SCHEDULED AGILE COURSES

Duration: 2 days

Audience:

• Project managers, people managers, developers, leads, testers, business analysts, etc.
• Teams wanting a deep look into Scrum and why it works

Description:

This course is an excellent way to train up your entire team on Scrum. The course is a fast-paced participative 2-day immersion in Scrum. The course begins by discussing the origins of Scrum, market uptake, and a conceptual view of the methodology. The underlying philosophies of Scrum and Agile are covered in detail including an engaged customer, time-boxing, iterative development, sashimi, collaboration, command & control versus self-organization, trust, transparency, inspect & adapt, and just-in-time planning. The Scrum framework and the Scrum iteration (sprint) are then described using hands-on exercises which allow the attendee to experience how Scrum truly works. Changing requirements and how to manage these using Scrum is presented. All Scrum personnel roles such as Scrum Master, Product Owner, Chickens & Pigs, development team, and customer are described. The artifacts of Scrum are described – product backlog, sprint backlog, burndown chart, and the potentially shippable product increment. Then, the Scrum meetings are described in detail – sprint planning meeting, daily standups, sprint reviews, and sprint reflection. Additional topics are covered such as Scrum scalability, ScrumBut, managing dependencies with Scrum, managing technical debt with Scrum, and the relation of User Stories to Scrum.

The student’s understanding of Scrum is intensified with collaborative participation in many exercises emulating aspects of the entire Scrum framework. The class ends by putting it all together with a full lifecycle project exercise using Scrum.

Note: this course is not a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) course. Instead, it covers all aspects and roles of Scrum for the entire team. The CSM course focuses solely on the ScrumMaster role, while this course explains all roles and responsibilities for the entire Scrum team.

Upon completion of the course, the attendee will be ready to implement the Scrum agile method in his/her organization with confidence.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Customer proxies, product managers, people managers, developers, testers, business analysts, leads
• Teams seeking a better way to elicit and clarify requirements

Description:

Eliciting and managing project requirements is often challenging for product owners and development teams. This course is a comprehensive 1-day immersion into a proven lightweight Agile technique of managing requirements – the User Story. Upon completion, attendees will be ready to introduce or improve their use of User Stories as an excellent means of managing requirements with agility.

User stories are inexpensive, low fidelity, simple, and brief descriptions of functionality from the user’s point of view. The promise of User Stories is that development teams can begin writing and demonstrating working code very early in the project lifecycle. The course covers important topics such as who develops the User Stories, how to find User Stories, how to create User Stories, good versus bad User Stories, how to estimate User Stories, how to measure development team velocity, how User Stories fit into the project lifecycle, managing requirement changes using User Stories, and others.

The course ends with an introspective discussion of the audience’s current challenges and how User Stories can help improve your ability to impact the bottom line. The course is participatory and uses many exercises to instill a deep understanding of how to find, create, manage, track, estimate, and derive velocity of User Stories.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Product managers, people managers, developers, testers
• Teams considering both agile methods and offshore outsourcing

Description:

Teams are migrating to agile methods as a way to develop software faster and with higher quality. Many agile purists believe that agility and outsourcing are contradictory in nature. But the CEO and CFO would like both - an agile development team delivering tangible business value and the cost reductions associated with offshore outsourcing. This course covers the difficult topic of how to establish a successful agile development team located in different geographical regions. Best practices, collaboration tools, tips and techniques, success stories, failures, and what to avoid are all covered in this detailed review based on the presenter's 10+ years of experience leading agile teams across an oceanic divide.

The class ends with an exercise discussing your company's current plans for agile methods and offshore outsourcing and how the techniques presented can be used to help remedy this enormous challenge. At the conclusion of this course, the attendees will have a repertoire of techniques to utilize in pursuit of successful harmony between agile methods and offshore outsourcing.

