Agile Coach, Trainer and Facilitator, Professional Scrum Trainer (PST), and Agile PRINCE Too
Having been a developer for quite a few years allowed me to experience how it was to be a team member surrounded by a traditional management. I was sure it could be done better, so I arrived in a role of Quality Officer.
“The telecom industry is a fast moving industry. Every day you have to make bold changes to be able to deliver new solutions and win the game of competition. This is why, at BASE Company, we decided nine months ago, to draw a new future: Agile. Agile is a new way of working which will help us to closely involve our customers in everything we do – better understand their needs – to better respond to their wishes. It’s working in small teams who are responsible for themselves. It’s giving everyone a responsibility and the flexibility to achieve this goal. Thanks to the expertise of the Co-learning team, we were able to look back on our process, to change our mind-set and to involve everyone in a journey that will allow us to take on the challenges of tomorrow. This challenge is to design and to develop the world’s best telecom solutions.”
“Agile. In het begin leek het me de zoveelste “buzz”. Maar de passie van mijn Agile medewerkers en de eerste resultaten gaven me het vertrouwen om door te gaan. Agile was duidelijk meer dan “vallende post-its” die verhangen moesten worden. Het was een mindset. Een filosofie. En een vooruitgang.
Dus toch maar wat verder grasduinen. Oei. Daar komen mensen met yoga en “zen” op ons af. Niet echt mijn ding, de KPI’s daarvan zijn me niet altijd even duidelijk. Dus toch terug twijfel?
En toen kwam ook Jurgen. Zonder yoga. Hij gaf het enthousiasme een nieuws schwung, in gans het team. Hij bracht creativiteit die geen spielerei was, maar concrete resultaten opleverde. En meer nog, hij wou daar zelf nauwelijks de pluimen van krijgen, gunde het aan onze eigen “voortrekkers” en profileerde zich als een échte teamspeler. Niet van een extern team, maar van ons team.
Jurgen belichaamt dan ook het Agile werken waar ik wél in geloof. En geloof mij dan maar: daar word je sowieso al “zen” van.“
“The city of Kortrijk has made it a priority to stimulate greater citizen participation. We had held a large scale survey asking our citizens what they considered to be the policy priorities for the coming years in their street, neighborhood and city. The response was overwhelming and people wanted to somehow stay involved with the execution of these plans. That’s when Jurgen contacted us and introduced us to the brilliant concept of ‘Budget Games’. It’s an innovative way to involve citizens in policy making which Jurgen helped to produce and facilitate in Kortrijk. Together with Co-Learning we were the first to use it on the European continent.”
“Jürgen De Smet has given several on-site trainings to our Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Project and Product Managers. Building on his large experience of agile coaching, he was able to adapt every course to the needs of the audience, adding lots of interactivity to the trainings.
He also helped us to build up a high level prioritized product backlog to improve interaction between business and our agile teams”
“With the help of Co-learning we were able to step into Agile. Through extensive coaching and interactive session they helped us to think beyond the limited view of Agile and think beyond with a focus on the product and business. With a straightforward view, clear business acumen and honesty Jürgen, Thierry and Erik coached us on the journey. They also managed to identify the key people within the teams that want to contribute and take the team along. We’ve had a great kick-start with valuable learnings and guidance, and with those embedded it’s our turn to continue our journey.
I’ve also attended the Certified LeSS Practitioner training where Jürgen goes beyond the theory and principles adding a lot of experience and stories combined with practical exercises. An added value when going through your Agile transformation!”
“We contacted Co-Learning to design a teambuilding focussing on how to achieve a healthy teamspirit through a diversity of personalities and job content. The creative and innovative approach Co-Learning brought to our team resulted in the realisation of the added value of self reflection as a key cornerstone for work optimization.”
“The startup coaching retreat offers value to our startups especially because it addresses their current needs and operational challenges. The coaches from co-learning do an excellent job by asking the right questions, sharing their expertise and animating the discussion.”
“Thanks to unusual training methods and interactive team follow up, Co-learning gave us the necessary guidance to get started with Agile at the company level. Jürgen and Erik anticipated changes in the company and adapted their actions to keep the focus on the most valuable transformation needs.
Through their coaching, they teach even more than a methodology explained by very instructive real life examples, but a real way of thinking and behaving to maximize value.”
“The retreats hosted by Jürgen and Erik are the perfect occasion to exercise in a failsafe environment and to share experience around innovation, creativity, Agile and problems with some of the currently applied methods in management in general and software delivery. I’ve attended two GameStorming retreats and what I learned and practiced there has been successfully applied at our RealDolmen ALM team meetings. This was direct result from their effort.
I’ve also attended the Management 3.0 training by Jürgen and his experience during his career really adds value to the course content. A must follow for everyone in knowledge work.”
“We engaged co-learning to implement Scrum 3 years ago. Today when looking back at the past I am pretty sure that we would never have succeeded without engaging an Agile coach for a few months. He made us aware what Agile means and certainly that it doesn’t stop at IT’s door.
Today the whole company is on the same heartbeat which is great : groom it, score it, plan it, build it, review it, test it, release it, learn it, … technologic ;-). New development team members are always impressed how we apply Scrum. Without an Agile coach we probably would have ended up with a daily stand-up.
During the years we have engaged co-learning also for user story mapping workshops, value mapping workshops, vision roadmaps where business and IT are participating side by side not living a part anymore in their own silo.“
“We were very pleased with the participatory specialists from Co-learning.be who did an excellent job engaging the crowd through varied methods. Rather than repeating the same techniques over and over, they mixed it up so that the crowd would not be dulled by repeated exercises – and this really helped engage all of our participants throughout a long and productive day. Thanks, Jurgen and Pieter!”
“Jurgen organized a few retreats in our company to improve our game-storming skills. Thanks to the professional feedback and input we obtained some great insights. Learning by doing showed us what important things to focus on in the execution. We all gained some self-confidence and background. Finally, Jurgen showed us how to combine solid concentration with fun parts.”
“As a provider of expert services in the area of embedded software, TASS Technology Solutions employs over 200 highly educated engineers. Providing the high-quality training that all these hungry brains desire is truly a challenge. Fortunately, sometimes you get in contact with a partner who anticipates your needs and delivers exactly what you expected or more. This was the case with Jürgen and Erik of Co-learning, who did a series of training sessions on Agile and Scrum that really impressed every participant. Exciting, dynamic, hands-on and based on heaps of real-life expertise… Perfect!”
