top of page

Agile Essentials

This two-day workshop provides the essential information needed to be successful on Agile projects. Participants will use Scrum processes to write and prioritize user stories, facilitate ceremonies, and create artifacts to plan, track, and improve Scrum processes.

Learning Objectives

    • Describe agile values and principles
    • Explain Scrum roles and responsibilities
    • Explain the importance of Scrum ceremonies and artifacts
    • Write user stories to build a product backlog
    • Use story points and tee-shirt sizes to help determine the business value and cost of user stories
    • Create a sprint backlog during Sprint Planning
    o Use planning poker to estimate user stories
    o Decompose user stories into tasks
    o Estimate tasks in hours
    o Determine resource capacity for sprint velocity
    o Create a burndown chart
    • Conduct a Daily Scrum
    • Map progress on a burndown chart
    • Conduct a Scrum retrospective

Who should attend

This workshop is intended for project managers and other project stakeholders wanting to learn about Agile/Scrum who plan to apply Scrum or want to improve their Scrum practices.

Prerequisites

Participants should have worked at least one project.

Format, Material and Duration

To help assimilate the tools and techniques learned, there are team exercises throughout the course. A lively role play and case study help reinforce concepts learned. Students will need to be prepared for a high level of participation. Each participant will receive a comprehensive student guide complete with examples and workshop solutions.

Duration:

2 Full days / 4 Half-days

Both our Traditional and Virtual classes use the same materials.
• Comprehensive study guide with PowerPoint slides and detailed notes to serve as both an in-class guide and on-the-job reference.
• Example case study running throughout the course.
• A second workshop case study designed to give practice in applying business case skills.
• Workshop solutions that serve as an example business case.
• Comprehensive business case template to use on the job to jump-start your real-life business cases.
• Class discussions and exercises to reinforce the information presented.

Course Outline

    Agile Basics
    Agile and Lean principles
    Comparison of the Agile methods to waterfall approaches
    Overview of the Scrum ceremonies and artifacts
    Scrum terminology
    Scrum roles and responsibilities
    The Team environment
    Defining the product vision
    Activity: Define the vision

    The Product Backlog
    Defining user roles and personas
    Describing the components of a user story
    Describing guidelines for good user stories
    Writing user stories for the product backlog
    Defining non-functional requirements and business rules
    Workshop: Write user stories and create product backlog

    Sprint Planning
    Levels of planning in Agile
    Prioritizing and grooming user stories
    Adding acceptance criteria
    Prioritizing user stories using MoSCoW
    Relative sizing using value points for business benefit
    Relative sizing using tee-shirt sizes for cost
    Estimating user stories using planning poker
    Estimating velocity
    Sprint planning
    Defining tasks
    Estimating tasks in hours
    Choosing tasks
    The Sprint goal, plan, and commitment
    Workshop: Create sprint plan

    Ceremonies and Artifacts
    Events during a Sprint
    Daily planning during the Daily Scrum
    Updating the team board
    Using burndown charts to track progress
    Workshop: Conduct Daily Scrum
    The Sprint Demo/Review meeting
    Incorporating feedback/handling changes to the product backlog
    Other Sprint activities (testing/building)
    Importance of retrospectives
    Workshop: Class retrospective

Certification and Exam

Certification: 

You will receive a certificate of participation.

Exam

None

Learning Options

Find a training that fits your needs and schedule

Self-paced e-learning

Instructor-led Live Online Training

Corporate Training

bottom of page