Business Training

Description

The 2-day Certified ScrumMaster course instructed by Tom Mellor (Certified Scrum Trainer), introduces attendees to the values, principles, and practices of agile and the agile-based empirical Scrum product development framework.  Successful completers can become Certified ScrumMasters, a first step in the journey of learning Scrum and becoming proficient in its use.

Attendees also learn the paradigm shifts that occur when organizations move from traditional linear / defined development environments to the empirical agile environment and strategies and tactics used to support and manage the change that occurs.  Participants also will learn about the 3 Scrum roles (Team Member, Product Owner, and ScrumMaster), the 4 Scrum meetings (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective) and process of building product in a time-boxed iteration called a Sprint.  Students will assume responsibility for their learning in the course and will work in small teams.  The course includes a detailed Scrum project simulation and other exercises that will reinforce course concepts. Participants will have opportunity to explore and apply self-organization and self-direct concepts that contribute most effectively to building a high performing team environment where quality can be built into a product through the empricial process of inspecting and adapting processes and products.

After completing this course, the student should be able to:

• Demonstrate the appropriate understanding and application of Scrum roles, practices, principles, and values


• Apply appropriate analysis about how empirical the approach to project work should be (when to use Scrum)


• Appreciate the skills, desired styles, and responsibilities of the Team, Product Owner and ScrumMaster


• Accept and explain the rationale behind the absence of a project manager in Scrum
  Apply Scrum estimating and planning techniques and practices


• Understand the use and presentation of certain data used for inspecting and adapting to improve team performance and the product


• Understand the criticality of building trust within and between Scrum teams and between teams and management


• Understand the essence of team self-organization and self-direction to build high perfroming teams, and the necessity of servant leadership


• Identify and deal with smells (pitfalls) that the organization and its teams may encounter that may impede the use of Scrum

This course results in CSM certification.  This course also satisfies two elements of the Certified Scrum Developer (CSD) track: Scrum Introduction and Elective. In addition, this course  fulfills the educational requirement in preparation for the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP).

Instructor: Tom Mellor
Tom Mellor is a Certified ScrumMaster, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Certified Scrum Professional, and Certified Scrum Trainer . He is a past board member and past chairman of the board of the Scrum Alliance and a frequent speaker at industry conferences.   He has been active in business operations and management since 1980 and has worked in State Farm’s IT department since 2001.  He introduced Scrum into State Farm in 2004 and now champions, trains, and coaches Scrum-based product development throughout the department. He also advocates for use of better software engineering practices and for transformation to a more agile culture and environment.  He leads, coaches and supports various technical product development projects using Scrum and helps teams acclimate and adjust to the nuances of agile-based work environments and collaborative development.

Course Outline

Overview of Agile Management

• Agile frameworks and terminology
  
  
  
  • Learn the details on Scrum roles: Team Member, Product Owner, ScrumMaster
  
  
  
  


• Gain an understanding of the foundational/critical concepts of Scrum with our Certified Scrum Trainer® instructional program


• Agile Communication
  
  
  
  • Information radiator
  
  
  • Team space
  
  
  • Agile tooling
  
  
  • Osmotic communications for collocated and/or distributed teams,
  
  
  • Daily stand-ups
  
  
  
  


• Understand how to apply empirical thinking to your project work


• Learn how a team's productivity can be adjusted to account for its composition
  
  
  
  • Building high-performance teams
  
  
  • Business case development
  
  
  • Colocation (geographic proximity)/distributed teams
  
  
  • Continuous improvement processes
  
  
  • Elements of a project charter for an Agile project
  
  
  • Facilitation methods
  
  
  • Participatory decision model (e.g., input-based, shared collaboration, command)
  
  
  • PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
  
  
  • Process analysis techniques
  
  
  • Self assessment
  
  
  • Value-based analysis
  
  
  
  


• Agile analysis and design
  
  
  
  • Product roadmap
  
  
  • User stories/backlog
  
  
  • Story maps
  
  
  • Progressive elaboration
  
  
  • Wireframes
  
  
  • Chartering
  
  
  • Personas
  
  
  • Agile modeling
  
  
  
