What is that actually,… an agile druid?
Well, the thought and „birth“ of this name comes from my research on knowledge management in the agile environment. The final idea came after a conversation with Benno Löffler, Managing Director of Vollmer & Scheffczyk, former supervisor of my Master’s thesis and a tremendous inspiration for me personally.
During a cosy conversation we got to talking,… Where is the knowledge actually in an agile organisation? Where the department head and management used to be the „repository“ for it, it is now distributed among many heads. That’s good and should be so,… but how can I, as an entrepreneur, secure this often market-relevant knowledge? How can I develop it? How can I identify gaps and, derived from them, the need for research?
And this is the birth of the „Agile Druid“. The term Druid comes from the Celtic and stands for priest; teacher and healer,… or in short, for a lot of knowledge. Even if druids kept their knowledge strictly secret and even refrained from keeping records to avoid loss, I assume that they also had a great urge for more knowledge. In combination with agile, an agile druid is supposed to be something like an agile coach…. here not for the methodology but for knowledge. He should suggest how valuable knowledge is,… how knowledge is archived and found again or developed. At the same time, he is a contact person and advisor, linking fields of knowledge and establishing cross-connections. In short, he keeps knowledge flowing and does not let it dry up.
Furthermore, it would also be conceivable that agile druids help to protect internal knowledge. With all the dynamics, the fast exchange and so on,… companies need to keep their internals internal. So an agile knowledge protection officer 😉
So now you know where that comes from. That was the story. 🙂