Agile Licensing

My team and I have started licensing the Management 3.0 course. And so I have been wondering about this thing called a “license”.

li·cense

[lahy-suh ns] Show IPA noun, verb, -censed, -cens·ing

noun

formal permission from a governmental or other constituted authority to do something, as to carry on some business or profession.

Traditional Management

The standard approach to licensing is that someone with authority wants to delegate something to someone else who does not have authority. And that second one needs formal permission from the first one to do the delegated work.

That sounds a lot like traditional management, doesn’t it?

That’s why my team and I decided to come up with an Agile form of licensing: we decided to trust people. Anyone can get a license to give Management 3.0 courses. There’s no qualification process. No intensive and very expensive train-the-trainer requirements. And no exclusivity. We are quite sure that self-organizing trainers in the Agile community can come up with much better solutions for preparations, quality, and market segmentation. And my team and I will help, wherever we can.

Where’s the Improvement?

There are of course a few constraints we need to put in place. We believe the Management 3.0 course method and materials are good, as should be the course itself. So the first constraint is that licensed trainers have to keep their stakeholders happy: students, training companies, fellow trainers, and of course… us. We check evaluations, and we chat with people. If somebody screws up, we will know. And then our reply will be: how can we help you do better next time?

The second constraint is that we kindly ask the trainers to pay a small fee for our work involved in developing and distributing courseware materials, and providing our services. We call them the subscription fee (once per year) and the license fee (once per course). They are much lower than the fees some alliances and consortiums charge for their services. But Nadira needs to eat, and Erik needs his drinks, and I need to fill my recently extended book case.

Oh, and the third constraint is that any potential Management 3.0 trainer should attend the course at least once. It just seems a sensible thing to ask.

And that’s all there is to it!

So although licensing sounds a bit like old management, our new interpretation of the word definitely isn’t. All you have to do is get started and keep your stakeholders happy. And don’t lose the trust we have in you. 🙂

p.s. Did you know already 11 trainers have applied, and that the first courses (not by me) are already scheduled in Belgium, Switzerland and Brazil?