Training is a great way to deliver structured, logically sequenced education to a person or a group of individuals. Intensity of trainer-trainee interaction varies. In less interactive training (often used with larger audiences), trainer-trainee interaction is typically limited to Q&A. In more interactive training (workshop-style, used with smaller audiences, study groups, classes) trainer-trainee interaction may include games, role play, break out sessions, presentations, in-class assessments and other engaging techniques.
Below is a comprehensive curriculum of training topics that are recommend to organizations, teams and individuals in the form of a comprehensive multi-day training course or multiple, independent topic-focused workshops, spread out gradually through time. With the latter option, it is recommend to deliver topic-based training sessions in a logical order – to minimize knowledge dependency and maximize information retention.
Topics:
- Slides Repository (pdf)
- Agile Overview (Introductory)
- Agile Budgeting & Finances
- Scrum
- Kanban
- Overview Agile Tooling
- Agile Scaling (Comprehensive)
- Recommended Pre-Reading
- Learning Objectives (Reference from Scrum Alliance)
Agile Overview (Introductory)
- Organizational Agility
- What does the word “Agile” really mean?
- Organizational “Color” (as per Frederic Laloux)
- Organizational “Tribal Stage” (as per David Logan)
- Organizational “Motivation Version” (as per Daniel Pink)
- Frequently ignored scientific evidence
- What do companies value most?
- Do you really want Agile Transformation?
- Thinking Wide & Deep
- Lean Thinking
- “Watching the baton, not the runners.”
- Foundation of Lean: Managers as Teachers
- 2 Pillars of Lean:
- Respect for People
- Continuous Improvement
- Lean Thinking House
- 14 Principles of Lean
- System Thinking
- Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD)
- Seeing System Dynamics and Local Optimization with CLDs
- Lean Thinking
- “The Laws”:
- Agile Frameworks
- Scrum (basic)
- Kanban (basic)
- Popular scaling solutions (high-level overview)
- Market adoption of agile frameworks
- Market Penetration (statistics)
- Potential Hidden relationships
- Organizational implications of scaled solutions
Agile Budgeting & Finance
- Triple Constraint Triangle of Conventional Management
- Why Agilists understand Budgeting better than Finansists?
- Why Project Management area is so “protected”?
- Decomposing Budget into:
- Forecasts
- Targets
- Resource Allocation
- Forecasts vs. Targets
- “Rolling” Forecasts vs. Dynamic Forecasts
- KPIs: good vs. bad
- Balanced Scorecards against Budgets – what usually wins?
- “Splitting a bag of cash”
- Does Meeting a Budget Drive Individual Performance?
- What do Monetary Incentives to do People?
- Why do we need Partnership between HR and Finance?
- “Frequently ignored scientific evidence” (Daniel Pink)
- Budgeting Evolution vs. Budgeting Revolution: what is better?
Scrum
- Definition and Theory
- Scrum Roles & Responsibilities
- Overview of Scrum Roles
- Product Owner: responsibilities, authority/empowerment
- ScrumMaster: responsibilities, authority/empowerment
- Development Team: size, composition, dynamics
- Impact on Traditional Roles: PM, BA, Manual Tester, Functional Leads
- Business Community: SMEs, Stakeholders, end-Customers
- Overview of Scrum Roles
- Scrum Events/Ceremonies
- Sprint
- Sprint Planning Meeting
- Daily Scrum Meeting
- Sprint Review/Showcase Meeting
- Sprint Retrospective Meeting
- Product Backlog Refinement Meetings (PBR)
- Release Planning Meeting
- Release Retrospective
- Scrum Artifacts
- Product Backlog
- Creation/Management/Maintenance
- Prioritization/Estimation
- Segmentation/Logical Grouping
- Backlog “Views”: Product, Release, Sprint
- Sprint Backlog
- Product Increment
- Potentially Shippable Product Increment (PSPI)
- Minimal Viable Feature (MVF)
- Product Backlog
- Scrum “Under the Hood”
- Agile Requirements Management
- Triple Constraint Triangle of Conventional PM
- Ignoring Variability and System Behaviors
- “Cascading” Lateness
- Student Syndrome
- Types of Planning
- Velocity Driven Planning (Releases)
- Commitment Driven Planning (Iterations)
- Ignoring Variability and System Behaviors
- Cross-Team Work Dependency
- Triple Constraint Triangle of Conventional PM
- User Story writing
- User Story Life Cycle: “Happy” Path
- What User Stories Are NOT?
- How to Formulate a Story?