Duration: 2 days

Audience:

• Developers, testers, product managers, people managers, executives, etc.
• Teams new to agile or considering agile product development

Description:

This course provides a foundational understanding of what Agile is all about. The course begins with a detailed look into well known software development lifecycle methods. Then, the course introduces Agile Methods as a better way to build software. Empirical data and case studies are used to show the business case for Agile. The Agile Manifesto and agile practices are explored to help the student understand the philosophical underpinnings of this approach and how it is radically different than before. Team exercises are used to experience the new approach firsthand.

Scrum is presented as an example of a popular agile framework. The actual methods of Scrum are described in detail – sprint planning meeting, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, sprint reflection, and sprint iteration. The artifacts of Scrum are described – product backlog, sprint backlog, burndown chart, and the potentially shippable product increment. Personnel roles such as Scrum Master, Product Owner, Chickens & Pigs, are described. Attendees will participate in a hands-on Scrum-based example project.

At the conclusion of the 2-day course, the attendees will be knowledgeable in Agile Methods and Scrum, ready to make roll-out decisions on organizational transformation.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Project managers, product managers, people managers, customer proxies, business analysts
• Teams about to begin agile development

Description:

The course covers specifically the role of the Product/Project Manager (PM) as the “product owner” in an agile environment. The Agile Product Owner has new and different responsibilities than the “classic PM”. The Agile Product Owner roles, responsibilities, interactions, and mindset changes are covered in detail.

Product owner roles as project lead, customer liaison, vision creator, requirements developer, backlog manager, release planner, and valued team member are described. The Product Owner responsibilities are then mapped into these roles. The major responsibilities of the Product Owner are described and reinforced through participative learning.

The major Product Owner responsibilities include understanding and supporting the Scrum framework, getting the development team started as quickly as possible, maintaining a good relationship with the ScrumMaster, engaging the customer, building the initial project plan, establishing the project vision, creating and trolling for user stories, building and managing the product backlog, prioritization of backlog items, managing inter-team dependencies, preparing for the sprint planning and sprint review meetings, participation in the sprint reflection meeting, role in the daily scrum, handling requirement changes, monitoring team velocity, using velocity in release planning, encouraging self-organization and collaboration, monitoring team status, and making the tough decisions.

The course ends with some real world analogies and an introspective look into your company’s Product Owner (project manager, product manager) role and potential improvements based on what you have learned. The class is extremely participatory as exercises are used to enhance deeper understanding.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Customer proxies, product managers, people managers, developers, testers, business analysts, leads
• Teams seeking a better way to elicit and clarify requirements

Description:

Eliciting and managing project requirements is often challenging for product owners and development teams. This course is a comprehensive 1-day immersion into a proven lightweight Agile technique of managing requirements – the User Story. Upon completion, attendees will be ready to introduce or improve their use of User Stories as an excellent means of managing requirements with agility.

User stories are inexpensive, low fidelity, simple, and brief descriptions of functionality from the user’s point of view. The promise of User Stories is that development teams can begin writing and demonstrating working code very early in the project lifecycle. The course covers important topics such as who develops the User Stories, how to find User Stories, how to create User Stories, good versus bad User Stories, how to estimate User Stories, how to measure development team velocity, how User Stories fit into the project lifecycle, managing requirement changes using User Stories, and others.

The course ends with an introspective discussion of the audience’s current challenges and how User Stories can help improve your ability to impact the bottom line. The course is participatory and uses many exercises to instill a deep understanding of how to find, create, manage, track, estimate, and derive velocity of User Stories.

Duration: 2 days

Audience:

• Project managers, people managers, developers, leads, testers, business analysts, etc.
• Teams wanting a deep look into Scrum and why it works

Description:

This course is an excellent way to train up your entire team on Scrum. The course is a fast-paced participative 2-day immersion in Scrum. The course begins by discussing the origins of Scrum, market uptake, and a conceptual view of the methodology. The underlying philosophies of Scrum and Agile are covered in detail including an engaged customer, time-boxing, iterative development, sashimi, collaboration, command & control versus self-organization, trust, transparency, inspect & adapt, and just-in-time planning. The Scrum framework and the Scrum iteration (sprint) are then described using hands-on exercises which allow the attendee to experience how Scrum truly works. Changing requirements and how to manage these using Scrum is presented. All Scrum personnel roles such as Scrum Master, Product Owner, Chickens & Pigs, development team, and customer are described. The artifacts of Scrum are described – product backlog, sprint backlog, burndown chart, and the potentially shippable product increment. Then, the Scrum meetings are described in detail – sprint planning meeting, daily standups, sprint reviews, and sprint reflection. Additional topics are covered such as Scrum scalability, ScrumBut, managing dependencies with Scrum, managing technical debt with Scrum, and the relation of User Stories to Scrum.

