Advanced Certificate in Agile Leadership

Purpose

The Advanced Certificate in Agile Leadership is the first step on the higher education learning ladder that is designed to provide learners with foundations on which they can build a successful and fruitful career in the rapidly changing Fourth Industrial Revolution. It has a distinct focus on agility, digital transformation and other themes of critical concern in the business environment. The qualification has been constructed to meet the skills demand identified within the business environment, thus maximising relevance for learners.

The purpose of this qualification is to develop an informed understanding of the forces driving disruption in the 21st Century. The qualification offers learners the opportunity to understand the impact of disruption and digital transformation and provides them with the skills and knowledge to lead organisations and teams in an agile manner during times of rapid change. They will apply specialised procedures or techniques and develop an understanding of the importance of their problem-solving and critical-thinking strategies.

Learners will gather, evaluate and utilise information from a range of information sources employed in the agile leadership field, including industry research and publications relevant to the field of study and level of work. They will develop an understanding of agile leadership including the different forces driving disruption and their organisational interrelationships.

The qualification requires learners to communicate verbally and produce written text during learning and assessment tasks and in addressing workplace-based case studies in the interest of building problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Opportunities for self-evaluation, as well as guidelines and tools to implement appropriate action to manage their learning and promote the learning of others, are offered throughout the qualification. Where applicable, collaboration with, and responsibility for, the work of team members is integrated into the curriculum.

Rationale

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is strongly reshaping society. It has the potential to offer more inclusive economic growth, social innovation, development, and human well-being through technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things. Future leaders need to be intimately familiar with coding and technologies such as AI, Robotics, Big data, and other advanced analytics.

Qualifications need to be aligned to the new skills demands that businesses are facing.

Although the institution's offerings have historically been occupational in nature (NQF Levels 5, 6 and 7), supported by a range of skills programmes, it has become evident to the institution that, in order to provide an integrated learning pathway and more importantly to develop the cognitive and practical skill-sets of learners to enhance their employability in the 21st Century, it is important to also offer higher education qualifications that meet the demands of businesses operating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The intent is therefore to enable seamless articulation between the current occupational offering and higher education offering, as envisaged in the White Paper (post-school education, 2013). This should enable career progression, professional development and building a talent pipeline to contribute towards global competitiveness in accordance with the twelve pillars of the World Economic Forum (2019).

The proposed Advanced Certificate in Agile Leadership is viewed as the first additional step in the learning pathway that the institution offers to its existing learner body: it aims to provide increased access to higher education, which should empower learners to function and progress in the volatile, ever-changing digital environment, equipping them with the required agile leadership skills to effectively lead their organisations in the 21st Century.

The qualification was developed in response to a need identified in consultation with various business industries and based on a 'gap' identified in suitable higher education qualifications at this level, facilitating for the desired skills required by employees in the 21st Century, strongly driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Employees are not only required to have strong leadership skills and understand digital transformation and the impact thereof, but they also need to understand how to quickly adapt (to be agile) to these changes and lead their organisations and teams through the 'ever-changing digital environment'.

This qualification is therefore seen as an ideal Higher Education qualification for supervisory, middle- to senior management, in any business environment who wish to obtain Agile Leadership Skills in the 21st Century. The qualification also introduces the learners to the knowledge and skills required to reshape society and contribute to economic growth. The qualification will prepare learners for further learning in agile leadership and digital transformation or related areas of study.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

RPL for exemption for access

The institution's RPL and CAT policy allows for RPL for access, as well as exemption, in line with the CHE's policy in this regard.

RPL applicants are evaluated against the entry requirements in question, and if they meet the RPL requirements they will be required to write an RPL assessment, for which they are required to achieve at least 50% to gain access to the programme. No more than 10% of learners will be allowed RPL access to a particular programme.

RPL for exemption of modules

RPL for exemption is applicable to qualifications within the HEQF. Applicants who meet the entry criteria of a programme, and who believe that they have acquired the relevant knowledge and experience for a particular module/s through prior experience or other forms of learning, may apply for exemption of those modules through RPL. This is not applicable to a full qualification but for specific modules only. Applicants will be required to successfully complete an RPL assessment and need to obtain a minimum of 50% to be exempted from a particular module.

