projects by Dr. Arndt Pechstein

Client

AUDI AG 

year 

2017, 2018 and 2019

scope 

Design Thinking & Agile Certification Program

Description

The AUDI Future Class is a four-module training and certification program for team leads and managers to experience, learn and implement agile approaches like Design Thinking, Lean Startup, Kanban and Scrum in their organizational context. At the same time, participants work on concrete innovation case study and drive their implementation at AUDI. The AUDI Future Class is directly supported and patronized by two members of the board. Run three times over a time span of half a year each, we have certified more than 40 ‘AUDIans’, built up a change and alumni network with an engagement rate of >70% and empowered coaches to lead the agile transformation of a major section of the corporation.

“Vorsprung durch Technik“ is Audi’s motto. Living by these words means approaching rapid change proactively and asking questions like “how do you prepare a worldwide corporation for the challenges of its shifting industry?” As we say farewell to combustion engines which currently sustain the quality of life enjoyed by our generation, and those of the past, one of the most successful stories of German engineering, Audi, needs to reinvent itself while securing more than 80,000 employees’ jobs around the globe. The biggest challenge in Audi’s history still lies ahead. That’s why we equipped Audi’s out-of-the-box thinkers with new innovation methods, mindsets and approaches, so they could help the company adapt to the environmental and sociological challenges of the future, thus ensuring the company’s prolonged success and significance. Our Future Class training program brought together team leaders and management from all over the company and coached them to become pioneers and change agents that carry a new way of thinking into their departments. They can be ambassadors for a new way of thinking, add new voices to a long-established company culture, build on tradition, but also know when the time is right to challenge it.

We started off by using our Exponential Readiness Check, a human-centered evaluation tool which enables individuals and companies to assess their skills and identify what they are lacking. Based on comprehensive academic and field research, we have identified the 20 most relevant skillsets, frameworks and values needed to adapt to an exponentially changing world. Our Future Class participants mapped out their current strengths, as well as areas that still needed improvement. Based on these results we offered four tailor-made modules to address these weaknesses, and bring out the potential in our participants.

Our in-depth approach meant that we trained and mentored our Future Class participants for half a year, using a tailored combination of Design Thinking, Exponential Thinking and other agile tools and methods in order to create the challenges given to the teams. We communicated closely with our partners at AUDI and listened to what they saw as their greatest hurdles, in this way, our workshops were not only an introduction to innovation, but also created applicable and pilotable solutions which will become the essence of long-lasting, viable change.

approaches used

Agile Transformation, Design Thinking, Exponential Organizations, Business Model generation, Coaching

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