Learning is structured around key domains of Emotional Intelligence:
Businesses have historically been plagued by many problems, including inadequate requirements, which lead to products that customers aren’t happy with and sometimes can’t use. We start the class by making the case for a shift to an Agile approach to solve the problems and to gain an overall understanding of the basic principles, and benefits of Agile approaches.
Team Exercise: As a class we will discuss the various problems that the class has experienced in their own projects so that we can then understand how Agile will help them address these problems. The class will understand from this exercise that they are not alone with a set of problems that others also experience.
We will understand the Agile Manifesto and Principles. We first visit Lean which is foundational and influences all other Agile methodologies. Then we will have an overview of Scrum. Scrum is the most popular Agile methodology and is great for projects. Scrum or Scrum variants are being used by about 75% of those using Agile, but Scrum is not the only Agile approach. We’ll then see how Kanban might be a better answer for other types work (e.g. operations and sustainment).
Review Agile methodologies practiced in organizations today (e.g. Scrum, Kanban).
Team Exercise: Teams will engage in a fun exercise that will reinforce the importance of, and power behind, self-organizing teams. As with sports teams, individual roles are important, but even more important is the need to work toward a common goal together. At times that means blurring the lines of traditional roles. Great teams will not define themselves by their individual roles.
Agile focuses on creating a team that can deliver results over and over. In this section we will discuss what makes a high-performing team and how to build that team. The section will also cover the team roles associated with an Agile approach.
Team Exercise: We will discuss as a class what makes a great team based on teams we've participated on that were great.
In this section, we will review the Scrum framework and the various Scrum techniques. Scrum provides a great framework for building new products, especially when all the requirements are not known. Scrum techniques can also be used with other Agile methods like Kanban.
Agile Project Planning
Team Exercise: Teams will practice turning User Roles into full fleshed personas.
Team Exercise: Each team will conduct a brainstorming session for creating a product backlog in the form of user stories. Each team will present some of their user stories and the instructor will lead discussion about where teams hit the mark and areas for improvement (Instructor will not have all of the ideas, this is a great opportunity for team dynamic).
The power of Agile comes from the fact that continuous improvement is built into the Agile system. In this section we will review how People, Product and Process improve themselves through a frequent inspect and adapt process. We will discuss the main Agile ceremonies that help us accomplish this: Iteration Review/Demo and the Retrospective.
Team Exercise: Teams will discuss what things they can do the day after class ends to take what they've learned and implement it immediately so that they don't lose what they've learned.
Not all work fits well into a Scrum framework. Kanban is an Agile method that helps us to improve a delivery process with a focus on continuous improvement. We will cover the foundation of Kanban concepts, properties, and terminology. We will also understand the philosophy behind the Kanban framework and how it originated.
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The best way to understand Kanban is to go through the process of implementing it. This section goes through the various techniques and ceremonies associated with Kanban.
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Team Exercise: Kanban boards are an invaluable communication tool. Each team is tasked with coming up with their board that clearly communicates their commitments and progress against those commitments.
Kanban uses metrics a little differently than other Agile methods. In this section we will understand how metrics and reporting are leveraged with Kanban.
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Applying Kanban techniques to other types of efforts. How to track requirements, decouple work, and leverage the Minimal Marketable Release.
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Learn how to recognize opportunities for improvement in your Kanban system and what to do about them.
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Team Exercise: Teams will build a cadence calendar to use with their teams to organize work, share learnings, and build a focus on continuous improvement.
Agile Adoption can be accomplished with different approaches and at different speeds. In this section, we will review the best practices of Organizational Change Management as it applies to Agile adoption and considers the primary reasons for adoption failure.
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Team Exercise: We will wrap the course up and end with a discussion on “Where do you go from here?”.
A Team Facilitator is someone who helps a group identify common objectives and then offers group processes to achieve defined outcomes. A skilled facilitator consciously embodies self-awareness, self-management, and bias management, while conveying openness and enthusiasm. An Agile Team Facilitator (ATF) is about more than just meetings. An ATF facilitates participation, collaboration, engagement, and team growth.
