Course description
Certified Scrum Product Owner
Even projects that have solid, well-defined project plans can encounter some degree of change and waste. Shifting market conditions, budget cuts, staff restructuring, or any number of influences will disrupt the best-laid plans while contributing to customer dissatisfaction and staff discouragement. Then there are projects that begin with changing or unclear requirements, making it difficult to even establish project expectations. Scrum is the agile development process that allows teams to deliver usable products periodically throughout the life of the project, absorbing change and new requirements as the project proceeds.
As we move through the disciplines promoted by Scrum you will gain a comprehensive understanding of this agile product development methodology while specifically reviewing the behaviours expected of a product owner. While many of us may be accustomed to the practice of establishing value and priority across projects, the product owner needs to consider value and priority across the features of a single project.
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Upcoming start dates
Who should attend?
Those who are responsible for setting product direction on a Scrum project, also known as product owners. Current Certified ScrumMasters are also welcome to attend so they can get a more complete understanding of this critical role and help coach their product owners more effectively.
Prerequisites:
While no experience is necessary, attendees should have some familiarity with Scrum.
Training content
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.
- How manufacturing has influenced software development
- The origins of agile thinking
- The Agile Manifesto
- The complexity of projects
- Theoretical vs. empirical processes overview
- The “Iron Triangle” of project management
The Scrum framework: Here we’ll ensure that we’re all working from the same foundational concepts that make up the Scrum framework.
- The three different Scrum roles
- The three different Scrum artifacts
- The five different Scrum events
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.
- The development team
- Maintaining technical quality standards
- The product owner
- The ScrumMaster
- Stakeholders
- Project managers
- Functional managers
Exercise: establishing product expectations. This is a long-running exercise that carries through into our remaining sections that follow where we will discuss and practice various aspects of product and project planning in an agile Scrum environment.
The product backlog, product visioning, and progressive elaboration. The Scrum team must have an understanding of our product vision so they can make good decisions. The product backlog is a reflection of that vision, and we’ll practice developing its content.
- Defining the product vision
- Five Levels of Planning
- The contents of the product backlog
- Identifying users
- Adding user stories
- Bill Wake and the INVEST model
- The significance of granularity
- Managing large product backlogs
- User story brainstorming
- Introduction to prioritisation
- Prioritisation’s impact on time management
Velocity and Story Points: Since a product owner is responsible for monitoring progress, we’ll discuss and practice how to measure a Team’s progress in delivering product features.
- Relative effort
- Velocity
- Planning poker and story points
- Ideal team days
- Team capacity
- Projecting a schedule
- Project management variables and velocity
Prioritisation considerations and methods: Prioritisation is the product owner’s number one tool for maximising return on investment. In this section, we’ll review different techniques available to establish meaningful priorities. Because of the variety of approaches, we will determine which ones to focus on based on feedback from the class participants.
- Bringing prioritisation into a project
- Themes and relative weighted priority
- Prioritisation questions and considerations
- Revenue opportunity
- Cost to build
- Gaining knowledge
- Risk mitigation
- Theme scoring
- Kano modelling
Extracting value and the cost of change. This section touches on several different areas of interest that influence our ability to extract the most value from our projects. Again, more focus will be spent on topics of particular interest to the class participants.
- Fixed date contracts
- Product backlog refinement (“grooming”)
- Cancelling a sprint
- Productivity drag factors
- Release management
- The impact of project switching
- The impact of continuous forced marches
- Earned value in an agile environment
Closing topics: We’ll wrap up with direction on where to go next with your Scrum experience, some recommended reading and Scrum reference sites.
Costs
An early-bird discount of $150 applies when booked more than 7 days prior to the start date.
Certification / Credits
Scrum Alliance certification: Successful completion of this course will enable you to be registered with the Scrum Alliance as a 'Certified Scrum Product Owner®'
Project Management Institute (PMI)® accredited course: This course is accredited with PMI® and will allow PMPs to claim 16 professional development units (PDUs).
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SoftEd
Today’s businesses need to be responsive, adaptive and future-focused. They need to be agile. That’s where SoftEd comes in. As an agile consultancy, and the largest provider of ICAgile training globally, we’ll help you to transform your way of thinking...