Product LeadersIntermediate

Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PAL-e)

When agile teams are held back by priorities, decisions or measures they do not control, PAL-e helps the leaders who shape those conditions practise a next step in their own work, over eight immersive sessions.

IntermediateScrum.orgTraditional (Full Day) · Traditional (Half Day) · Immersive

What changes for your team

  • The obstacle may sit outside the team
  • Bring the next decision back to real work
  • Same training, different rhythm

Immersive training pays back differently to a two-day course. Sessions spread across several weeks mean each idea is applied in your real work before the next one lands — so capability builds instead of fading under a backlog. Why immersive produces better returns →  ·  Other formats available in the panel above.

Professional Agile Leadership Essentials

When the obstacle sits outside the team

When teams face conflicting priorities, wait for decisions they cannot make, or are judged by measures that miss value, leaders have work to do around the team. If you choose or fund development for those leaders, PAL-e gives them a structured way to examine the problem with colleagues and practise a next step in their workplace. It is a Scrum.org leadership course for people already introduced to Scrum, not an introduction to the framework.

Work on a real leadership decision between sessions

The guided time in each session is spent on participants’ own leadership situations: examining observations, giving feedback and refining a next decision. Workplace assignments bring relevant colleagues into conversations about goals, team conditions and measures; an actual change may need agreement from the person who owns it. The first session examines live challenges; sessions two to eight reflect on what happened before moving on. The final session forms a continuation plan.
Learn and practise: Explore a PAL-e leadership topic with peers and the trainer.
Apply at work: Make an assumption explicit, engage the people affected and agree a next step with the decision owner where needed.
Observe and adjust: Bring back what happened, including uncertainty and what did not change, to inform the next decision.

What you will examine

The syllabus lists each session and, for immersive delivery, its workplace assignment.

Your leadership stance and team conditions

Look at personal leadership focus, self-management, delegation, values and the people and conditions that support teamwork.

Direction and evidence

Work with clear goals, priorities and maturing measures; notice where activity is mistaken for value.

Work on conditions you can influence

Use Ecocycle Planning, a Liberating Structure, to see which leadership activities may need to start, develop or stop as conditions change, then discuss a feasible next step with those who can act on it.

When the immersive schedule does not fit

Immersive delivery is the recommended route because it makes room for workplace application and reflection. Traditional formats cover the same training content for groups that need a shorter schedule.

Immersive, recommended

Eight four-hour sessions, weekly or every two weeks. Each has two hours of training and two hours working with the trainer on participants’ own situations, with real-work assignments between sessions.

Traditional, secondary

Two full days or four half days with the same training content. Condensing the schedule leaves less room for application and reflection between sessions.

Who should consider PAL-e

PAL-e is for sponsors and leaders responsible for conditions around agile teams, managers who develop people, and leaders working with Scrum Teams across organisational functions. Participants benefit from prior introduction to Scrum. If the need is to learn the Scrum framework from the beginning, start with an introductory course.
If you choose or fund development: Send leaders who own or influence priorities, decision authority and measures around teams.
If you attend: Practise leadership choices and bring observations from your own work.
What to expect: The course supports learning and application; it cannot guarantee organisational change or a particular result.

PAL I assessment

Completing PAL-e provides a password for one attempt at the Scrum.org Professional Agile Leadership I (PAL I) assessment. A second attempt at no additional cost is available if the first is taken within 14 days of receiving the password and scores below 85%. Certification requires a passing score of 85%; course attendance does not itself award the credential.

Learning comes first

The course concentrates on leadership choices in real work; the assessment is a separate way to test knowledge.

Frequently Asked Questions

Agile Leadership Essentials is designed for managers, leaders, and anyone responsible for supporting or leading agile teams or driving agile change in their organisation. It’s not for those seeking a basic introduction to Scrum or those without any exposure to Agile concepts.

The course includes a password for the Professional Agile Leadership I (PAL I) certification exam. If you attempt the exam within 14 days and don’t achieve the required 85% passing score, you get a second attempt at no additional cost.

You’ll tackle challenges like supporting agile teams, removing impediments to agility, adapting leadership approaches, measuring the benefits of agility, and leading the culture and behaviour changes needed for successful agile transformation.

You should already be familiar with Scrum, as this course assumes a foundational knowledge of Agile and Scrum practices. It’s best suited for those who have previously worked in or around Scrum teams.

The PAL I certification included with Agile Leadership Essentials is issued by Scrum.org and is globally recognised by employers and Agile professionals.

