Other Courses

 

Looking for other courses that were once in Agile Institute’s catalog? No worries: they’re still available. Depending on your needs, I will deliver the courses below, or I may engage a trusted colleague to deliver comparable materials.

Previously, the goal at Agile Institute was to provide all-encompassing, one-stop shopping for Agile courses and coaching. I often found myself updating a broad suite of courses with the latest knowledge and experience, even if it wasn’t my strongest specialty. Also, the logistics of delivering workbooks and materials overseas became a bit of a challenge.

Then I read Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. The summary message of that book is “less, but better.” With the 2020 reboot of Agile Institute, I want to focus on making a few of my favorite courses the very best. Also, technical courses tend to have a lighter operational overhead, especially when delivered remotely. E.g., I will no longer need to ship five gallons of LEGOs to South Korea.

Incremental Design Essentials

This course walked participants through a number of software design principles (OO, SOLID, Design Patterns, Beck’s Four Rules of Simple Design), uncovering the commonalities. Then I would introduce them to the skills necessary to obtain great incremental (or “emergent”) software design. But that introduction was often brief, leading to the need for a deeper course from the catalog. Rather than making this course a prerequisite, I’ve blended the materials into some of the other “Essential Series” courses, wherever appropriate. For example, one of the CSD Technical Elective options for the 5-day Essential Agile Developer Skills contains these lessons.

Essential Agile Principles & Practices

This “Agile Intro” course is great fun, and highly practical. It introduces teams to the Agile Manifesto, frameworks, roles, events, principles, and practices. I use a simulation to demonstrate both leadership and builder activities necessary for Agile product development. To simulate software development, and to give everyone a sense of each Agile role, participants build a toy village out of LEGOs®. This is the closest I’ve found to simulating software development without actually slinging code. It’s actually possible to demonstrate test-first and refactoring practices!

UPDATE 16Apr2021: This course will soon make it back on the regular menu, with a little refinement, as my stand-alone Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Developer® (CSD) course, which is the less technical, less coding-centric prerequisite to what would then be an abbreviated (2-day) version of Essential Agile Developer Capabilities, delivered as A-CSD. LEGOs® will make a comeback!

Essential Agile Product Leadership

Many years ago, this course got a strong start, thanks to a client who wanted it delivered to the entire Board of Directors of a big petroleum/energy multi-national. It includes visioning, Agile Portfolio Planning, Cost of Delay, Theory of Constraints, Cynefin, the “Iron Triangle” (really more of a wobbly iron rhomboid), User Stories, Story Mapping; and wraps up with a taste of BDD and Gherkin scenarios. Again, the best CSPO courses delivered by the best CSTs are fairly similar.