• Agile Coach

INTERVIEW with Adrie Dolman: Energetic, Ambitious and Future-Focused!

Speaker. Trainer. Writer. Agile Leadership Coach. Veluwe native … Adrie Dolman: someone who always keeps moving on multiple playing fields. Sometimes he looks reflectively over his shoulder at the road travelled, but his gaze is particularly focused on the future. This forms a clear vision of the future. “Look at the world, because that’s what you have to work with. Only then will you get a holistic vision.”

Starting point
The beginning of an impressive career along Database Marketing, CRM systems, a position as Marketing Director, interims at ACHMEA and university studies in Change and Organizational Management. All contribute to the fact that today he moves forward as ‘MSc Agile Transition & Agile Marketing’. A true specialist in autonomous value generating units, or Agile! “The agile organization is a holistic system in which the organization can flourish. You deliver relevant value for stakeholders and secure yourself a place in the oh-so-mobile marketplace. ” But how did he first encounter terms like Agile and holistic thinking?

Pleased to meet
Adrie shakes hands with Cesario Ramos, an acclaimed Agile Management Coach. Pretty soon Agile Management is a logical topic of conversation. Together they get to work and energetically complete many successful projects. Among other things, they ensure that the Innovation Games is offered as a training course in the Netherlands. These games enable companies to better understand their customers, make sharp strategic choices and optimize sales and service. Something to be proud of!

Reporting greed vs. Agile dialogues
“Managers often want reports, also sounds logical right?” They are accountable upwards in hierarchical organizations. There is then almost always green reporting. “Managers report that their little garden looks brilliant. That things can go wrong no longer seems to be an option.” People are fighting under the same banner, but reports sometimes seem to be for “the outside world. “As a result, at the end of the year, the numbers don’t add up and this leads to reorganization, cuts and redundancies.” Agile teams take away that reporting anxiety. Everything that needs to be done, or has already been done and learned, is on the wall. And they have an open dialogue about it with everyone involved. Total transparency in people work! Agile managers and teams no longer hold each other hostage with reports and polite tea parties; instead, they truly work together again in the agile organization.

“Nokia was once the undisputed leader in telephony, but was too close to technology and less close to people.”

Future direction
Adrie also has ambitions in project development. “In the future, I would like to develop apartment complexes in a Lean and Agile way. Offering the user a home, rather than a house. Apartments that produce more energy than they use and that move with each stage of life.” The world of project development, according to Adrie, is a slow and traditional world. “And that is precisely where the meaningful opportunity lies.” He has ambition in diversity, but the core business remains coaching managers in Agile organizations. “I find this fascinating, genuinely engaging and it’s never-ending for me. I could grow into this for another 50 years if it were up to me” It all seems so different, but there is a common denominator: growth and future-proofing!