Syllabus

Here is exactly what your team will cover, and how we deliver it. Every format teaches the same modules; what changes is how the time is spread and what happens between sessions:

Immersive RecommendedTraditional (Full Day)Traditional (Half Day)
Sessions 8 sessions 2 days 4 half-days
Each session 4h: 2h reflect + 2h learn 8h incl. breaks and lunch 4h incl. breaks
Total time with an expert 32h 16h 16h
New concept and practice
incl. breaks		 16h 16h 16h
Facilitated reflection
what happened when you tried it		 16h — —
~Expert time per topic
breaks removed		 ~3h20
1h40 reflect + 1h40 learn		 ~1h30 ~1h40
Time to apply between sessions 1–2 working weeks (≈36–72h) Overnight Half a working day (≈4h)

Each immersive session follows a learning cycle: reflect on what happened when you applied the last concept, learn the next one and practise it, then take it back to work as an outcome-based assignment. It is designed for triple-loop learning, so participants do not just change what they do; they question why they do it and how they see their organisation.

Need more support? The immersive experience can be combined with additional coaching, consulting or mentoring to create a Mentor Program for your team.

Choose a format above to see how the modules group into sessions.

Before You Start

Complete the pre-work below before your first session so you arrive ready to participate.

Session 1 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

What makes agility matter?

Module 1

Learn a new concept

Open with introductions and team and leader alliances, then identify the characteristics of a great team. Map those behaviours to the Agile Manifesto and use Pocket Principles, an activity with the Agile Manifesto principles, to examine what agility asks of leaders and teams.

Outcome-based assignment: Complexity and Empiricism · Immersive only

Facilitate a discussion with relevant stakeholders about how your organisation could benefit from becoming more agile and what in its current environment might prevent that benefit. Build a shared understanding of why agility matters, then bring the discussion’s results and insights back to the class.
For example, you might:
  • Discuss the benefits people expect from greater agility and their reservations.
  • List the reasons stakeholders give for “why Agile” and compare their perspectives.
  • Identify what makes delivery or predictability difficult, then discuss whether a more empirical approach would help.
  • Identify a first step to bridge traditional and empirical ways of working around a shared change goal.
  • Use the focus areas of an Agile Leader to discuss the organisation’s current balance and where attention may be needed.
  • Explore where empirical and traditional approaches each fit, their dependencies, and what each side needs.
  • Discuss the advantages of empiricism from a manager’s perspective and mechanisms that obstruct agility.
→ Reflected on at the start of Module 2: Why agility needs leadership

Session 2 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

Why agility needs leadership

Module 2

Facilitated reflection: Complexity and Empiricism · Immersive only

Facilitated reflection: Complexity and Empiricism

Learn a new concept

Examine why delivery and predictability are difficult in complex work, and what that asks of leaders. Use The Agile Transformation, the opening scene of the course’s running case study, and the Complexity and Empiricism exercise to distinguish challenges that teams can address from conditions leaders own. Examine the focus of an Agile Leader, what happens when leadership intent meets the system, and leaders’ active participation in change.

Outcome-based assignment: Mindset shift of an Agile leader · Immersive only

Reconsider your current role and contribution as an agile leader in helping teams and the organisation. Identify leadership work to stop, delegate or give more attention, and discuss a feasible next step with colleagues. Bring what you learn back to the class.
For example, you might:
  • Discuss with colleagues how a change in your behaviour might support team goals.
  • Compare your accountabilities with those of a Scrum Master and Product Owner and identify where you can help their teams succeed.
  • Speak with colleagues in teams using other ways of working about their needs and how to bridge those approaches.
  • Revisit the ecocycle with a team to identify the next leadership focus (Ecocycle Planning is covered in session 8).
  • Choose a next step for your own growth as an agile leader.
→ Reflected on at the start of Module 3: Create the conditions for self-management

Session 3 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

Create the conditions for self-management

Module 3

Facilitated reflection: Mindset shift of an Agile leader · Immersive only

Facilitated reflection: Mindset shift of an Agile leader

Learn a new concept

Compare differing expectations of self-management, then use Exploring Self-Management to examine the boundaries, accountabilities and leadership support that let a team make decisions and grow.

Outcome-based assignment: Enabling Agile maturity · Immersive only

Facilitate a discussion with a team about its current maturity, a useful next stage of growth and how that growth could help it benefit from agility. Agree first steps through which you can support that growth. Treat maturity as a shared view for development, not a rating of individuals.
For example, you might:
  • Clarify team accountabilities and compare them with how work and decisions currently happen.
  • Invite the team’s interpretation of its current maturity and discuss whether differing expectations could cause conflict or disengagement.
  • Discuss where trust limits autonomy or delegation and what could help build that trust.
  • Identify a 15% solution: a small, achievable next step towards the team’s chosen growth goal.
  • Use delegation poker on a few real decisions or create a delegation board to make decision levels visible (Delegation Poker is covered in session 4).
  • Explore another agile team maturity model with the team and discuss what it reveals about growth opportunities.
  • Connect the proposed growth to the team’s reasons for becoming more agile.
→ Reflected on at the start of Module 4: Practise delegation

Session 4 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

Practise delegation

Module 4

Facilitated reflection: Enabling Agile maturity · Immersive only

Facilitated reflection: Enabling Agile maturity

Learn a new concept

Practise delegation with three cases on rewards, team delivery and personal development, using Delegation Poker to discuss where each decision should sit as a team matures.

