Credits:                             14 PDUs / 2 Days

Course Level:                   Basic/Intermediate

Prerequisites:
No prerequisites – This course suitable for both novices and experienced people who need to manage and implement a project. Having an understanding of project management and business processes is helpful and recommended. Those interested in the PMI-ACP® certification should have at least 2000 hours of Agile project experience and preferably be a certified PMP® to qualify for the new exam.

Course Overview:
Many of today’s Project Management and Business Analyst Professionals are finding themselves leading, managing and analyzing on  Agile development teams – only to find that many of the tools and techniques applied when using a traditional project management approach no longer work as effectively or at all. In order to do more than survive in this iterative development environment, today’s Project Manager and Business Analyst must employ additional project management and business analysis tools and techniques to effectively lead their teams and deliver their projects.
The course will explore how your projects can easily and successfully make the transition to an effective Agile environment.
Agile Scrum is an incremental, iterative framework for project management and software development – where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. This disciplined project management process involves:

• A leadership philosophy that encourages teamwork, self-organization and accountability
• A set of engineering best practices intended to allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software
• A business approach that aligns development with customer needs and company goals.

Using a case study, participants will learn how to plan and manage an Agile Scrum framework. Your role in an agile project will look much different as you form and coach a self-directed team, facilitate continuous collaboration with your clients, manage and deliver business value to your clients early and regularly throughout the project.

Intended Audience:
Executives, Project Managers, Business Analysts, Business and IT stakeholders working with analysts, Quality and process engineers, technicians, managers; supervisors, team leaders, and process operators; anyone who wants to improve their Business Analysis skills.

Learning Objectives:

• Plan, manage and close requirements for software development project in reduced time using Agile Scrum practices
• Minimize project uncertainty and risk by applying Agile principles through the Scrum method
• Ensure your project delivers required functionality and adds value to the business
• Create an environment of self-management for your software development team that will be able to continuously align the delivered software with desired business needs, easily adapting to changing requirements throughout the process.
• Learn how to apply Agile Scrum by measuring and evaluating status based on the undeniable truth of working, testing software, creating a more accurate visibility into the actual progress of projects.

Section 1: Introduction – Fundamentals of Agile

• Why Agile?
  Exercise 1a: Waterfall-Lean-Agile Simulation
• History & Mindset: Understand how the agile approach arose.
• The Agile Lifecycle
• Introducing Agile to the organization
• Roles and Responsibilities on an Agile project team. Understand the purpose, the concepts, the theory, and some applications around the importance of people as individuals providing value through working in teams.
• Establishing core hours – How will the team work during a day?
• How to build end-to-end systems in early iterations
  Exercise 1b: How to build end-to-end systems in early iterations
• Planning and Managing Business Analysis Communication and Performance
• Agile and CMMI
  Exercise 1c: Case Study Project

Section 2: Assembling the team – Scrum Roles

• Value-Driven Development:  Understand why agile development focuses so heavily on working products, its more general casting as “value-driven” development, with incremental, iterative and risk-driven approaches. Themes, theory and applications.
  Exercise 2a: Identify the “Product Owner”
• Identify Project Success Criteria
  Exercise 2b: Review the Scrum Cheat Sheet
• Establish your Agile team using RACI
  Exercise 2c: Build the Scrum Team

Section 3: Define the Product and Project Vision

• Envision the Product and Project outcomes
  Exercise 3a: Review Agile Checklist
• Project Chartering (Project Planning)
• Assemble the Agile project team – what are their responsibilities?
• Compile the Product Backlog (Coarse-Grain Requirements)
• Discuss how to Plan Sprints and Releases
  Exercise 3b: Product Vision – Goals and Strategies
•  Establish the Project “time-box”
  Exercise 3c: Create a Release Plan
• Embrace the High-Level (Coarse-Grain) Plan
• Managing different types of Personas on an Agile Project
• Identifying and managing “Information Radiators”
• Planning in Agile Projects – Common practices that work
• Determine how the team will tracking and monitoring activities
  Exercise 3d: Establish the Project Time-box

Section 4: Tools and Techniques – Building the Scrum Task board

• Communications
  Exercise 4a: Discussion – Tools and Techniques for Scrum
• Planning, Monitoring and Adapting
• Scrum Task Board
  Exercise 4b: Create a Scrum Task board – Identify work streams
• Agile Estimating
• Agile Analysis and Design
• Burndown Chart
• Team Velocity
• Soft Skills Negotiation

Section 5: Estimating ad Prioritizing Effort

• Planning Releases. Understand the value, the concepts, the theory and some applications for learning and adapting at all levels and on all topics (the product, the process, the team, and the organization).
  Exercise 5a: Brainstorm Business Functionality
• Establishing decision and acceptance criteria for user stories
• Planning Poker
  Exercise 5b: Estimate Effort (Coarse-Grain)
• Prioritize themes and releases
• Prioritize user stories
  Exercise 5c: Confirm the Estimated Effort (Fine Grain)
• Estimating team velocity
• Preparing for change – Is the organization ready?
  Exercise 5d: Hold a daily Scrum and update the Scrum Task Board
  Exercise 5e: Conduct a Scrum or Scrums

Section 6: Plan the Iteration (Sprint)

• Sprint Zero activities
• Elements of a successful Sprint Planning meeting
• Create a Sprint Backlog
• How to create a task board
  Exercise 6a: Using the case study – Review Iteration Planning Checklist
• Create a Sprint plan – Establishing Sprint success metrics
  Exercise 6b: Discussion Sprint “Zero” Activities
• Define the vision and Iteration Requirements
• Estimating the level of effort (LOE) with the team
• Creating user Stories for the Product Backlog – Guidelines to consider
• The art of slicing user stories
  Exercise 6c: Review the Sprint Plan
• Managing the Solution Scope and Requirements using 2-4 week Sprints
  Exercise 6d: Adapting a change-driven Project plan that works
• Adapting a change-driven (Agile) Project plan that works – what are the key differences from traditional (waterfall) project plans?
• Finalize the Iteration Plan and how the team will operate

Section 7: Running the Sprint – from Planning to Review and Retrospective

• Managing your Scrums and setting expectations with your team
  Exercise 7a: Using the case study – Review the Review Planning checklist
• Using Burndown charts to track progress
  Exercise 7b: Using the case study – Review the Review Retrospective checklist
• Manage changes during the Sprint – What questions to ask
• Prepare for the Sprint Review
  Exercise 7c: Review of roles – Quiz
• Obtain Customer Acceptance of the Product Increment
• Hold a Sprint Retrospective – What is working and what needs to be improved upon during the Sprints
• Update the product backlog – Rework the High-Level (Coarse-Grain) Plan
• Plan and Execute the next Sprint
• Create an environment for continuous improvement – Product, Process and People

Section 8: Additional Information

•  Useful books and links on Agile

Download the PDF:
BA07-Implementing an Agile Project – 2 days