Entry Requirements

The minimum entry requirement for this qualification is

• Higher Certificate in Management and Leadership, NQF Level 5.

Or

• Higher Certificate in Community Development and Leadership, NQF Level 5.

Or

• Higher Certificate in the related field, NQF level 5.

Or

• Occupational Certificate in Management Assistant, NQF Level 5.

This qualification consists of the following compulsory and elective modules at National Qualifications Framework Level 6 totalling 120 Credits.

Compulsory Modules, NQF Level 6, 100 Credits.

• Agile Leadership, 20 Credits.
• Agile Strategy Management, 20 Credits.
• Leading Agile Organisations, 20 Credits.
• Design Thinking, 20 Credits.
• Customer Experience, 20 Credits.

Elective Modules, NQF Level 6, totalling 20 Credits (Select 2 modules)

• FinTech, 10 Credits.
• Leading Agile Teams, 10 Credits.
• Financial Accounting, 10 Credits.
• Business Acumen for Leaders, 10 Credits.

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the role that leaders play in organisational transformation and apply knowledge of agile leadership within an organisational transformation context.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the impact of continuous disruption and digital transformation on the strategy of an organisation.
3. Identify and evaluate key challenges that leaders are facing in a disruptive world and demonstrate the ability to apply an agile mind to lead organisations effectively through times of disruption.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of design thinking as an iterative process to redefine and solve problems within an organisational transformation context.
5. Evaluate the impact that continuous digital transformation has on customer experience and identify strategies to improve customer experience within an organisational transformation context.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 1

• Explain the importance of agile leadership in the context of continuous disruption and digital transformation within an organisation.
• Explain the role of an agile leader within an organisational context.
• Identify and discuss the characteristics of an agile leader.
• Discuss how self-awareness can contribute to effective leadership.
• Formulate strategies for the development of agile leaders within an organisation.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 2

• Evaluate the strategy of an organisation within the context of disruption and digital transformation.
• Discuss the economic essentials required for a successful agile strategy within the context of disruption and digital transformation.
• Create an adaptive balanced scorecard within an organisational context.
• Create an agile strategy within the context of disruption and digital transformation.
• Discuss how collaborative strategy maps and scorecards contribute to the development of sustainable value within an organisational context.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 3

• Discuss the core concepts of organisational agility.
• Identify the key trends of digital transformation and discuss the impact that they have within an organisational context.
• Explain the importance of innovation in the context of disruption and digital transformation.
• Discuss ways in which leaders can create an innovative entrepreneurial culture.
• Design agile organisational structures to support continuous disruption.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 4

• Explain the principles of design thinking.
• Discuss the use of design thinking in digital transformation.
• Explain the process of design thinking and the implementation process of design thinking.
• Evaluate the role that agility plays in the design thinking process.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 5

• Discuss the impact that continuous digital transformation has on customer experience.
• Design a digitally transformed customer experience strategy.
• Identify and discuss ways to create a customer-centric culture in the context of digital transformation.
• Discuss methods that can be used to personalise customer experience across different segments.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT

The assessment strategy has been designed to apply the principles of programmatic assessment. Every assessment is seen as an individual data point and a series of assessments throughout the qualification results in multiple data points. This information is optimally used as feedback to the learner, to improve the validity and reliability of assessment decisions and to inform improvement to the curriculum. Frequent assessment moments throughout the course of the qualification also support the institution's approach to assessment for learning.

To ensure constructive alignment of assessment tasks or methods with both the learning outcomes and the learning activities/methods, a variety of appropriate assessment tasks are included in the assessment design. Assessment tasks are carefully chosen to support the achievement of the intended learning outcomes, and feedback forms an integral part of the assessment design.

Work-integrated learning is assessed throughout the programme by means of application assignments. These assignments encourage the application of standard methods, procedures, and techniques to solve defined, routine and new problems within a familiar context. It also provides learners with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the core concepts and principles related to the subject matter and the impact of their chosen problem-solving strategies.

Formative Assessment

• Practice quiz.
• Group interactive activities.
• Application-based exercises.
• Immediate - during support workshops. Formative (graded) 30%. Multiple choice and true/false (online assessment) Immediate feedback obtained - graded.
• Short case study/application based.

Summative Assessment

• Work-based.
• Application assignment.
• Application-based questions based on workplace scenarios.