Certified Agile Facilitator™

Why take this course

Most meetings that go badly were lost before anyone spoke. Nobody decided what the session was for, who needed to be in it, or how a decision would actually get made, so the loudest person sets the agenda and the quiet expert says nothing.

CAF is two days of practice on the part that is genuinely hard: designing a session before it starts, running it when the group disagrees, and closing it so people leave knowing who owns what.

What you will be able to do afterwards

• Design a session before it starts, so the outcome does not depend on the mood of the room.
• Run a meeting where the real disagreement surfaces and the group still leaves with a decision.
• Handle the person who takes over the conversation, and the one who stopped speaking an hour ago.
• Keep a remote group working instead of watching.
• Close a session so everyone leaves knowing who owns what on Monday.

What your seat includes

• Two days live and online, capped at 12 seats.
• Two years of Scrum Alliance membership.
• Lifetime coaching with Mark. Email him, book a call, bring him the meeting you have to run on Thursday. There is no end date on it.
• Hundreds of downloadable resources, kept current after you leave.
• A money-back guarantee.

How the time is spent

Two days, live and online, 9:00 to 5:00 Eastern. You facilitate, you get feedback, and then you do it again. Sessions are worked as simulations and live practice rather than watched as slides, and you can bring your own situations where you have them.

Core facilitation

• What a facilitator is responsible for, and what they are not.
• Designing a session backwards from the decision it has to produce.
• Psychological safety and group dynamics: making it safe enough that people say the real thing.
• Structured techniques for reaching a decision the group will actually stand behind.

Harder rooms

• Running Sprint Planning, Reviews and Retrospectives that people have stopped taking seriously.
• Conflict and resistance, handled in the room rather than afterwards.
• Facilitating up: executives, stakeholders, and people who outrank you.
• Remote and hybrid groups, where the usual cues are missing.
• Cross-team and larger sessions, and what has to change as the group grows.

You facilitate live during the class and get feedback as you go, from Mark and from the group.

Who this is for

• Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches who want their events to produce decisions rather than attendance.
• Product Owners and business leaders who have to align stakeholders who genuinely disagree.
• Team leads and project managers running sessions where the outcome matters.
• Anyone who works with groups and wants the session to go somewhere.

Prerequisites

None. No prior facilitation experience is required. If you work with groups, you have enough to start.

Who is teaching it

Mark Palmer is a Certified Scrum Trainer and a Certified Team Coach, a pairing most trainers do not hold. He also holds ICAgile's Agile Team Facilitation certification and teaches as a certified Training from the Back of the Room instructor, so the techniques you practice are the ones he is using to run the class you are sitting in. Twenty-five years in product, technology and organizational leadership, and he teaches every Great Fish class himself.

What is different about this class

• Twelve seats. Small enough that you are facilitating, not watching.
• Coaching that outlasts the class. No end date, and it is with Mark rather than a support desk.