The Agile Team Facilitator is on the development path to becoming an Agile Coach. To be effective, the Agile Coaching path requires that we take our development one step at a time, obtaining competence at each step along the way. We will review the development path and transition from Agile Team Facilitator to Agile Coach.
Becoming an Agile Team Facilitator requires a certain mindset to lead and serve the team. Learn the mindset required for the Agile Team Facilitator and gain an understanding of the paradigm shift that must occur to be successful in this collaborative environment. Understand how the Agile Team Facilitator is a role model for the team by exemplifying the Agile principles. Review the strategies required to be a servant leader and models for achieving self-awareness.
One of the essential skills for the Agile Team Facilitator is helping teams identify and achieve common objectives. The ATF facilitates the team events to ensure they are productive and move the team forward. This starts with understanding the purpose and expected outcomes of the various team events. A flow must be created to achieve those goals and ensure participation.
When facilitating a session, the facilitator is the holder of the process and the team holds the content. The facilitator must maintain neutrality to not unduly influence team decisions. They must make sure that the event is organized to encourage collaboration. This includes the physical setup, meeting organization tools, and driving collaborative conversations.
Facilitating typical Agile framework meetings is a requirement for the Agile Team Facilitator. We must plan these events and keep them engaging. To do so, the ATF must understand the purpose and underlying principles and values of the ceremonies. In this section, we will go through the ceremonies for an agile framework and design meetings to facilitate achievement of the desired outcomes. We will specifically design common sessions such as Retrospectives and Daily Stand-Ups. We will also look at the design of other key ceremonies.
Teams will move in and out of patterns of behavior. The ATF needs to recognize team patterns and know when a team may need more, or less, intervention. We will look at how our styles need to change based on the team current state of knowledge and self-sufficiency.
This section is devoted to putting our training into action! The ability to neutrally facilitate a session must be practiced. Attendees will have an opportunity to design and facilitate a team session based on scenarios from agile framework meetings.
Summarize key takeaways from the course and pull it all together.
Part 1: Why Agile
Part 2: Agile Foundations
Part 3: Agile Teams
Part 4: Agile Methodologies
Part 5: Agile Adoption
Gain an overall understanding of why effective focus on dealing with change is important.
Learn why mindset change is needed and how the Agile Manifesto is the shift needed.
Where Lean and Kanban fit in the Agile spectrum which leads to the Scrum framework and XP practices.
Identifying high performance in teams and different kinds of organizational teams, including distributed ones.
Learn where Scrum came from and the key roles on a Scrum team.
Understanding the Agile planning approach, key ways to convey project vision, and the use of user roles and personas.
Understanding the use of stories and approaches to defining story maps and story splitting.
Writing good acceptance criteria and using them for story decomposition. Understanding technical stories and technical debt in support of Development teams. Using various prioritization approaches and risk management approaches.
How traditional estimation can go wrong and the relative estimation approach used in Agile, including estimation approaches such as Poker Planning and Affinity Estimation. How story estimation can lead to release planning.
The Product Owner roles in Sprint Planning, Daily Meetings, Sprint Reviews, and the Sprint Retrospective.
A look at three key scaling approaches: Scrum of Scrums, SAFe, and LeSS.
Module 1: Why Agile?
In today’s rapidly changing business environment, traditional methods of product development cannot always match the business needs. Businesses often experience delivery issues such as long delivery times and failure to adapt to the changing customer demands. We start by making the case for shifting to an Agile approach to solve problems and to gain an overall understanding of the principles and benefits of Agile approaches.
Team Exercises: We will discuss the various challenges that drives business turbulence and how agility helps companies to adapt to changing circumstances. These challenges are tied back to the attendees’ own experiences in a changing environment.