Outcome-based assignment: Changing a leadership constraint · Immersive only

Facilitate a discussion about a constraint that affects a team’s ability to reach its goal. With the people who own or experience it, identify one leadership activity to start, develop or stop within your authority. State what you expect to change and what you will observe. Share the discussion’s results with the class.
For example, you might:
  • Ask who owns a decision boundary that currently delays the team and how it could be clarified.
  • Use the ecocycle to discuss leadership activities that may have outlived their purpose (Ecocycle Planning is covered in session 8).
  • Identify a small change you can make or sponsor without assuming authority you do not have.
  • Ask those affected what they expect to notice if the change helps, and what else might explain the result.
→ Reflected on at the start of Module 5: Lead and develop people

Session 5 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

Lead and develop people

Module 5

Facilitated reflection: Changing a leadership constraint · Immersive only

Facilitated reflection: Changing a leadership constraint

Learn a new concept

Explore servant and situational leadership through a leadership story and three scenes from the running case study (The Crisis, The Leaving and The Right People), with How Do We Hire Agilists? to examine how leaders support growth, respond to change and help teams develop.

Outcome-based assignment: Creating an Agile Organization · Immersive only

Create a vision of how your organisation could better support agility. Identify the conditions that would need to change, first steps towards that vision and major risks that could endanger the initiative. Discuss the vision with relevant colleagues and bring their perspectives back to the class.
For example, you might:
  • Discuss organisational hindrances to agility with colleagues, then identify a first step towards reducing one.
  • Explore how company values support an agile mindset and whether those values are shared in practice.
  • Compare team objectives with organisational goals and values; improve a misaligned objective with colleagues.
  • Draft a revised hiring process that involves the team and recognises diverse perspectives and shared values.
  • Discuss the characteristics of a successful team, identify a gap and agree a small step to improve its conditions.
→ Reflected on at the start of Module 6: Build shared direction

Session 6 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

Build shared direction

Module 6

Facilitated reflection: Creating an Agile Organization · Immersive only

Facilitated reflection: Creating an Agile Organization

Learn a new concept

Explore personal, team and tested values, and use Card Sorting and Organisation Goals to connect what people value with goals that guide decisions and make the intended outcome clear.

Outcome-based assignment: Goals that guide decisions · Immersive only

Facilitate a discussion about one live goal with a decision owner you can reach and the people affected by it. Identify the value the goal is meant to create, a decision it should guide and any differing interpretations. Share what you learned with the class.
For example, you might:
  • Ask people in different roles what the same goal means to them and compare their answers.
  • Examine a recent decision to see whether the goal helped people choose what to do.
  • Discuss whether the goal describes a valuable outcome or mainly an activity or output.
  • Identify a small clarification that the decision owner and affected people could agree on.
→ Reflected on at the start of Module 7: Measure progress towards value

Session 7 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

Measure progress towards value

Module 7

Facilitated reflection: Goals that guide decisions · Immersive only

Facilitated reflection: Goals that guide decisions

Learn a new concept

Examine Measuring Agile Progress, the impact of metrics and what current measures reveal. Consider how measures mature from activity and output towards outcomes and impact, use an Evidence-Based Management opportunity case, and choose or refine measures that inform the next decision.

Outcome-based assignment: Metrics that help with goals · Immersive only

Make at least one agreed change to a measure used by a team or the organisation, either adding or removing a measure. Compare the intended effect with what you actually observe and bring that comparison back to the class. Where you cannot change the measure yourself, work with the person who owns it.
For example, you might:
  • Use Evidence-Based Management’s four Key Value Areas to find a gap in the measures currently used.
  • Use the metrics list shared during class to discuss benefits and risks, then agree one measure to introduce or stop using.
  • Research OKRs, three horizons or another model to check whether measures cover relevant short- and long-term goals.
  • Use a recent impediment to identify a measure that could make improvement visible beyond activity or resource use.
  • Consider which measures show value from growing agility and which might obstruct the team’s development.
  • Compare measures for short- and long-term goals before choosing the change.
→ Reflected on at the start of Module 8: Address the leadership challenge and close

Session 8 · 2h facilitated reflection + 2h new concept and practice · 10m break each hour

Address the leadership challenge and close

Module 8

Facilitated reflection: Metrics that help with goals · Immersive only

Facilitated reflection: Metrics that help with goals

Learn a new concept

Examine leadership challenges in a hybrid world, then use Ecocycle Planning, a Liberating Structure for deciding which activities to start, develop or stop, as the main closing exercise. Choose a start or stop action with 25/10 Crowd Sourcing, another Liberating Structure, draw together the leader’s focus, close the case study with The Meet-Up and check out with a plan to inspect what happens next.

