Description:

Working on a Scrum Team is designed for all team members, including Scrum Masters and product owners.

New teams will learn everything necessary to succeed with Scrum. Existing teams will level set a common understanding of how to work as a Scrum team.

The course covers all topics essential to using Scrum to deliver better solutions more quickly and efficiently. Participants will learn about and practice:

• Working effectively together and collaborating as a team within Scrum's short sprints
• The importance of finishing work each sprint and how to do so
• Running effective Scrum meetings quickly
• Creating and refining a product backlog with user stories, job stories and tech stories
• The rights and responsibilities of all three Scrum roles: Scrum Master, product owner, and developer
• How project managers and other managers fit into Scrum
• How to estimate with story points and turn estimates into a reliable plan
• And more

Based on the content of our popular Certified ScrumMaster course, Working on a Scrum Team differs by being entirely configurable. 

Prior to the course, you will work with one of our instructors to identify the most important course content. If, for example, you want more time spent on estimating and less on the daily scrum, you can easily make this the course for you. 

Description:

Agile is both a mindset and a collection of new practices. This course provides an overview of key agile principles with comprehensive coverage of the practices that support each principle.  The course helps participants:

• Work in short, time-boxed iterations to deliver value every couple of weeks
• Know which parts of agile are required and which can be tailored to fit a team
• Understand how roles change on a self-organizing, agile team
• Understand how cross-functional teams and overlapping lead to more rapid delivery of value

After this course, teams will be sufficiently informed to decide if agile is a promising direction and will be equipped to begin. Teams seeking more in-depth coverage specifically of Scrum may want to consider the two-day Working on a Scrum Team course.

Description:

A two-day class taught by one of our Certified Scrum Trainers, the Certified ScrumMaster course covers the fundamental principles of Scrum as well as detail about the different roles, meetings, and artifacts. Despite the name, it's perfect for anyone who wants to understand Scrum, not only ScrumMasters.

For two days, Scrum is brought to life with lectures, lively discussions, and exercises that show participants how to use Scrum in their work. We’ll teach how to work with the product backlog and sprint backlog, run effective daily meetings and sprint planning meetings, as well as estimate and plan projects. Aside from learning how to apply Scrum to projects, participants who successfully complete the Certified ScrumMaster training are ready to take the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master exam and become a Certified ScrumMaster.

Description:

This course ensures that leaders and executives can support agile and Scrum initiatives by understanding the fundamentals of these frameworks.

This session is designed for busy schedules—distilling content into actionable knowledge that leaders need to succeed.

By the end of this course, participants will have a solid understanding of Scrum and agile and know how to support teams to get the best results.

Description:

Working on a Scrum Team is designed for all team members, including Scrum Masters and product owners.

New teams will learn everything necessary to succeed with Scrum. Existing teams will level set a common understanding of how to work as a Scrum team.

The course covers all topics essential to using Scrum to deliver better solutions more quickly and efficiently. Participants will learn about and practice:

• Working effectively together and collaborating as a team within Scrum's short sprints
• The importance of finishing work each sprint and how to do so
• Running effective Scrum meetings quickly
• Creating and refining a product backlog with user stories, job stories and tech stories
• The rights and responsibilities of all three Scrum roles: Scrum Master, product owner, and developer
• How project managers and other managers fit into Scrum
• How to estimate with story points and turn estimates into a reliable plan
• And more

Based on the content of our popular Certified ScrumMaster course, Working on a Scrum Team differs by being entirely configurable. 

Prior to the course, you will work with one of our instructors to identify the most important course content. If, for example, you want more time spent on estimating and less on the daily scrum, you can easily make this the course for you. 

Description:

Agile is both a mindset and a collection of new practices. This course provides an overview of key agile principles with comprehensive coverage of the practices that support each principle.  The course helps participants:

• Work in short, time-boxed iterations to deliver value every couple of weeks
• Know which parts of agile are required and which can be tailored to fit a team
• Understand how roles change on a self-organizing, agile team
• Understand how cross-functional teams and overlapping lead to more rapid delivery of value

After this course, teams will be sufficiently informed to decide if agile is a promising direction and will be equipped to begin. Teams seeking more in-depth coverage specifically of Scrum may want to consider the two-day Working on a Scrum Team course.