  


• Appreciate the importance of organizational agreement on software readiness


• Metrics
  
  
  
  • Velocity
  
  
  • Cycle time
  
  
  • Earned value management (EVM) for agile projects
  
  
  • Escaped defects
  
  
  
  


• Hear why the ScrumMaster role can be the most satisfying as well as the most difficult job on a project


• Soft skills negotiation
  
  
  
  • Emotional intelligence
  
  
  • Collaboration
  
  
  • Adaptive leadership
  
  
  • Negotiation
  
  
  • Conflict resolution
  
  
  • Servant Leadership
  
  
  • Active listening
  
  
  • Agile Manifesto values and principles
  
  
  • Assessing and incorporating community and stakeholder values
  
  
  • Brainstorming techniques
  
  
  • Building empowered teams
  
  
  • Coaching and mentoring within teams
  
  
  • Communications management
  
  
  • Feedback techniques for product (e.g., prototyping, simulation, demonstrations, evaluations)
  
  
  • Incremental delivery
  
  
  • Knowledge sharing
  
  
  • Leadership tools and techniques
  
  
  • Prioritization
  
  
  • Problem-solving strategies, tools, and techniques
  
  
  • Project and quality standards for Agile projects
  
  
  • Stakeholder management
  
  
  • Team motivation
  
  
  • Time, budget, and cost estimation
  
  
  • Value-based decomposition and prioritization
  
  
  
  


• Discover how conflict resolution plays a critical role in Scrum


• Work on a real-world Scrum project live in the classroom
  
  
  
  • Agile contracting methods
  
  
  • Agile project accounting principles
  
  
  • Applying new Agile practices
  
  
  • Compliance (organization)
  
  
  • Control limits for Agile projects
  
  
  • Failure modes and alternatives
  
  
  • Globalization, culture, and team diversity
  
  
  • Innovation games
  
  
  • Principles of systems thinking (e.g., complex adaptive, chaos)
  
  
  • Regulatory compliance
  
  
  • Variance and trend analysis
  
  
  • Variations in Agile methods and approaches
  
  
  • Vendor management
  
  
  
  


• Gain a detailed understanding of how to know when software is "Done" under Scrum


• Product quality
  
  
  
  • Frequent verification and validation
  
  
  • Test-driven development/test first development
  
  
  • Acceptance test-driven development
  
  
  • Definition of done
  
  
  • Continuous integration
  
  
  
  


• Review and understand the critical characteristics a ScrumMaster must have to succeed


• Get to the heart of the matter with Scrum, coaching and team productivity


• Compare traditional and Agile project estimating and planning
  
  
  
  • Relative sizing/story points
  
  
  • Wide band Delphi/planning poker
  
  
  • Affinity estimating
  
  
  • Ideal time
  
  
  
  


• Conduct decomposition to estimate a Scrum project


• Practice Scrum meetings including; Sprint planning, Daily Scrum, Burndowns, Sprint review, and Sprint retrospective


• Value-based prioritization
  
  
  
  • Return on investment (ROI)/net present value (NPV)/internal rate of return (IRR)
  
  
  • Compliance
  
  
  • Customer-valued prioritization
  
  
  • Minimally marketable feature (MMF)
  
  
  • Relative prioritization/ranking
  
  
  
  


• Value stream analysis
  
  
  
  • Value stream mapping
  
  
  
  


• Planning, monitoring and adapting
  
  
  
  • Retrospectives
  
  
  • Task/Kanban boards
  
  
  • Timeboxing
  
  
  • Iteration and Release Planning
  
  
  • WIP limits
  
  
  • Burn down/ up charts
  
  
  • Cumulative flow diagrams
  
  
  • Process tailoring
  
  
  
  


• Achieve the first step in Scrum Alliance recognized certifications, enabling you to advance to higher levels of recognition


• Learn a framework to operate large projects using Scrum

Audience

This course is intended for those who wish to take the “deep dive” into the benefits that Agile techniques bring.  Those who seek certification will certainly love this course.  Those who are interested in learning practical application of Agile techniques will be delighted.  All team roles and management roles will benefit from this course.