- Story Splitting/Combining
- User Role Modelling
- User Story Testing
- Converting Defects to Stories
- Slicing Stories
- More guidelines
- Story Splitting, Story Sequencing & Mapping
- User Stories vs. Use Cases
- User Story Mapping
- Scrum Tools & Techniques
- Work Prioritization
- Work Estimation & Planning
- By Analogy vs. by Calculation
- Base-lining work (using reference samples)
- Order Magnitude (adjusting estimation scale)
- Estimation units: Ideal Time vs. Story Points
- Relating Hours to Points
- When to use each method?
- Skill set vs. Individual Capacity Management
- Historical Velocity Trend Analysis
- Forecasting with
- Estimation Techniques: Planning Poker
- Work Volume & Work Complexity
- Effects Anchoring
- Planning/Agile Poker
- Historical Velocity
- Discarding Outliers when Data Pool is Large
- Release Planning (release burn-up)
- Cone of Uncertainly: Optimistic vs. Pessimistic forecasting
- Important Scrum Elements
- Card, Conversation, Confirmation (CCC)
- Definition of Ready(DoR)
- Definition of Done(DoD)
- Visualization in Scrum
- Scrum Board (Story Board, Task Board)
- Viewing by Work vs. Worker
- Viewing by worker
- Communication in Scrum:
- Internal & external
- Agile Requirements Management
- History of Kanban
- Empire State Building
- Continuous Workflow
- Throughput
- Work in Progress (WIP)
- WIP Limits
- Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)
- Pull vs. Push
- Pull System
- One Piece Flow
- Principles of Product Development Flow
- Little’s Law
- Managing Capacity of Workers
- Multi-tasking & Swarming
- Managing Capacity of Part-Time Workers
- Reducing System Variability
- Impact of Variation on Capacity Utilization and Queue Size
- Throughput and System Utilization
- Queues and Servers
- Escalation in Kanban (e.g. L1, L2, L3)
- Enterprise Kanban
- Upstream & downstream impacts
- Converting and Diverging work streams
- Examples of Physical Kanban Boards
Overview of Agile Tooling
-
- Where tools can help?
- Where tools can hurt?
- What to look for in agile tools?
- Some commercially popular agile tools
- Jira
- Rally
- Version One
- TFS/VSTS
- Use of tools in scaled solutions. Hidden relationships
Agile Scaling (Comprehensive)
Note: While I offer an overview of most known agile frameworks, it is my personal choice and recommendation to base discussions about agility at scale on Large Scale Scrum – the unique framework that brings deep, comprehensive education about system design and system dynamics. (Here is my personal Experience Report with LeSS.)
- Scale or NOT to Scale?
- Common Reasons for “Customizing” LeSS
- Voices of “Elders”
- LeSS vs. LeSS Huge
Types of Product Development - LeSS Ceremonies
- LeSS PBR
- LeSS Sprint Planning
- LeSS Sprint Review
- LeSS Joint Retrospective
- Communication in LeSS
- Coordination in LeSS
- Requirements Management
- LeSS Roles
- LeSS ScrumMaster
- LeSS Product Owner
- Distribution in LeSS
- Component vs. Feature Teams
- Local vs. System Optimization
- Job Safety !<> Role Safety
- LeSS Definition of Done (DoD)
- Reducing Undone Work
- Why Does Dev Ops Exist?
- Truth about Dev Ops
- The “Contract Game”
- Team Maturity in LeSS
- LeSS Product Ownership
- Fake “Portfolio” Management
- System Feedback Loops in LeSS
- Management in LeSS
- Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) in LeSS
Note: Please also see 1-Day LeSS Review
Recommended Pre-Reading:
The intention is to make sure that every training attendee comes with, at least, some basic understanding of the subject. Educated Consumers are GREAT!!!
- Organizational Agility
- Scrum
- The Scrum Guide (official), by J. Sutherland and K. Schwaber
- Scrum Checklist by Henrik Kniberg
- Spotify ‘Guide’ by Henrik Kniberg & Anders Ivarsson
- The Scrum Master Checklist, by Michael James
- Scrum Foundations eLearning Series on Scrum Alliance
- Dark Scrum, by Ron Jeffries
- How Misconceptions About the Scrum Product Owner Role Harm Your Organization and What To Do About It -video, by MJ
- Kanban
- Scrum vs. Kanban (compare/contrast/compliment)
Learning Objectives (Reference from Scrum Alliance)
Below are the Learning Objectives (LO) that are followed by Scrum Alliance Trainers (while training) and Coaches (while coaching):
Training Logistics
Use of anti-pattern examples in training:
During training, real-life examples and practical cases can be used to bring to light some most common anti-patterns that are known in agile adoption. Every trainer can leverage his own experience or experience of peer coaches as well as market research.
Note: Gene does not offer certifications through training. As Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach, Gene has a unique capability to offer the following certification via coaching: Certified Scrum Master(CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Please, visit this page for details: https://www.keystepstosuccess.com/agile-certifications/
If you have any questions about any aspects of training, please contact Gene directly.
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