Outcome-based assignment: Continuing leadership practice · Immersive only

Choose a leadership decision you will revisit after the course. Discuss the next step with the people who should participate, agree when to inspect what happens and identify what might cause you to adjust the decision. Use the plan in your own work.
For example, you might:
  • Agree a date to review a leadership change with the people affected by it.
  • Record what you expect to observe and what other factors could influence the result.
  • Revisit a decision about delegation, goals or measures and ask whether it still supports the team’s needs.
  • Identify who can help continue the conversation when the course has ended.
→ Reflected on at the start of Catchup & After

Catchup & After · Immersive only

Catchup & After

Facilitated reflection: Continuing leadership practice

Facilitated reflection: Continuing leadership practice

Two weeks after completion, participants are invited to join a follow-up catch-up session designed to address any remaining questions, ideas, or challenges that have emerged since the training. This session provides an opportunity to reflect on your experiences applying the concepts learned in the course, share insights, and receive additional support.

* Assignments are part of our Immersive Training Programs, encouraging participants to apply their learning practically between sessions for a more hands-on experience.

What people who took this course said

Martin was an excellent coach and delivered this content in an easy to follow way.

Sean Morris Attended

Well structured interactive and relevant - enjoyed the insight and left with some great reference material

Peter Gee Attended

Excellent training tailored to our business (Professional Services)

Martin is a very experienced and charismatic trainer. He made sure everyone was comfortable and could participate in the course. The pace of the sessions was just right for me and I learned a lot in quite a short period of time. We'd worked with Martin before and he was able to adapt the sessions to our particular business problems; howver the material has relevence to anyone using Scrum for delivering software projects. I'd highly recommend the course and Martin as a trainer.

Mr Burnham Attended

Awesome experience. The course was filled with so many real-life case studies and examples. I really liked the pace of the course. Martin and Russel were complementing each other which made the class very engaging and fun, which was really important if you are attending the class after a full day job.

Mr Gautam Attended · co-delivered with Russell Miller

Insightful and Engaging Agile Leadership Class

The class gives a great perspective on being an Agile Leader. It was very insightful, interesting and engaging. Martin and Russells' vast knowledge was shared with students easily.

Nchimunya Kabunda Attended · co-delivered with Russell Miller

Awesome class

Really eye opening, informative and engaging.

David Hinshelwood Attended · co-delivered with Russell Miller

Great class and enjoyed the conversations. The team really took to the personal situational talk and the trainers were able to not only keep us engaged but make it so much fun.

Ryan Lowe Attended · co-delivered with Jim Sammons

PAL-e : a valuable class to start the agile evolution

I just experienced the power of Martin Hinshelwood & Jim Sammons during a PAL-e private training class. As a leader within an organization that is about to begin an agile evolution, I'll be honest - I was skeptical that our group would get much out of this training session; however, I was proven wrong after the first day. So much so that this class and its' content is now referenced in many of our other leadership meetings. Martin & Jim provided just the right amount of facilitation and guidance to help our group to open up and dig into topics that had been 'floating on the surface'. Our team knows we have a long road a head of us, but having the skills from the PAL-e class in our pockets makes the weight that we have to carry as leaders feel like less.

Lisa Attended · co-delivered with Jim Sammons

I liked the training and Martin made it even more insightful, thank you very much, looking forward to continuing this inspirational journey with agile practices I have learned.

Karina Jarikbayeva Attended

Enjoyed the PALe class very much!

Enjoyed the PALe class very much. The content is very relevant to the situation many current companies are in, and it gives take aways that we can go and use in practice. Martin as a trainer is a great faciliator and story teller, giving real practical examples from his experience. My fellow participants were great to work with when we did group activities, and though we did the course remotely the collaboration tools did allow us to experience it just as it would have been in an physical environment (or maybe even better).

GC Attended

Good exchange on the different dimensions of (agile) leadership + interesting case studies. Martin did an awesome job guiding us through the course and relating our learnings to his personal experience and expertise.

Heiko Schroeder Attended

Course content and tutor fantastic - shame about the co-ordinator (QA), had to visit 4 separate buildings prior to actually reaching the classroom

Leanne Burrows Attended

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