The student’s understanding of Scrum is intensified with collaborative participation in many exercises emulating aspects of the entire Scrum framework. The class ends by putting it all together with a full lifecycle project exercise using Scrum.

Note: this course is not a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) course. Instead, it covers all aspects and roles of Scrum for the entire team. The CSM course focuses solely on the ScrumMaster role, while this course explains all roles and responsibilities for the entire Scrum team.

Upon completion of the course, the attendee will be ready to implement the Scrum agile method in his/her organization with confidence.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Product managers, people managers, developers, testers
• Teams considering both agile methods and offshore outsourcing

Description:

Teams are migrating to agile methods as a way to develop software faster and with higher quality. Many agile purists believe that agility and outsourcing are contradictory in nature. But the CEO and CFO would like both - an agile development team delivering tangible business value and the cost reductions associated with offshore outsourcing. This course covers the difficult topic of how to establish a successful agile development team located in different geographical regions. Best practices, collaboration tools, tips and techniques, success stories, failures, and what to avoid are all covered in this detailed review based on the presenter's 10+ years of experience leading agile teams across an oceanic divide.

The class ends with an exercise discussing your company's current plans for agile methods and offshore outsourcing and how the techniques presented can be used to help remedy this enormous challenge. At the conclusion of this course, the attendees will have a repertoire of techniques to utilize in pursuit of successful harmony between agile methods and offshore outsourcing.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Project managers, product managers, people managers, customer proxies, business analysts
• Teams about to begin agile development

Description:

The course covers specifically the role of the Product/Project Manager (PM) as the “product owner” in an agile environment. The Agile Product Owner has new and different responsibilities than the “classic PM”. The Agile Product Owner roles, responsibilities, interactions, and mindset changes are covered in detail.

Product owner roles as project lead, customer liaison, vision creator, requirements developer, backlog manager, release planner, and valued team member are described. The Product Owner responsibilities are then mapped into these roles. The major responsibilities of the Product Owner are described and reinforced through participative learning.

The major Product Owner responsibilities include understanding and supporting the Scrum framework, getting the development team started as quickly as possible, maintaining a good relationship with the ScrumMaster, engaging the customer, building the initial project plan, establishing the project vision, creating and trolling for user stories, building and managing the product backlog, prioritization of backlog items, managing inter-team dependencies, preparing for the sprint planning and sprint review meetings, participation in the sprint reflection meeting, role in the daily scrum, handling requirement changes, monitoring team velocity, using velocity in release planning, encouraging self-organization and collaboration, monitoring team status, and making the tough decisions.

The course ends with some real world analogies and an introspective look into your company’s Product Owner (project manager, product manager) role and potential improvements based on what you have learned. The class is extremely participatory as exercises are used to enhance deeper understanding.

Duration: 2 days

Audience:

• Developers, testers, product managers, people managers, executives, etc.
• Teams new to agile or considering agile product development

Description:

This course provides a foundational understanding of what Agile is all about. The course begins with a detailed look into well known software development lifecycle methods. Then, the course introduces Agile Methods as a better way to build software. Empirical data and case studies are used to show the business case for Agile. The Agile Manifesto and agile practices are explored to help the student understand the philosophical underpinnings of this approach and how it is radically different than before. Team exercises are used to experience the new approach firsthand.

Scrum is presented as an example of a popular agile framework. The actual methods of Scrum are described in detail – sprint planning meeting, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, sprint reflection, and sprint iteration. The artifacts of Scrum are described – product backlog, sprint backlog, burndown chart, and the potentially shippable product increment. Personnel roles such as Scrum Master, Product Owner, Chickens & Pigs, are described. Attendees will participate in a hands-on Scrum-based example project.

