Title: Certified ScrumMaster Workshop - August 9 - 10, 2010 ,

Location One Highland Center, 314 E. Highland Mall Blvd., suite 403, Austin, TX 78752

Cost: $1395, Group Discount 3+ $1195
Government discount - $1046.25 , Gov. Group Discount 3+ $896.25 /pp

Learn, understand and execute on the three overarching areas of change under Scrum:
iterative development, self-management, and visibility.

The Scrum Alliance(SM) launches the Certified ScrumMaster exam on October 1, a 60-question online exam given at the end of training. After successfully completing the Certified ScrumMaster Workshop, participants will have all information required to take the exam and become certified. They will also be registered with the Scrum Alliance, with online access to class training materials and any updates for one year. According to the Scrum Alliance, all students will initially receive a passing grade, allowing the Alliance to improve the test by observing and analyzing results. Learn more about Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) exam.

Even projects that have solid, well-defined project plans encounter some degree of change and waste. Shifting market conditions, budget cuts, staff restructuring, or any number of influences will disrupt the best plan while contributing to customer dissatisfaction and staff discouragement. Moreover, projects that begin with changing or unclear requirements make it difficult to even establish project expectations. Scrum is the agile development process that allows teams to deliver usable software periodically throughout the life of the project, absorbing change and new requirements as the project proceeds.

Beginning with the history of agile development and moving through the disciplines promoted by Scrum, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of the Scrum methodology while specifically reviewing the behaviors expected of a ScrumMaster. This 2-day class is suitable for those practicing or looking to practice the art of the ScrumMaster, but is highly valuable for anyone involved in Scrum (Managers, Team Members, Product Managers, etc.).

After successfully completing this class, participants will be registered with the Scrum Alliance as Certified Scrum Masters, and will have on-line access to the class training materials and any updates for one year.

In-Class Group Exercises

This course is a stimulating combination of class interac-tion, case studies, group exercises and workshops. Each is designed to allow you to easily grasp new concepts and techniques. Specifically, you will cover:

• The "Art of the Possible": learn how small change can have a large impact on productivity
• Product integrity: review various options employees use when faced with difficulty, learn the importance of delivering high quality products in Scrum
• Customer Expectations: Using a changing schedule and agile estimating and planning, assess the work to properly set customer expectations and manage customer satisfaction
• Running the Scrum Project: Run a full Scrum project that lasts 59 minutes. You will walk through all steps under the Scrum Framework
• Agile Estimating and Planning: Break into teams, and through decomposition and estimating plan out a project through delivery
• Team Dynamics: Since Scrum deals with change, conflict will happen. Learn methods to resolve problems ina self-managed environment

Key Benefits of Attending You Can Immediately Use:

1. Learn the details on Scrum roles: Team Member, Product Owner, ScrumMaster
2. Gain an understanding of the foundational/critical concepts of Scrum provided by a Scrum Alliance certified trainer
3. Understand how to apply empirical thinking to your project work
4. Learn how a team's productivity can be adjusted to account for its composition
5. Appreciate the importance of organizational agreement on software readiness
6. Hear why the ScrumMaster role can be the most satisfying as well as the most difficult job on a project
7. Discover how conflict resolution plays a critical role in Scrum
8. Work on a real-world Scrum project live in the classroom
9. Learn, practice and utilize the Scrum Framework
10. Gain a detailed understanding of how to know when software is "Done" under Scrum
11. Review and understand the critical characteristics a ScrumMaster must have to succeed
12. Get to the heart of the matter with Scrum, coaching and team productivity
13. Compare traditional and Agile project estimating and planning
14. Conduct decomposition to estimate a Scrum project
15. Practice Scrum meetings including; Sprint planning, Daily Scrum, Burndowns, Sprint review, and Sprint retrospective
16. Achieve the first step in Scrum Alliance recognized certifications, enabling you to advance to higher levels of recognition
17. Learn a framework to operate large projects using Scrum
18. Implementing Scrum is about getting results, learn how to maximize your returns using Scrum

