Certified Scrum Product Owner®

Overall, the course could have flowed better. We spent a lot of time on how AI supports SCRUM before covering SCRUM basics, which made it harder to follow since no one had prior experience. More real-world examples—especially showing projects before and after SCRUM—would’ve helped connect the dots. The SCRUM roles section moved quickly, and some role‑playing or hands-on scenarios would’ve made it easier to understand how the roles work together. The course also felt geared toward software developers, so we had to adapt many concepts to fit our roles. The activities were fun, but clearer instructions upfront would’ve helped avoid confusion when presenting results.

Rod was very pleasant person. He was nice and receptive to questions. The issues with this course seemed to be a number of things that I will lay out below: Pacing - We spent far too long discussing how AI can help with SCRUM when there wasn't anyone in the class who had SCRUM training at all yet. You need a baseline of understanding for a topic before you can even begin to learn about/how a separate tool can help you use it. Too much theory, not enough proof - We discussed, at length, how great SCRUM and its processes can help with projects. What we did little of was practical application so we could see in real time why it was good to use SCRUM. I would have appreciated more examples of projects using the system. A class structure that showcased some "before SCRUM, after SCRUM" examples would have gone a long way to inform us of the "why" we should use it. SCRUM roles - I felt we moved far too quickly when discussing how Product Owners, SCRUM masters, and the team are to effectively communicate with each other. If we had broken up into teams and had all of us play out the various roles a few times this would have allowed to better understand how the group dynamic plays out and see where the problems arise. Who the course was for - There may have been some miscommunication about who was going to be in the class but seemed like it was taught from the perspective that we were all software developers (none of us were). Many of the concepts had to be twisted by us to match them to our day-to-day tasks so we could get an idea or nugget of truth that we could apply right away. Activities - Some to the activities were fun to execute and our teams were great. The issue I had was feeling like we were not given all of the instructions to execute the task asked of us so when it came time to show our results...well...we were working with half the asks, so of course they were wrong.

Rod has great knowledge of Scrum, and presented it very well with a lot of stories from his own experiences. It's great to listen to how he explained the principles and procedures of the Scrum process.

This was a great course and a very personable instructor with tons of experience.

Excellent course. It gave me a better understanding on the expectations and responsibilities of product ownership. I appreciated Rod's style - not overly formal and more focused on discussion and lots of feedback from the class. The small class size made it easy to ask questions. The format was more seminar and less lecture, which I much prefer.

Very clear, practical, and simple!

The material was organized and explained very well.

For me it was the first touchpoint with the CSPO.I am happy with what I learned.

I thoroughly enjoyed the class.