At the conclusion of the 2-day course, the attendees will be knowledgeable in Agile Methods and Scrum, ready to make roll-out decisions on organizational transformation.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Customer proxies, product managers, people managers, developers, testers, business analysts, leads
• Teams seeking a better way to elicit and clarify requirements

Description:

Eliciting and managing project requirements is often challenging for product owners and development teams. This course is a comprehensive 1-day immersion into a proven lightweight Agile technique of managing requirements – the User Story. Upon completion, attendees will be ready to introduce or improve their use of User Stories as an excellent means of managing requirements with agility.

User stories are inexpensive, low fidelity, simple, and brief descriptions of functionality from the user’s point of view. The promise of User Stories is that development teams can begin writing and demonstrating working code very early in the project lifecycle. The course covers important topics such as who develops the User Stories, how to find User Stories, how to create User Stories, good versus bad User Stories, how to estimate User Stories, how to measure development team velocity, how User Stories fit into the project lifecycle, managing requirement changes using User Stories, and others.

The course ends with an introspective discussion of the audience’s current challenges and how User Stories can help improve your ability to impact the bottom line. The course is participatory and uses many exercises to instill a deep understanding of how to find, create, manage, track, estimate, and derive velocity of User Stories.

Duration: 1 day

Audience:

• Product managers, people managers, developers, testers
• Teams considering both agile methods and offshore outsourcing

Description:

Teams are migrating to agile methods as a way to develop software faster and with higher quality. Many agile purists believe that agility and outsourcing are contradictory in nature. But the CEO and CFO would like both - an agile development team delivering tangible business value and the cost reductions associated with offshore outsourcing. This course covers the difficult topic of how to establish a successful agile development team located in different geographical regions. Best practices, collaboration tools, tips and techniques, success stories, failures, and what to avoid are all covered in this detailed review based on the presenter's 10+ years of experience leading agile teams across an oceanic divide.

The class ends with an exercise discussing your company's current plans for agile methods and offshore outsourcing and how the techniques presented can be used to help remedy this enormous challenge. At the conclusion of this course, the attendees will have a repertoire of techniques to utilize in pursuit of successful harmony between agile methods and offshore outsourcing.

Duration: 2 days

Audience:

• Project managers, people managers, developers, leads, testers, business analysts, etc.
• Teams wanting a deep look into Scrum and why it works

Description:

This course is an excellent way to train up your entire team on Scrum. The course is a fast-paced participative 2-day immersion in Scrum. The course begins by discussing the origins of Scrum, market uptake, and a conceptual view of the methodology. The underlying philosophies of Scrum and Agile are covered in detail including an engaged customer, time-boxing, iterative development, sashimi, collaboration, command & control versus self-organization, trust, transparency, inspect & adapt, and just-in-time planning. The Scrum framework and the Scrum iteration (sprint) are then described using hands-on exercises which allow the attendee to experience how Scrum truly works. Changing requirements and how to manage these using Scrum is presented. All Scrum personnel roles such as Scrum Master, Product Owner, Chickens & Pigs, development team, and customer are described. The artifacts of Scrum are described – product backlog, sprint backlog, burndown chart, and the potentially shippable product increment. Then, the Scrum meetings are described in detail – sprint planning meeting, daily standups, sprint reviews, and sprint reflection. Additional topics are covered such as Scrum scalability, ScrumBut, managing dependencies with Scrum, managing technical debt with Scrum, and the relation of User Stories to Scrum.

The student’s understanding of Scrum is intensified with collaborative participation in many exercises emulating aspects of the entire Scrum framework. The class ends by putting it all together with a full lifecycle project exercise using Scrum.

Note: this course is not a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) course. Instead, it covers all aspects and roles of Scrum for the entire team. The CSM course focuses solely on the ScrumMaster role, while this course explains all roles and responsibilities for the entire Scrum team.

Upon completion of the course, the attendee will be ready to implement the Scrum agile method in his/her organization with confidence.