Peter Borsella is the founder of Winnow Management Corporation, based in Parkland, Florida. Peter is an IT professional with 24 years of experience in application development and IT leadership. He is also a Project Management Professional (certified by the PMI) and certified by the Scrum Alliance (sm) to provide Certified Scrum Trainer instructional services.His ability to contribute across a wide range of environments has taken him to companies such as First Data Corporation and eFunds Corporation, and outside the United States to India and Hungary. Peter is adept in administering all aspects of project management, as well as providing authentic leadership to create effective teams. An active and contributing member to both the PMI and the Scrum Alliance (sm), Peter's speaking engagements focus on bridging the gap between traditional Project Management and Agile Project Management. His goal is to help others understand how to get the best return from any project by achieving higher levels of software quality, increased customer satisfaction, and cohesive teams that enjoy increased productivity.

Michael Vizdos is the creator of the popular website implementingscrum.com and is certified by the Scrum Alliance (sm) to provide Certified Scrum Trainer instructional services. He is based in Richmond, Virginia, and works with teams around the world in both training, consulting, and mentoring roles. Michael has over eighteen years experience as an IT professional in software development and consulting; he is co-author of, “The Enterprise Unified Process” (2005), and speaks regularly at user group meetings, conferences, and internal corporate meetings about transition from traditional to more agile software development techniques. He works with many of the Fortune 200 along with government agencies worldwide.

James Smith’s 30 year IT career began at IBM in mainframe sales and at AT&T in product development. James’s central focus is now on Scrum. First seeing the power of Scrum during a most dramatic of corporate turnarounds prompted his move to the role of ScrumMaster. Every one of the 26 Teams with whom he worked, taught him that Scrum was the most efficient and profitable way of developing software. As a member of Winnow Management, James is pleased with the opportunity to share all of his learnings assisting in the launch of new Agile Teams. He feels that Scrum, when properly implemented, makes life better for all involved. And at the end of the day, that is a very good thing of which to be a part. James is certified by the Scrum Alliance (sm) to bring Certified ScrumMaster training, and holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.

Course Outline,p> Short, five-minute exercises and case studies will be scattered throughout the two-day session. Longer exercises are detailed below. Time spent on each topic will vary depending on the composition of the class and the interest in particular areas.

1. Agile Thinking
In order for us to understand the benefits of Scrum and the nuances behind its framework, we begin with the history of agile methods and how relatively new thoughts in software development have brought us to Scrum.

1. How manufacturing has influenced software development
2. The origins of agile thinking
3. The Agile Manifesto
4. The complexity of projects
5. Theoretical Vs. Empirical processes overview
6. The “Iron Triangle” of Project Management

EXERCISE: The “Art of the Possible.” This is an opportunity to understand how small changes in behavior can have a large impact on productivity. This also turns our thinking towards new ideas and a willingness to change for the better.

2. The Scrum Framework
Here we’ll ensure that we’re all working from the same foundational concepts that make up the Scrum Framework.

1. The different Scrum roles
2. Chickens and Pigs
3. Iterative Development vs. Waterfall
4. Self Management concepts
5. Full disclosure and visibility
6. The Scrum Framework Overview

3. Implementation Considerations
Moving beyond Scrum’s foundational concepts, we’ll use this time to dig deeper into the reasons for pursuing Scrum. We’ll also use this time to begin a discussion of integrity in the marketplace and how this relates to software quality.

1. Traditional vs. Agile methods overview
2. Scrum: The Silver Bullet
3. The Agile Skeleton
4. A Scrum launch checklist

EXERCISE: Integrity at a fast-food restaurant. During this exercise we’ll review various options regarding an employee faced with a difficult situation. The importance of providing high quality products to our customers will be explored.

EXERCISE: understanding customer expectations. This exercise is the beginning of an extended exercise involving agile estimating and planning. During this first portion of the exercise, we’ll work with a fictional customer who has a very demanding schedule and understand how our assessment of project work plays a significant role in customer satisfaction.

