What to Expect

We take training and learning seriously. We respect the investment of both time and money that you are making to advance your skills. As such, we use the latest training approaches and techniques. We also bring energy and fun to ensure you have the best possible experience and learn as much as possible. In this course, you can expect:

• Brain-friendly training to dramatically increase learning and retention (instructors are Certified Training from the Back of the Room Trainers).
• Opportunities throughout the course to focus on your real-world situations.
• In-depth engagement with your instructors and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture (we use zero slides), this class is NOT for you!
• Interactive, fun, and experiential learning — increasing safety and retention — laughing helps learning.
• Challenging work with others that focuses on your real organizational issues.

Virtual Training:

• All of our training happens virtually with interactive tools and learning canvases. When we reach a point we can safely consider in-person travel to your location, we will. Feel free to inquire about this!
• We have specifically designed all of our training for live-instructor, virtually led classes. We know there are virtual training skeptics. Some have tried virtual training and just watched piles of videos or listened as people clicked through slides. We don’t ever use slides and never use more than 10 minutes of videos per class!
• We work through in-depth and fun (really) exercises throughout the course in small groups.
• But don’t just take our word for it – we are 100% glad to take you through a live lesson and show you how we teach. If it works for you, great! We can discuss moving forward. If not, we can point you to someone that is a better fit based on your needs – no joke!
• Additionally, we send every student (direct to their home or shipping location) a color, in-depth course workbook and materials. We considered just sending some electronic files, but we have had way too many students reach out to thank us for something “real” in a virtual world.

Learning Objectives

• What is agile and why does it matter: Learn how to discuss agile and scrum with others in your organization and explain why agile is useful and in what contexts.
• Discuss how complexity and empiricism impact our business decisions and impact our success.
• Analyze agile principles and values as well as lean principles to understand which are most valuable to you and consider how you could apply them in real life.
• Learn the differences between doing agile practices and being an agile organization.
• Practice using scrum with a simulation where you work as a small team (3-6 people) to create a product.
• Learn the ins-and-outs of scrum events (sprint, sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review, sprint retrospective).
• Learn how scrum artifacts and supporting practices help you be successful as well as tips and tricks for doing them well (product backlog, sprint backlog, sprint goal, product goal, definition of done, definition of ready, product increment, etc.).

• Understand what each of the three jobs (not titles) in scrum are, how they work together, what they are accountable for, and what to avoid.
• Explore why scrum values mean little without focusing on the behaviors that support them.
• True leadership and servant leadership – what does it mean to lead?
• Reality – we expect you to ask the tough questions. We expect you to bring up situations where scrum did not work for you.
• Uncover the role of the ScrumMaster regarding impediments and how to first ask the team to solve issues then make the costs transparent!
• Review additional approaches such as facilitation and professional coaching to understand new ways to engage people and teams.
• Discuss reality: We don’t tell you to “trust us” or include “agile is cool” as a reason to use agile. We EXPECT you to ask hard questions, as long as you are open to digging into the answers. Scrum is NOT a silver-bullet, nor is agile. They still require hard work.

Who Should Attend

This course should be attended by anyone who wants a foundational knowledge of scrum and what scrum is in practice.

• ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, Product Owners
• Scrum team members, agile team members
• Architects, business analysts, database administrators, developers, operations and support, quality assurance testers, usability specialists, etc.
• Managers, directors, and others tasked with helping teams succeed with scrum and agile (very hard to do if you do not understand it)
• Anyone outside of software or IT: Our CSM class covers topics and examples that are applicable to those outside of software. We also offer training specifically geared to this group. See our Agile Beyond Software course for more information.

This course is designed for anyone who

• Wants a clear, no-nonsense understanding of how scrum and agile work and what it will actually take to be successful
• Is looking for ways to improve how they deliver for customers and how the organization can focus on the right work
• Wants to get team members more involved in decisions and tap into their knowledge
• Enjoys learning, challenging themselves, and has an interest in finding ways to improve