Module 2: Becoming Agile
To learn more about Agile we review the Agile Manifesto, Principles, and the Agile Mindset. We start with Lean, which is a foundational component and influences all Agile methodologies. We will visit different agile approaches for both iterative development and continuous flow work and identify different types of work in their own context.
Team Exercises: Teams will engage in a fun exercise that will improve understanding, and reinforce the importance of, the agile principles. We will also discuss the various types of work that they encounter in their own context.
Module 3: Agile Teams
Agile focuses on creating a team that can deliver outstanding results on a consistent basis. In this section we will discuss what makes a high-performing team and how to build that team. The section will also cover the team roles associated with an Agile approach.
Team Exercises: As a class, we will discuss the attributes of a great team based on the attendees’ own experiences. The class will also identify components needed for collaborative environments – physical and virtual.
Module 4: Agile Product Planning
A common myth is that Agile does not involve planning. In actually, there are five levels of planning on an Agile project including the Product Vision, Roadmap, Release Planning, Sprint Planning, and the Daily Standup. Utilizing team projects, we will take a hands-on look at the different levels of planning and how it applies to the team’s work.
Team Exercises: Teams will identify a team project and use that project for many upcoming exercises. They will practice creating a Product Vision, identifying Roadmap components, and turn User Roles into full-fleshed personas.
Module 5: Product Backlog
The Product Backlog contents represent all the work of the Agile Team. We will investigate the different types of items represented in the Product Backlog including how those items are refined over time.
Team Exercises: The class will discuss Product Backlog components and how to break Epics into smaller User Stories. Teams will conduct a User Story Writing Workshop to create initial User Stories for their team project. Each team will present examples of their user stories and the Instructor will lead a discussion about where teams hit the mark and areas for improvement (Instructor will not have all of the ideas, this is a great opportunity for team dynamics).
Module 6: Prioritization and Estimation
The Product Backlog contains the work but the way the Backlog is prioritized and estimated is key to building a successful product. We will look at agile practices for prioritization and team estimation. In addition, we will better understand how we deliver product increments through Releases.
Team Exercises: We will review a retailer case study and their approach to prioritization key system features. Team will practice Story Point estimation. Project teams will identify needs for their first product release.
Module 7: Sprint Planning and Execution
In iterative development, the team works in a series of time-boxed events to deliver incremental value. These timeboxes are called “Sprints”. We will look inside the Sprint to understand the way the team works to produce value.
Team Exercises: Teams for define a Definition of Done for their team project. Teams will also identify key learnings and critical points about sprint execution.
Module 8: Inspect and Adapt
The power of Agile comes from the fact that continuous improvement is built into the Agile system. In this section, we will review how People, Product and Process improve through a frequent inspect and adapt process. We will discuss the main Agile ceremonies that help us accomplish this: Sprint Review, Demo and the Retrospective.
Team Exercises: The class will engage in an exercise to summarize the key events and artifacts within the Scrum framework. Teams will discuss how they could apply what they have learned to their current work and what they can start doing now so they do not lose what they have learned.
Module 9: Kanban Systems
Not all work fits well into a Scrum framework. Kanban is an Agile method that helps us to improve a delivery process with a focus on continuous improvement. We will cover the foundation of Kanban concepts, properties, and terminology. We will also understand the philosophy behind the Kanban framework and how it originated. The best way to understand Kanban is to go through the process of implementing it. This section goes through the various techniques and ceremonies associated with Kanban.
Team Exercises: We will use new team projects based on continuous flow types of work. Teams will engage in several exercises to build their own Kanban board that clearly communicates their commitments, encourages collaboration, and enables continuous improvement. We will also engage in discussions on key Kanban concepts and how Kanban may apply to their types of work.
Module 10: Adoption and Scaling
Agile Adoption can be accomplished with different approaches and at different speeds. We will review the best practices of Organizational Change Management as it applies to an Agile adoption and consider some of the primary reasons for adoption failure.
Team Exercises: We will wrap-up the course and attendees will identify concepts they can apply to improve their own product delivery.
