The Complete Agile Scrum Fundamentals

Course Overview

To quote the co-founder of Agile Scrum, Ken Schwaber (Scrum.org), “Scrum helps people and teams deliver value incrementally in a collaborative manner. If you are just getting started, think of it as a way to get work done as a team in small pieces at a time, with experimentation and feedback loops along the way….To be effective with Scrum requires something more than just following the mechanics and fundamentals of the framework; this requires mindset techniques for ways of working and thinking and an environment that supports it, including trust. Scrum is founded on empiricism and lean thinking. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is observed. Lean thinking reduces waste and focuses on the essentials. Scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimise predictability and control risk. Scrum engages groups of people who collectively have all the skills and expertise to do the work and share or acquire such skills as needed. Scrum combines four formal events for inspection and adaptation within a containing event, the Sprint. These events work because they implement the empirical Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.”

The Complete Agile Scrum Fundamentals training course sequentially takes the participant through the foundations of Agile into Scrum and starts the journey which requires the change in mindset required to work in an Agile Scrum manner. It will employ examples, knowledge tests and exercises, group discussions, and knowledge sharing to enhance the training content.

Course Objectives

This training course will build on the historical foundations of Lean and Agile philosophy to help participants to understand the critical differences between classic “predictive” project management methods and the “adaptive” Agile Scrum framework. It will identify the mindset differences required to truly “be Agile” rather than just to “do Agile”. During this programme, the participants will be encouraged to identify and develop insights into how Agile collaborative approaches might enhance classic project management delivery and empower team members to be increasingly creative and innovative to benefit their organisations and customers.

After the training course, the participants will learn to:

• Understand the historical roots of Agile Scrum in Lean and Kanban
• Appreciate the development of the Agile Manifesto as a baseline for Agile approaches
• Understand the family of Agile approaches of which Agile Scrum is one
• Be aware of some critical ways to decide on the best approach to take given the type of project to be undertaken
• Develop a keen awareness of the roles and responsibilities/accountabilities of Agile Scrum team members
• Understand the Sprint cycle and the “ceremonies” and how they are designed to move forward iteratively and incrementally, providing a valuable product increment at the end of each “Sprint”
• Depen and exercise their developing knowledge using practical group exercises
• Appreciate some of the tools and techniques used in Agile Scrum delivery
• Understand the value and mechanism whereby requirements are captured in “User Stories” in a Product Backlog and how the team members commit to producing specific solutions during the Sprint.
• Appreciate how the “flow of work” and changes to requirements are managed
• Appreciate the benefits of Agile Scrum for certain types of project delivery
• Appreciate how this approach may be scaled up for large organisations and enterprises and what needs to be in place to assist a business in carrying out the transformational journey to adopting and embedding Agile Scrum as a means of delivering projects

Target Audience

This training course is designed and appropriate for a wide range of working professionals who manage and deliver complex and innovative projects. The requirements are only sometimes fully defined and may change as more is discovered. It will introduce and equip such teams to be prepared to apply the Agile Scrum framework for some of their more challenging and complex projects.

It is suitable for a wide range of working professionals, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Scrum Masters
• Delivery Leads
• Product Owners
• Project Managers
• Engineering Leads
• Product Managers
• Technical Team Leads
• Project Planning Officers
• Delivery Team Members
• Senior Project Control Officers
• Software Developers and Testers
• Engineering Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• Business Services Professionals and Managers
• IT Delivery Managers
• Senior Delivery Managers
• Senior Project Managers
• Programme Managers
• Project or Programme Management Office (PMO) Leads and Team Members

Training Methodology

The participants will develop their skills and knowledge through formal and interactive learning methods focused on using a series of practical learning exercises, team and group discussions, knowledge tests and mutual learning from each other.

The training course does not assume in-depth prior knowledge of the topics covered in the programme. Many foundational and newer concepts and tools are introduced gradually to enable participants to progress from the fundamental to more advanced concepts of Agile Scrum as a means of delivering projects. It seeks to mimic true Agile methods’ collaborative and knowledge-sharing principles.