Certified ScrumMaster®

Online Certified ScrumMaster Course (CSM)

Our approach to this course is unique, in at least two ways: our approach to Scrum and the Agile Release Planning workshop as a third day.

We want you to have significantly better results from Scrum, in terms of more fun, more Velocity (productivity) and more Business Value. We use many ideas to help you make this significant paradigm shift. We use interaction, Q&A, exercises, improv, table discussions and other techniques to get you involved and to help you experience what it is like to be on a great Scrum Team.

Joe Little will lead this course. He has co-taught eight times with Jeff Sutherland. Joe is an experienced Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), and he has worked with other great Scrum trainers. He also has an MBA, which is fairly unique among trainers.

Following the two-day course, we have a one-day Agile Release Planning Workshop, which attendees strongly encourage you to take. This covers Agile Release Planning, Release Plan Refactoring (a.k.a. Product Backlog grooming or Product Backlog refinement) and the shift from initial planning into starting the first Sprint. These topics are covered in the course, briefly. The big difference is that you work in a team and you practice Agile Release Planning with real work. (Note: The ARP workshop is not included in the price quoted here.) 

Participants Will Learn:

• To plan, initiate and lead a Scrum project
• To establish a shared vision for the entire team
• To generate an Agile Release Plan utilizing user stories and Story Point estimation
• To lead your Scrum Team through planning, review and retrospective sessions
• To create an environment in which self-managing teams can flourish
• To identify and remove impediments
• To identify, engage and involve Business Stakeholders in your project
• How to take an existing team to the next level
• Practical suggestions purchased expensively from the school of hard knocks

In this course, we typically mix in XP and Lean ideas. Having worked with Jeff Sutherland, Joe mixes in many of his ideas and stories. Having a business background and an MBA, Joe is oriented more than others toward the Product Owners and business issues. We want you to have a full business success, not a mere technical success.

You will get useful knowledge about how and why Scrum works.

Again, we strongly urge you to also register for the Agile Release Planning Workshop that immediately follows. This workshop enables you to be ready to go when you return to the office on Monday.

Additional Information:

• The course will run from 8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. each day.
• A continental breakfast, breaks and lunch will be provided.
• Following successful completion of the course and passing of the CSM Test, a participant becomes enrolled as a Certified ScrumMaster. (We must also sign the license agreement.)
• The CSM Test, which is covered by your fee, is online, a day or so after the course, and takes about one hour.
• All participants will also receive a two-year membership in Scrum Alliance, where additional ScrumMaster-only materials and information are available.
• You receive a copy of our book on Agile Release Planning.

Course Material:
Participants will receive a "book," which is a hard copy of the slide deck. (We have many discussions and exercises outside the slide deck.) 

In addition, participants should obtain (at their own expense) "Agile Project Management with Scrum" by Ken Schwaber, or "Scrum" by Jeff Sutherland. You may also wish to obtain the first Scrum book, "Agile Software Development with Scrum" by Schwaber and Beedle.

After class, you will be given a free copy of Joe’s book on Agile Release Planning, and a copy of all the drawings Joe does in class. Of course, there will be updated material and training exercises in the course that you cannot get from books.