Featured Member: Superheroes Academy

Dive into the coaching and programs offered by Superheroes Academy and you’ll learn that they’re not in the business of being superheroes, but helping foster the powers an organization needs to have superheroes of their own.

With roots in agile methods and practices with the goal of helping individuals and organizations improve through agility, Superheroes Academy provides methods to tackle some of the common sets of challenges that many organizations face. Whether they are expanding knowledge around aspects of leadership such as maturity, development, or team building, Superheroes Academy zeroes in on improving relationship systems, company culture, and helping companies meet their business objectives through agile practices.

“We really saw the need for helping organizations and a lot of it [stems from] our passion around agility and how it can really improve organizations in terms of their own performance as well as the welfare of work and life experiences of employees,” says co-founder Brock Argue.

The superpower of agility

Formed as a partnership in 2016, software developers Erkan Kadir and Brock Argue initially offered coaching classes in their free time around their regular work hours, eventually transitioning to weekends before expanding their coaching to a full-time operation. Inspired by sitting in on a colleague’s leadership training over Zoom, Brock explains how this experience opened the door to ideas of bringing his own coaching approach into action.

“I immediately called Erkan afterward and said, ‘we could totally do this.’ That’s when we started hosting a mentoring program for aspiring coaches. We had one person from Europe join the first one, and that’s how we got started.”

With the company name arising from a randomly available website URL and a mutual love of superhero lore, Erkan and Brock have used the likeness of superheroes to connect their passion with companies looking to harness the superpower of agility.

Now offering organizations the chance to work with some of the most highly certified agilists and agile coaches in the world, Superheroes also provides leadership development services as well as expertise from individuals who are certified at the guide level with Scrum Alliance.

A sustainable approach

As Superheroes Academy works to provide opportunities for learning and personal growth, the company also offers a fresh approach for people to progress in their professional lives. Whether through leadership maturity or relationship coaching, Superheroes provides methods of development that are agile and ultimately sustainable.

“We take an approach of sustainability with whoever we’re working with,” says Erkan. “We basically try and work ourselves out of a job. Agility is all about self-organization and when we come in, we work in a way that decreases dependence on us so that companies can keep doing what it is they want to do after we leave, and we have programs specifically designed at every level of that.”

Having trained over 2,000 students in their public agile certification classes, Superheroes has also been able to congregate an impressive online community. This vibrant community serves as a support network and resource hub for agile practitioners around the globe.

“We have an online community of global leaders and agile practitioners that’s about 1,000 strong right now, which is pretty cool. Shortly before 2024, we put partnerships in place with the biggest agile certification bodies globally,” says Erkan.

A local community lens

Looking to the future, Erkan and Brock are eager to spend more time focusing on the local community and helping local organizations meet their goals by improving their leadership and relationship systems.

“Agility in Calgary and Alberta isn’t necessarily at the same place or standard that it is in other places that we’ve been, so we really want to spend some time focusing on our local community and helping instill some of those values and practices here,” says Brock.

Interested in becoming part of Alberta’s story when it comes to enhancing leadership, Superheroes continues to witness firsthand how agile methods have bettered the welfare of not just organizations, but the lives of employees. Their commitment to local impact reflects their broader mission to foster agility at every level.

“I love when you’re working with a team or an individual and you’re working through a problem they have, and they get to that point where it clicks and they get it,” says Brock. “That’s exciting to me and I enjoy seeing that happen—those light bulb moments.”

For more information, visit superheroes.academy.