The Unauthorized, No Certification Scrum Course: An Introduction to Scrum for the Rest of Us

 

 

Duration

2 Day

Level

Beginner

Pre-requisite:

Familiarity with software development, and preferably some knowledge of agile software development (e.g. Agile 101 Workshop).

Target Audience

All

Brief Description

An experiential course to introduce participants to the theory and practice of Scrum.
 

Abstract:

Scrum is an agile project management framework used to iteratively deliver increments of high value to the customer. Scrum's promise to deliver more value more quickly to customers has many software development organizations clamoring to adopt Scrum.

This two day course introduces the participant to both scrum principles and practices. Participants will learn the Scrum life cycle and will experience Scrum in a Scrum simulation. While this course covers all Scrum basics (and much more), the participant will not receive Scrum Master Certification (CSM).

 

Audience:

This course answers the needs of people who are participating in Scrum projects and need an understanding of Scrum to interact with those projects. 

 

Overview:

Scrum's promise to deliver more value more quickly to customers has many software development organizations clamoring to adopt Scrum. However, along with the promise comes a new way of managing projects, and what is to some, a funny new lingo, sprints, scrum master, back log, stand-up meeting and retrospective. What do all these new terms mean and what happens to the project managers, business analysts, software developers, and quality assurance specialist roles?

Participants will engage in a number of group exercises designed to help them understand Scrum principles and practices.

Details

What is Scrum?

What is Scrum? Where did it come from? This brief section provides overview of the history, traits, and philosophy behind Scrum and compares and contrasts it with other software methods. Most important this section explains what Scrum is not.

Who’s Who? Or the Roles People Play

People play three roles in a Scrum project, Product Owner, Scrum Master and Team Member. This section describes the responsibilities of those playing these roles. We also discuss how these roles are like and also unlike more conventional software project roles, such as Product Managers, Business Analysts and Project Managers.

 
Scrum Practices: The Games People Play   

Scrum is a set of practices intended to maximize business value of delivered software in the shortest period of time. This section presents the practices and the rules for playing these practices.

  • Sprint Planning
  • Sprint Review
  • Sprint Retrospective
  • Daily Standup
 
Scrum Props: The Work Products

Scrum operates with several simple work products, the product backlog, the sprint backlog and the burn down chart. This section explains the purpose of each of these work products, their usage, and their timing within Scrum.

 
No Silver Bullet: Why Scrum is not the methodological solution to all that ails you.

Numerous experience reports and anecdotal stories are presented and held up at conferences that clearly demonstrate Scrum works. However, what is not heard about often enough is how projects can still fail, and how some companies can pervert and mis-use Scrum.

 
Growing Up is not Hard to Do: Scaling Scrum

The Cinderella project is often characterized as five to nine co-located people with a dedicated and empowered Product Owner. But what happens when your project is more ugly step-sister than Cinderella? In this section we describe strategies for how Scrum can be adapted, enhanced and scaled to cope with the needs of a step sister project.