How Self-Paced Agile Learning Contributes to a Non-Profit’s Project Success

When Paul Anderson started working at Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) five years ago, the organization loosely followed a waterfall-based method of project management. It wasn’t working.

Projects were delayed over and over again. By the time they were delivered, either the organization had moved on or the final product had strayed so far from the original intent that no one was happy.

Coming in as the Executive VP of Technology, Paul knew it didn’t have to be this way. “I’m a huge agile advocate…so I began thinking through and exploring what possibilities we could look at,” Paul said.

Agile Training for Everyone

Paul started by sending a few project managers to a Certified Scrum Master course. While the course was relevant for that specific role, Paul knew it wasn’t applicable for most other people at the organization. Executives, generalists, and other team members needed a broader overview and a shared language for talking about agile ways of working.

Paul turned to KaiRise, an ICAgile Member Organization that offered a self-paced Agile Fundamentals course.

The Benefits of a Self-Paced Course

In Paul’s experience, a traditional classroom experience is the gold standard for learning. “But that being said, it’s not practical for 98% of people,” he added. In today’s busy world, with hybrid work schedules and employees juggling multiple projects at once, self-paced online learning just worked better. There was no need to coordinate across everyone’s schedules, and employees could learn at their own pace.

The modular set-up of the self-paced course also allowed FCA employees to customize their learning. Team members who wanted to earn their certification completed the entire course, but executives, in particular, were able to fit a few modules into their busy schedules. “If we had an executive who just wanted an orientation to agile, we could pull out a couple modules for them,” said Paul. “We had that flexibility, and we really liked that aspect of it.”

With lifetime access to the course, FCA employees can refer back to specific modules as needed. This microlearning approach makes it easy for someone to review a 10-minute module on sprint planning before joining a planning session.

The Organizational Impact of Agile Learning

Giving employees at all levels a common language and common understanding of agile has had a profound impact on FCA’s project delivery. Teams have deployed new league management software and developed a mobile app for customers. In contrast to the projects that were delivered under the waterfall methodology, these projects were released on time and met both users’ and stakeholders’ needs. The projects where all team members were trained in the KaiRise Agile Fundamentals course “just worked,” said Paul.

Paul has also seen a great cultural benefit from agile learning. Morale is high across the teams that have taken Agile Fundamentals because they have a focus and they are collaborating on something important. “In this culture of shallow work and busyness, when you can get a team focused on delivering something significant of value, there’s a deep satisfaction that comes from that,” he said.

What’s Next

The Agile Fundamentals course is already included in the onboarding for new hires joining FCA’s tech team, but Paul would also like to see the organization continue to grow its agile capabilities. “When I think about taking it to the next level…it’s getting really good and coaching up specific roles and functions within the agile space,” he said.

Luckily, ICAgile offers a broad range of certification courses, which makes it easy for people to build skills in a specific domain.