Agile and Scrum Fundamental Bootcamp

METHODOLOGY

Participants learn through lots of collaborative activities. Training facilitators focus on individual and interactions rather than theory. Participants work in small teams to learn and play all the roles to understand the importance of Scrum Team. Agenda will be flexible enough to incorporate class feedback at the end of every sprint. Workshop will have demonstrations on how to manage agile projects through one of the tools such as Trello or Jira. Participants will have the opportunity to practice during the training. Facilitator will use relevant sample projects to simulate agile project execution using Scrum and Kanban.

Origins of Agile

Many people entering the Agile world see the Agile Manifesto as the beginning of the world, where it was really the summing up of much previous work. Anchor the ideas of Agile development in earlier work, giving the learners continuity from the past to the present.

Agile Manifesto

The 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development is still the anchor document for all forms of Agile development. Make clear that the Agile Manifesto is a set of values, not a prescription for a process. Also, learners should be introduced to the fact that the values on the left are preferable to those on the right.

Understanding the Agile Mindset

Many people come to Agile looking for “the Agile process”. However, while some processes and methodologies may be more supportive or common in Agile organizations than others, the mindset must come first. Introduce Agile as a mindset and explain that agility is achieved through both “being” and “doing” Agile. The Agile mindset is characterized by things like valuing early failure for learning, collaboration, continuous improvement, continuous discovery, etc.

Establishing the Agile Mindset

Experiencing the Agile mindset is the best way to establish it in a learner. Allow the learner to experience situations in which the Agile mindset is likely to be different from their current way of working, so the learner can internalize the difference experientially, not just in concept.

Incremental Development

One anchor of Agile development is incremental development. Introduce the concept and value of incremental development, and how it differs from effort-based or task-based management.

Value-Based Work

Many people, even understanding the idea of incremental development can’t see how to break work into small, value-centered work items and track their progress. Develop and practice techniques for breaking problems into value-based parts and tracking progress against them.

Retaining Quality

It is easy to lose sight of the cost of rework in incremental-iterative development. Introduce and highlight why Agile developers need to keep an eye

The Scrum Framework

How is the Scrum theory implemented through time-boxes, events, roles, rules and artifacts? How can these be used most effectively? We will experience why the Scrum framework is constructed as it is and how you as Scrum Master can effectively use Scrum to control risks and create maximum value.

Scrum Roles – Product Owner, Scrum Master and Development

Who is supposed to be a good product owner? What does the Product Owner do in Scrum? Do they write stories or maximize value? Why do we need a Scrum Master? Who decides Scrum Master for the team? What’s the meaning of a Self-Organized Development Team? Is Self-organizing team good enough or do we need a self- managed team? Developers are cross-function or Development Team is cross-functional?

The Definition of Done & Acceptance Criteria

Are you able to deliver a truly done product? What does “DONE” mean in Scrum and why is it important? Workshop focus differentiating DONE and UNDONE but also brings discussion about Technical Debts.
Participants have to learn the meaning of DONE increment by defining definition in the workshop. Why is not having technical debt is critical to growing an organization? How is the Acceptance Criteria different from the Definition of DONE?

Working with organizational challenges

AWhy change is hard and what can be done to make it real? What organizational changes are needed to see real benefits of Scrum?

Non-functional requirements

Identifying and responding to non-functional requirements to ensure they don’t get lost in the process of defining product success and lead to hidden risks.

Using Agile metrics

Using key metrics and visualizing them with cumulative flow diagrams to help see where work is and how to improve the flow from concept to reality. Helping product owners to focus upon the right metrics and avoid those metrics that drive undesirable behaviors in development teams and by stakeholders.

Working with the development team and stakeholders

Understand the role of the product in relation to the development team, how best to support them and what they need from a product owner to be effective in their role. Working with stakeholders, keeping them informed of progress and risks, influencing their decision making and managing expectations.

Tracking and Measuring Project Success in Agile

How to measure success of an agile project in an ever evolving requirement? Discussion around key metrics like business values, velocity chart, release burndown and sprint burndown. How to incorporate feedback in forecast and how to forecast project completion date.

Agile Transformation

How to start the Agile Transformation journey.