What is this course about?
This immersive course is designed to deliver the fundamentals of Agile development, providing you with the knowledge and practical skills to plan, estimate, track and control an Agile product development You gain a solid foundation in the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto as well as an introduction to the principles of Lean. You learn the key rules and practices of Scrum, Kanban and eXtreme Programming (XP) so that you fully understand their commonalities and differences, and are able to make informed choices about which approach is most likely to fit your context. Above all, you will learn the changes in culture and mindset that are at the heart of successful Agile adoption.
What background do I need?
A working familiarity of project management concepts is helpful but not required.
Who will benefit from this course?
This course is valuable for technical or project managers, software architects, Product and program managers, system analysts, business analysts, project leads, programmers and testers – in fact anyone who wants to learn how to develop value-laden, high quality products using proven Agile principles.
What is Agile development?
Agile development is a product engineering approach, originating in software development that delivers high-quality working product early and often. This allows the customer to generate business value earlier, and provide feedback to the developers. Agile methods emphasize constant, open, honest and real-time communication between developers and their customers.
Why should my team adopt Agile development practices?
Agile stresses the need to build working product in frequent , small timescales to minimize risk. Agile development teams use inspect-and-adapt techniques to maintain a constant focus on delivering customer value, while eliminating wasteful activities from their development process. Recent research indicates that Agile is now a mainstream approach in software development, and is gaining ground in wider IT and product development sectors. According to the highly regarded Standish Group, Agile projects ae three times more likely to be successful than those managed traditionally.
What are Scrum, Kanban and XP?
Scrum and Kanban are the two most popular ways of applying Agile. Scrum is a thin framework of roles, artifacts and events that support self-organizing, cross functional development teams. More than three quarters of Agile teams claim to be using Scrum. Kanban is a change management process that focuses on removing waste and bottlenecks in an overall workflow. Its influence has grown steadily in the last eight or nine years, and is often combined within Scrum. Although XP as a method has only a small market penetration, many of the engineering techniques it originated have become almost universal in Agile.
Is this course in line with the Agile Manifesto?
Yes. Published in 2001, the Agile Manifesto forms the foundation for Agile development. Together with the twelve principles of Agile Development, it provides the guidance that distinguishes Agile approaches from "Masterplan" or traditional software development methodologies. Agile is as much a development philosophy as anything else, focusing on customer satisfaction by rapid, continuous delivery of useful software and the close, daily collaboration between the business and the developers. Since the Agile Manifesto is intrinsic to this approach, it is intrinsic to this course. Its principles are woven through every phase of the course and are highlighted to emphasize the relationship between principle and practice, whether you are using Scrum or another Agile method.
Can I Gain Agile Certification Through This Course?
Absolutely, Learning Tree is a Registered Education Provider (REP) for the Scrum Alliance. You gain Scrum Educational Units (SEUs) that can lead to Scrum-specific qualifications such as Certified Scrum Professional (CSP). We would strongly recommend taking one of the Scrum Alliance entry-level qualification courses 1813 Certified ScrumMaster® or 1814 Certified Scrum Product Owner® as a follow-up course to 918 if you wish to pursue Scrum-specific qualifications. Additionally, this course qualifies for ICAgile Certified Professional.
How much time is spent on each topic?
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Content
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Hours
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Introduction to Agile
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1.5
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Agile Approaches Compared
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3.0
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Value Driven Delivery
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3.0
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Fostering Self-Management Within the Development Team
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2.0
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Customer and User Involvement
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2.5
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Planning, Monitoring and Adapting with Agile
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3.5
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Times, including the workshops, are estimates; exact times may vary according to the needs of each class.
I'm attending this course from work using AnyWare - Learning Tree's web-based remote attendance platform. How will that impact what I learn?
You will participate fully in the course and acquire the same knowledge and skills as your classmates who participate in the classroom. You will have the same course materials, be able to easily communicate back and forth and ask questions of your instructors and peers. Your instructor will be able to see exactly what you're doing and can interactively offer concrete help.
What kinds of activities does this course include?
Approximately 45 percent of class time is spent in group-based activities and discussion.. The activities are carefully chose to illustrate Agile values and principles, and in some cases practice techniques, so that the essential differences between Agile and traditional approaches to development can be easily grasped and understood.
- Identifying candidates for the Product Owner role
- Identifying barriers to Agile adoption
- Map changing roles and responsibilities in an Agile adoption
- Envisioning a product
- Prioritizing features by value
- Providing a critique of user stories
- Estimating story size using relative estimation units (story points)
- Participating in a retrospective workshop
How does this course relate to other Learning Tree courses?
The course is a foundation course underpinning a number of learning pathways in the Agile curriculum
Standard Price: $2,650.00
Returning Learning Tree Customer Price: $2,385.00
GSA/Government New Attendee Price: $2,355.00
Returning GSA/Government Customer Price: $2,120.00