This is not your typical Agile and Scrum 101 course. This course is designed to spend 25% of the time on "What" and "Why" behind Agile and Scrum and 75% on "HOW" you can actually start using it on your team tomorrow! If you're interested in learning real world techniques used by dozens of teams then this course is for you! We walk you through an end to end lifecycle Agile project journey from Release Planning all the way to Production Release using a sample project or YOUR own. 

There is a cost to learning Agile and Scrum by trial and error or simply reading a book, and many other courses focus almost entirely on What and Why with little coverage of actual HOW-TO techniques. Our instructor shares how small, medium and fortune 500 companies have applied Agile in real world projects along with many Tips, Tricks and Best Practices!

AT THIS WORKSHOP YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO:

• Why Agile? A background into its evolution.
• The Agile values and principles
• What is Scrum? Who are the Roles? What is the Process?
• Compare and contrast Agile and Scrum roles to traditional roles and responsibilities.
• The Agile Lifecycle – Big Picture
• Planning your release and building the backlog
• Identifying and writing good stories
• Non functional stories
• Methods for prioritizing and sizing stories
• Determining iteration length
• Estimating initial velocity
• Building a release plan
• Sprint 0 – Setting up the foundation
• Sprint Planning and task estimating
• Daily Scrum Meeting
• Sprint review and retrospective
• Why Agile and Scrum are Adopted
• How Agile can fail!
• Click here for Public Workshop Schedule

COMPREHENSIVE WORKSHOP AGENDA:

Day One

What is Agile & Scrum and Why?

• Traditional Project Characteristics
• The Agile Values
• What is Agile
• What is Scrum
• Agile Characteristics
• The Iteration Process
• The Backlog
• Agile/Scrum Top Terms
• Scrum Cheat Sheet

Agile / Scrum Roles

• Scrum Roles
• Who is the Product Owner?
• Product Owner is the Business Value Driver
• Product Owner is the Daily Decision Maker
• Business Users and SMEs
• The ScrumMaster
• ScrumMaster is a Servant Leader
• The Team & Sample Team Structure
• The Team - Characteristics
• Team Maturity Stages
• Management Has a Role Too
• Best Practice: Reduce Cross-Project Multi-Tasking
• Best Practice: Plan Well for Shared Resources
• New Skills Are Needed
• Agile Roles - Handout
• So Why is Agile Being Adopted? Who is Doing Agile?
• Challenges with Agile Adoption
• The Agile Lifecycle – Big Picture
• READY… SET… GO!

Release Planning

• Product roadmap
• Release Planning Steps
• Principles for Identifying Stories
• Identifying Features / Stories
• Use Case Diagrams
• Themes, Features, Epics, Stories
• Sample Backlog
• What is a Story?
• Sample Stories
• Writing Good Stories
• Breaking Stories Into Small Chunks
• Sample Compound Stories and Complex Stories
• Sample Non-Functional Stories
• How to Prioritize
• Prioritization Factors
• Dependency Chart Example
• Best Practice: Do Collaborative Requirements Gathering
• Sizing Stories Based on Complexity

Day Two

• Story Points
• Hours vs. Story Points
• Playing Poker
• The 'Complexity Buckets' Method
• Building a Release Plan
• Defining the Team's 'Done'
• Sample Definition of 'Done'
• Sample Definition of 'Done' ..
• How Long Should My Iteration Be?
• Estimating Initial Velocity
• Planning for Additional Iterations
• Developing the Project Estimate
• Have Realistic Expectations
• Sample Release Plan

Iteration 0 / Setup

• Sprint 0 – Setting Up the Foundation for Success
• High Level Architecture, Process Modeling
• High Level Data Modeling, User Interface Design
• Team Training & Room/Environment setup
• Best Practice – Plan for 'Gotchas'

Iteration Execution

• Iteration Planning & A Sample Iteration Plan
• Best Practices for Efficient Iteration Planning
• Sample user test cases
• Best Practices for Task Breakdown
• Creating the Task Board & A Task Board Variations
• Daily Standup Rules
• Best Practice: Commit Dates vs. Hours Remaining
• Best Practice: Control Common Standup Dysfunctions
• Iteration Burn down Charts
• Iteration burn down – by story
• Best Practice Use Them With Caution
• What Happens During the Iteration
• Impediments
• Preparing for the review/demo
• Iteration review/demo
• Tracking Team's Performance (Velocity)
• Managing Scope Changes
• Release Burnup Chart
• Iteration Retrospective
• The appreciation game

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