Bootstrapping Your Scrum Team

A Three or Four Day Custom Workshop

This customizable, three or four-day workshop is designed to get your team up and running with Scrum quickly. Experiential exercises introduce participants to the key roles, responsibilities, interactions, tools, and processes of Scrum. These exercises are then extended to include the real data from the team's project. This workshop is far more effective than off-the-self training courses, because the team learns by using Scrum on their real project during the workshop. A pattern used in this workshop is:

  • Presentation and discussion of a key concept and related techniques
  • Experiential exercise to learn how to apply the techniques
  • Exercise repeated with actual data from the team's project so that the team has 'done it for real'

The team will learn:

  • How to harness the power of self-organization
  • Estimation and story sizing techniques
  • Sprint Planning
  • Release planning
  • How to use retrospectives to continuously improve
  • How to conduct brief and effective stand-up meetings (The daily Scrum)
  • How to maximize business value delivered
  • Their new roles and responsibilities, as members of a Scrum team
  • The special roles of ScrumMaster and Product Owner
  • The Product Backlog: User stories, prioritization, and backlog grooming
  • Creating and applying a Scrum 'Definition of Done'
  • Working with agile requirements, specifications, and documentation
  • Fundamentals of emergent architecture and design
  • Agile metrics and tracking tools such as task boards and burn charts

Testimonials from students who have taken this workshop:

“After 3 days I want more!!! Come with an open mind and you’ll be amazed at the number of ‘Aha!’ moments you’ll have.Chris combines a good balance of the real world with simple, profound lessons.”

“The training today delivered way more value than expected–thanks for an excellent learning experience! I honestly feel 5x more confident about grooming my backlog, writing/organizing/prioritizing stories and dealing with stakeholders than I did yesterday. You answered all questions very well, and kept a very friendly, open feel to the session, which encouraged conversation and debate. Nice work!”

“Unmitigatedly positive responses from the training. A couple of folks told me it was the best training they’ve ever had at Autodesk. My proof was how yesterday’s Sprint Planning meeting went. It was a 3x improvement. Truly incredible to watch. They took their training directly from the classroom to the Scrum Room.”