Scrum is an Agile Method. Agile is an umbrella term that expresses a mindset and the practices that help us achieve that mindset. It is based on an evidence based, empirical approach, with frequent collaboration, continual experimentation, and adjustments to plans, designs, and architectures based on learnings.
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development defined the agile mindset. Spend a few minutes to read the Manifesto for Agile Software Development prior to your session.
Click for the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (Agile Manifesto)
Click for the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto
The Scrum guide is an abstract document, but it is more detailed than is the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. It provide more context on how to achieve
an agile mindset. The latest version of the Scrum Guide was released in late 2020.
Click for the 2020 Scrum Guide
The Scrum Alliance has a set of videos for learning Scrum basics. These videos were produced prior to the updates to the Scrum Guide and use slightly different
terminology, but these differences are relatively minor and will be cleared up during your course.
Click for Scrum Alliance videos
The Scrum Alliance has a set of learning objectives for all sessions. The
foundational learning objectives applies for all Scrum Alliance classes. In theory these foundational objectives represent things you should know prior
to attending a Scrum Alliance Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner session. But, our experience is that most attendees at a base session do not have this
knowledge.
Click
for the Scrum Alliance Foundational Learning Objectives
Stories and user stories are not part of Scrum, but a majority of Scrum Teams use, or perhaps misuse, user stories. Way back in August of 2001, Ron Jeffries wrote a short blog on what he calls the three C's, Card, Conversation, Confirmation. That was over two decades ago, but all of what Ron said still applies today. To many teams over complicate the story writing process, focusing on syntax, and writing stories to replace conversations and collaboration. A better approach is to write stores that facilitate conversation and collaboration.
Ron's post is in the Core Learning section even though for many students, story writing is not a critical skill because Ron's
article provides an example of the simplicity that we seek in agile. There is not need to over control the items in the product backlog. Keep
that in mind while reading Ron's post.
Click for Ron Jeffrie's 3C's for story writing
Review Section 1.
The Scrum Alliance publishes learning objective for each certification.
Click here for the Scrum Alliance Certified ScrumMaster Learning Objectives
For those of you who are going to the CSM Exam, review the exam content outline.
Click here for the Certified Scrum Master® (CSM) exam content outline
The Scrum Alliance is a not for profit certifying body for agile. There is another not for profit, the Agile Alliance, that doesn't offer certifications, but runs conferences and
in other ways helps grow agile. They have a short review of what agile methods are. The terminology varies a bit from our class but it is a
good starting point.
Click here for Agile Alliance introduction to agile.
Review Sections 1 and 2.
The Scrum Alliance publishes learning objective for each certification.
Click here for the Scrum Alliance Advanced Certified ScrumMaster Learning Objectives
Extreme Programming (XP) is an agile method created by Kent Beck with input from Ron Jeffries, Ward Cunningham and others. XP is
built on Scrum and adds software engineering practices. Please read the following from Ron Jeffries to famaliarize yourself with
XP and think about which practices, if any, your team is, and should be, using, and what you could do to help make that happen.
Click here for https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/what-is-extreme-programming/
An agile coach is, in some ways, similar to a Scrum Master. Read the old, but good article about agile coaching, to understand and compare and contrast a coach to a Scrum Master.
Click here for a description of agile coaching competencies
If you hear someone in the Agile Community talking about Gherkin, BDD, or Behavior Driven Development, they are all essentially talking about the same thing. Read the following articles from Dan North.
Click here for an introduction to BDD
Review Sections 1, 2 and 3.
The Scrum Alliance publishes learning objective for each certification.
Click here for the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Professional ScrumMaster Learning Objectives
A number of Agile Manifesto authors were advocates of lean, and agile principles are similar to lean principles. Read the article below
to get a deeper understanding of lean principles and think about how they apply to your day to day work.
Click here for https://less.works/less/principles/lean-thinking.html
There are many ways to scale agile and you may be familiar with SAFe, LeSS etc. One novel method is
called FaST (Fluid Agile Scaling Technology).
Read the brief FAST guide below and consider the techniques that are described therein; have you tried any of these at your organizations, and if so,
how well have they worked?
Click here to read the brief FAST Guide
Review Section 1.
The Scrum Alliance publishes learning objective for each certification.
Click here for the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Product Owner Learning Objectives
Assuming you read the Core Material for Everyone section up top (if you didn't, go there now) you have already read Ron Jeffries take on the 3 C's, Card, Conversation and Confirmation. Bill
Wake, an early expert in agile methods, also created principles to help with story writing. You can use the INVEST model as another filter on the
quality of your stories. Consider his thoughts and consider whether your teams’ backlog items follow the guidance that
he provides.
Click
here to read Bill Wake's thoughts on the INVEST Model
Now that you spent all of this time reading up on stories and user stories, you should know that they are not the total answer. Concrete testable examples,
provide more intellectual depth. If you hear someone in the Agile Community talking about Gherkin, BDD, or Behavior Driven Development, they are all essentially talking about the
same thing. Read the Wikipedia article on BDD.
Click here for a Wikipedia article on BDD
If you are in the mood for a video, the one below is a classic from Henrik Kniberg. This video used to be a staple in all Product Owner classes, but we prefer you view the video prior to coming to the session. Click here for Henrik Kniberg's Product Ownership in a Nutshell
Review Sections 1 and 5.
The Scrum Alliance publishes learning objective for each certification.
Click here for the Scrum Alliance Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (A-CSPO) Learning Objectives
There are a lot of misconceptions about Product Ownership.
Click here to watch this video on common Product Owner misconceptions
Our next video includes Grow-Lean Team Members Arlen Bankston and David Bulkin. This is an Agile World discussion about Nightmare Stories. Note, that although video is included, you won't
lose anything by simply listening to the audio.
Click here for a discussion on good versus bad story writing.
If you hear someone in the Agile Community talking about Gherkin, BDD, or Behavior Driven Development, they are all essentially talking about the
same thing. Read the following articles from Dan North, the creator of BDD.
Click here for an introduction to BDD
Click here for more about testing
As an advanced class, you should arrive ready to speak to one major challenge that you or your organization is facing related to effective Product Ownership.
Review Sections 1, 2 and 3.
The Scrum Alliance publishes learning objective for each certification.
Click here for the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Product Owner Learning Objectives
A number of Agile Manifesto authors were advocates of lean, and agile principles are similar to lean principles. Read the article below
to get a deeper understanding of lean principles and think about how they apply to your day to day work.
Click here for https://less.works/less/principles/lean-thinking.html
Don Reinertsen is considered an expert in the application of scientifically proven, Lean Product Development principles. We have two videos from Reinertsen, one is really short, the other long.
Click here for Don Reinertsen very short video on batch size
Click here for Don Reinertsen, The Big Ideas Behind Lean Product Development
As an advanced class, you should arrive ready to speak to one major challenge that you or your organization is facing related to effective Product Ownership.
Review the Core Material for Everyone section. You can even read Ron Jeffries take on the 3 C's
Read "The Efficiency Paradox" to understand while the desire for efficiency is not desirable and in fact lowers the quality of outcomes.
Review the Core Material for Everyone section. You can skip Ron Jeffries take on the 3 C's.
James Shore explores a lesser-known scaling method called FAST. This is an hour-long video that goes
into significant detail on a method that is relatively weakly covered elsewhere.
Click here for for the hour video on FAST
Read a this deep dive into SAFe™ that briefly considers several alternative scaling methods.
Click here for the deep dive into SAFe™
Johanna Rothman's explores how to enable collaboration in large groups via small networks,
as an alternative to using roles and meetings for the same purpose.
Click here for lightweight alternatives to SAFe for scaling agile