm and cycle
• Transparency and alignment

Day 2 – Introducing OKR

• Roles and self-organisation
• Deciding decentrally
• Connecting OKR with daily business
• Review and learning

Both days run from 09:00 to 16:15 with breaks in the morning, at midday and in the afternoon. Short self-checks sit between the blocks so you can test where you stand before moving on.

Each day has three parts: an introduction to the pattern, an exercise on your own goals and a review in the group. At the end of day one one objective stands; on day two the full set with its rhythm.

The seminar includes a self-learning track. It contains the patterns from both days as short units with examples and one self-check each. You can work through it before the date to clarify terms, or afterwards to repeat what stuck and what did not.

Our approach

We work on your goals, not on a doctrine of method. At the start of each exercise you decide which state you want to reach and how you would notice that you are not reaching it; at the end stands a goal that eases a decision.

The exercises are short and repeat in variations. That is deliberate: formulating goals is not learned by watching but by repeatedly deleting activity verbs.

Every block ends with a sentence you could show a colleague: which state, which number, and what you would stop doing to reach it.

We work in pairs, in small groups and in plenary, with changing partners. Every participant gets feedback on their formulations, not just on their intention. Group level and participant count are deliberately limited: with 16 people no anonymous lecture is possible.