EXERCISE: : The 59-minute Scrum Simulation. This popular exposure to Scrum asks us to work on a short project that lasts for just 59 minutes! We’ll walk through all of the key steps under the Scrum framework as we work in project teams to deliver a new product.

4. Scrum Roles
Who are the different players in the Scrum game? We’ll review checklists of role expectations in preparation for further detail later in our session.

1. The Team Member
2. The Product Owner
3. The Scrum Master

5. The Scrum Team Explored
Since the ScrumMaster is looking to protect the productivity of the team, we must investigate team behaviors so we can be prepared for the various behaviors exhibited by teams of different compositions. We’ll also take a look at some Scrum Team variants.

1. The Agile Heart
2. Bruce Tuckman’s team life cycle
3. Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team
4. Team ground rules
5. Getting Human Resources involved
6. The impact of project switching
7. The MetaScrum
8. The Scrum of Scrums
9. The importance of knowing when software is “done” •“Done” for multiple team integrations divided by function •“Done” for multiple team integrations divided by skill •“Done” for unsynchronized technologies
10. Internal Outsourcing

6. Agile Estimating and Planning
Although agile estimating and planning is an art unto itself, the concepts behind this method fit very well with the Scrum methodology an agile alternative to traditional estimating and planning. We’ll break into project teams that will work through decomposition and estimation of project work, and then plan out the project through delivery.

1. Product Backlog Features
2. Relative Weighted Prioritization
3. Prioritizing Our Time
4. User Stories
5. Relative Effort
6. Velocity
7. Planning Poker and Story Points
8. Ideal Team Days
9. Team Capacity
10. Projecting a Schedule
11. Why Plan in an Agile Environment?

7. The Product Owner: Extracting Value
The driving force behind implementing Scrum is to obtain results, usually measured in terms of return on investment or value. How can we help ensure that we allow for project work to provide the best value for our customers and our organization? We’ll take a look at different factors that impact our ability to maximize returns.

1. The Priority Guide
2. Product Backlog Refactoring
3. Productivity Drag Factors
4. Fixed Price/Date Contracts
5. Release Management
6. Earned Value Management

8. The ScrumMaster Explored
It’s easy to read about the role of the ScrumMaster and gain a better understanding of their responsibilities. The difficulty comes in the actual implementation. Being a ScrumMaster is a hard job, and we’ll talk about the characteristics of a good ScrumMaster that go beyond a simple job description.

1. The ScrumMaster Aura
2. Characteristics of a ScrumMaster Candidate
3. The Difficulties of Being a ScrumMaster
4. A Day in the Life of a ScrumMaster
5. The Importance of Listening
6. Common Sense

9. Meetings and Artifacts Reference Material
While most of this material was discussed in previous portions of class, more detailed documentation is included here for future reference.

1. A Chart of Scrum Meetings
2. The Product Backlog
3. Sprint Planning
4. The Sprint Backlog
5. The Sprint
6. The Daily Scrum
7. The Sprint Demo/Review
8. Why Plan?
9. The Ideal Team Day
10. Scrum Tools

10. Advanced Considerations and Reference Material
This section is reserved for reference material. Particular interests from the class may warrant discussion during our class time together.

1. Conflict Management
2. Different Types of Sprints
3. The ScrumMaster of the Scrum-of-Scrums
4. Metrics
5. Dispersed Teams
6. Scaling
7. Developing Architecture
8. Stage Gate/Milestone Driven Development
9. Inter- and Intra-Project Dependencies
10. Task Boards, Project Boards
11. Scrum and CMM, “Traditional” XP

Who Should Attend This Course

This certification program was developed for any professional who is currently involved in or will become involved in the running of Scrum projects.

Current Scrum Team Members not certified, including:

• Business customer, user or partner
• Product Owners
• Team Members
• Acting ScrumMasters who currently are not certified

Positions within organizations that are interested in moving to Scrum, including:

• Project Manager
• Project lead
• Project sponsors
• IT Manager/Directors
• Business Analyst
• Developers/Programmers

THERE ARE NO PREREQUISITES FOR THIS COURSE.