Our “booth” offered our flyer, pens, a public display of the Agile Portfolio Management book and our Poker Cards following the Fibonacci  sequence. Two copies of the Agile Portfolio Management book were also contributed to the raffle organized by PMI-NYC at the end of the day.  The full-day event was held 9/16/2011 at Credit Suisse.

The location is extremely well connected to two major airports (Miami and Fort Lauderdale) as well as hotels at Miami Beach, Coral Gables or Coconut Grove. Locals from the greater Miami area will find the University well connected with sufficient space for parking.

Enrollment is now open and the first 10 seats are super-discounted, before we transition to early bird and regular pricing later this year.  We will update the enrollment page with additional information about hotels, specials etc. later this year.

Scrum Power Pack Attendees 05-05-11

Like the first one back in November 2010, the Spring’11 Scrum Power Pack received rave reviews. For example some feedback from the 3rd day Scrum Workshop:

“The exercises were challenging and offered great insights into the Scrum Process”

“Joe elaborated on real life project experiences”

“Great as it is!”

“Excellent exercises, really well thought out and instructive. You kept everything moving nicely”

If you are interested in attending our next Scrum Power Pack in New York City, Ken and Jochen will be back 10/03/11 to 10/05/11. Early Bird Registration is already open.

PMI Registered Education Provider (REP)

The CCR (Continuous Certification Requirement) allows existing PMP(r) to renew their certification based on Professional Development Units (PDU) within a 3-year window. By attending our Scrum Training course, PMP’s will receive 14 PDU’s in category “A” . This will make the claim process of PDU very easy for our PMP attendees. This became even more important a few weeks ago when the Project Management Institute announced their agile certification program and more PMP’s will become more interested in our courses.

However, these teams are reluctant to provide upfront estimates because they worry that a manager or a customer might interpret an estimate as a firm commitment or a guarantee. They would prefer that their customers agree to a fixed number of sprints (schedule) and effort (cost).  In this ideal scenario, the team then commits to work as efficiently as possible with a mutual agreement to maximize the value of the effort by always focusing on the most valuable stories at any point in time.

While a trust based collaborative model between the team and business would be preferable, the reality is that even the most trusting customers need to rely on the team’s judgment and estimation expertise when making business decisions. The key is for the team to acknowledge that an estimate is simply an assessment of a likely outcome that has some margin of error associated with it. When presenting a Preliminary Estimate, be sure to explicitly state that it is such. Include a wide accuracy range and ensure that the customer understands this. Repeat it frequently. Finally, help your customer understand that estimation should not be reserved just for the beginning of the project. Show them that estimation can be done sprint by sprint as the team learns more about the emerging requirements and their ability to build and evaluate software.

Scrum in Austin

Here is some feedback from the students:

“Joe rocks!”

“Thanks for flying down here”

“It was great having everyone come together as a team”

“I really appreciate this training, Thank you!”

“I loved it”

“Nine+”  (based on a scale from 1 to 9 with 9 being great)

Collaboration Exercise

Open Space Dialogue

We took some time for some exercises to improve team collaboration and organizational effectiveness and played through different formats to increase transparency and predictability. We did than spent a good chunk of the day to retrospect the last year of Scrum. Within the retrospective I used an open space conference format to gather insights into the current challenges which was very well received by the attendees. Overall the day was highly productive and as you can see many new lightbulbs went on at the end of the day which will leave us with many very concrete action items to be tackled next.

Lightbulbs with Action Items

Here is some direct feedback from attendees after the session:

“engaging, relevant, proactive”

“interesting information presented in a fun way”

“this was an eye-opener”

“loved the exercises”

“this workshop puts theory into action”

Click here to reserve your seat in this Scrum Power Pack now.

If you like to see Ken and Joe talk about the initial Scrum Power Pack, you can watch a short recording on YouTube.

MTV Spike Team

Even more impressive than the funky work atmosphere were the team members which were totally engaged and curious.   The feedback from the participants was more than a compliment. Here are some examples:

“Order Pizza”  (to answer the question how the course could be improved. But with all the delicious street vendors in front of the Santa Monica office, I don’t think Pizza would have cut it)

“Instructor was fun” (A compliment which weighs even more coming from Spike!)

“Trainer had an engaging style and the practice sessions were amazing.”

“I learned A LOT!”

The selection of the Scrum Master is one of the most important decisions for an agile project, especially if the team/organization is inexperienced. Recruiters and hiring managers lately search more and more often for  “Junior Scrum Masters” which made me think about this more. First and the most obvious is, that Scrum calls the role Scrum Master and not Junior Scrum Master, maybe there is reason for it?

If “Junior” should reflect the experience level, and not only the salary level, there are several issues associated with it. First, the Scrum Master owns the process and is responsible for maturing the team.  If the team is very mature an inexperienced Scrum Master may be able to learn from the team over time, but that will take productivity away from the team. If the team is inexperienced with Scrum as well, I would not be surprised if a mediocre Scrum is executed. After all that effort to implement Scrum for a new team, why would we drive with the breaks on? If it is only about costs, good Scrum Masters will have a price tag. The reason why staffing a Scrum Master is so crucial for any project is, that a team is usually comprised of members with a variety of complimentary skills, but you have only one Scrum Master.

Therefore, get a great Scrum Master and with a well-defined tool-box of techniques. Good Scrum Master do much more than facilitating a sprint planning session and the daily Scrum meeting. This role is much more engaging and will take a team from good to great. That will have an impact on the bottom line of your product. In other words, good Scrum Masters pay back in no time. If you like to grow someone into the role of a Scrum Master, call her Scrum Master and have a coach work with her closely.  That will jump-start the learning curve without distracting the team.  If you decide to do Scrum do it right by picking the right Master.