Agile software development training

Agile spelt out on wooden blocks

Practical and inspiring 2-day Agile software training workshop for teams, frequently run as introduction to Agile for teams changing tomorrow or to improve teams with some experience of Agile.

2-day hands-on Agile training workshop.

Free follow-up consulting day when booked direct.Available for private on site delivery.Additional

3rd day option add-on examining requirements and User Stories in more depth.


Why this is workshop different? – the emphasis in this workshop is getting teams working agile, and better agile, rather than getting a certificate.

This workshop aims to give attendees a rehearsal of working agile. So the first day is two big exercises so they everyone can practice working iteratively and discussing how and why it will work. Then in the last session of the workshop the teams are asked “What do you want to do? what do you want to adopt and change?”. Teams get to decide, on their own, what happens next.

Thats my recipe and it seems to work. Teams see benefits in immediately and within a few weeks iterative agile is embedded. This workshop has a track record of success with teams going from workshop to real work and putting it into action.


Agile software development is now well established. Many teams have already seen benefits in comparison to older ways of working. Whether it be regular releases, improved quality, reduced documentation and more. Companies in online commerce, health care, finance, embedded and many other fields have adopted Agile as their standard way of working.

While the basics of Agile working are picked up fairly quickly the devil is in the detail. Doing agile development well can be hard. Particularly when team members all have a slightly different idea of how things work in Agile. This Agile software training course provides a great starting point for change. Many teams have started their first sprint the day after this workshop.

For experienced teams the flexible nature allows teams’ to focus on areas of concern. Experienced teams have the opportunity to review current working practices, compare them with other teams and decide how to improve.

Agile software training

This course provides a practical introduction to Agile Software Development and Scrum routines. This course has a proven record of bringing software development teams to a state where they can start implementing Agile the next day.

The Agile software training teaches the concepts of short delivery cycles, working with changing requirements and empirical process control. By the end of the course attendees will have decided what Agile practices they wish to adopt.

Who is this course for?

  • Whole teams who wish to transition to an Agile development methods approach, whether Scrum, XP (Extreme Programming) or generic Agile.
  • Software Engineers, Testers, Business Analysts, Product and Project Managers, Program and Development Manager who want to work in and with Agile/Scrum teams.
  • Whole teams who wish to build on existing Agile practices and consider how they can move forward to higher performance.
  • Business customers and users who work with software teams and want to understand the Agile development paradigm.

What will I learn?

Attendees on this Agile training workshop will learn how to work and deliver software in time-boxed iterations, hold Agile/Scrum meetings, manage work backlogs and prioritize work to satisfy business need. They will also learn how, in a changing environment, to design software, discover requirements and keep code quality high. This course gives an overview of technical and management practices for Agile. On completion of this course you will:

  • Be able to follow Agile/Scrum processes and understand roles and responsibilities.
  • Begin software development in an Agile fashion using time-boxed iterations.
  • Understand Agile values and principles.
  • Participate in Scrum style meetings such as daily stand up, planning and retrospectives.
  • Understand the technical practices common in Agile, Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP).

Topics covered

  • Benefits of Agile and Scrum.
  • Sprints & Iterations: routines and meetings; planning meetings, stand-up/Scrum meetings, demonstrations and reviews & retrospectives.
  • Planning: Loading a sprint with commitment and/or velocity, sprint planning, quarter/release planning and roadmap.
  • Requirements: User Stories, sprint backlog & product backlog, prioritization and the Product Owner role (Business Analysts, Product Managers, Customers and others) plus roles, stakeholders and personas.
  • Work to do: Epics, User Stories, Tasks, work breakdown, estimation and definition of done.
  • Overview of technical practices: Test Driven Development (TDD), refactoring, continuous integration, simplicity in design & architecture, code reviews and pair programming.
  • Who? Customers, Developers, Testers, Managers, Product Owners, Scrum Master, Agile Coaches and other stakeholders.
  • Management: Vertical teams, Visibility, Definition of Done, the Role of Quality in software development.
  • When will it be done? – Burn down charts and cumulative flow diagrams.

Exercises

Stand-up meeting, Planning meeting, Story Breakdown, Simulated Sprint Cycles, Retrospectives using Dialogue Sheets.

Materials

All attendees receive: copies of the course slides and a copy of Xanpan: team centric agile software development – either electronic or printed.

In addition the team receives:

  • Planning poker cards.
  • Team Retrospective cards
  • Completed Agile Thinking dialogue sheets listing the teams next actions.
  • Iteration Planning Meeting dialogue sheet to help the team with planning meetings and Sprint Retrospective dialogue sheets for future use.

Free Follow-Up Day

This training course is normally scheduled with a follow-up day of consulting held one to six weeks after the course delivery. The intention is to help teams embed and extend Agile working. Typically the day consists of several of the following activities dependent on the situation:

  • Review and consultation with team management.
  • Review of the visual board with management and/or team.
  • Question and answer session with the development team.
  • Question and answer session with produce ownership/requirements team.
  • User Story review – using actual user stories or samples.
  • Story mapping with actual stories – plus discussion of fidelity if appropriate.

Extended 3rd day

The basic 2-day course covers just enough requirements and user stories to get teams started. This additional day looks at requirements day in more detail. It considers:

  • Aims and objectives of work and governance by delivery rather than plan.
  • Stakeholders, user roles and personas and User Story review exercise.
  • The Product Owner role in more depth: how Business Analysts and Product Managers are involved and the Strategic/Tactical Product Owner model.
  • Testing in more depth: Acceptance criteria (conditions of satisfaction), test automation and an overview of popular techniques for acceptance test driven development (ATDD): specification by example (SbE) and behaviour driven development (BDD).

Additional exercises: Estimating business value and User Story review.

Questions?

Please e-mail contact@allankelly.net or book a call and we can talk – no charge, no obligation.

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