Description:

A two-day class taught by one of our Certified Scrum Trainers, the Certified ScrumMaster course covers the fundamental principles of Scrum as well as detail about the different roles, meetings, and artifacts. Despite the name, it's perfect for anyone who wants to understand Scrum, not only ScrumMasters.

For two days, Scrum is brought to life with lectures, lively discussions, and exercises that show participants how to use Scrum in their work. We’ll teach how to work with the product backlog and sprint backlog, run effective daily meetings and sprint planning meetings, as well as estimate and plan projects. Aside from learning how to apply Scrum to projects, participants who successfully complete the Certified ScrumMaster training are ready to take the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master exam and become a Certified ScrumMaster.

Description:

This course ensures that leaders and executives can support agile and Scrum initiatives by understanding the fundamentals of these frameworks.

This session is designed for busy schedules—distilling content into actionable knowledge that leaders need to succeed.

By the end of this course, participants will have a solid understanding of Scrum and agile and know how to support teams to get the best results.

Description:

Working on a Scrum Team is designed for all team members, including Scrum Masters and product owners.

New teams will learn everything necessary to succeed with Scrum. Existing teams will level set a common understanding of how to work as a Scrum team.

The course covers all topics essential to using Scrum to deliver better solutions more quickly and efficiently. Participants will learn about and practice:

• Working effectively together and collaborating as a team within Scrum's short sprints
• The importance of finishing work each sprint and how to do so
• Running effective Scrum meetings quickly
• Creating and refining a product backlog with user stories, job stories and tech stories
• The rights and responsibilities of all three Scrum roles: Scrum Master, product owner, and developer
• How project managers and other managers fit into Scrum
• How to estimate with story points and turn estimates into a reliable plan
• And more

Based on the content of our popular Certified ScrumMaster course, Working on a Scrum Team differs by being entirely configurable. 

Prior to the course, you will work with one of our instructors to identify the most important course content. If, for example, you want more time spent on estimating and less on the daily scrum, you can easily make this the course for you. 

Description:

A two-day class taught by one of our Certified Scrum Trainers, the Certified ScrumMaster course covers the fundamental principles of Scrum as well as detail about the different roles, meetings, and artifacts. Despite the name, it's perfect for anyone who wants to understand Scrum, not only ScrumMasters.

For two days, Scrum is brought to life with lectures, lively discussions, and exercises that show participants how to use Scrum in their work. We’ll teach how to work with the product backlog and sprint backlog, run effective daily meetings and sprint planning meetings, as well as estimate and plan projects. Aside from learning how to apply Scrum to projects, participants who successfully complete the Certified ScrumMaster training are ready to take the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master exam and become a Certified ScrumMaster.

Description:

Assess the current state of your organization using a proprietary Elements of Agile® framework that gives recommendations on the most promising areas for improvement.

Description:

Working on a Scrum Team is designed for all team members, including Scrum Masters and product owners.

New teams will learn everything necessary to succeed with Scrum. Existing teams will level set a common understanding of how to work as a Scrum team.

The course covers all topics essential to using Scrum to deliver better solutions more quickly and efficiently. Participants will learn about and practice:

• Working effectively together and collaborating as a team within Scrum's short sprints
• The importance of finishing work each sprint and how to do so
• Running effective Scrum meetings quickly
• Creating and refining a product backlog with user stories, job stories and tech stories
• The rights and responsibilities of all three Scrum roles: Scrum Master, product owner, and developer
• How project managers and other managers fit into Scrum
• How to estimate with story points and turn estimates into a reliable plan
• And more

Based on the content of our popular Certified ScrumMaster course, Working on a Scrum Team differs by being entirely configurable. 

Prior to the course, you will work with one of our instructors to identify the most important course content. If, for example, you want more time spent on estimating and less on the daily scrum, you can easily make this the course for you. 

Description:

A two-day class taught by one of our Certified Scrum Trainers, the Certified ScrumMaster course covers the fundamental principles of Scrum as well as detail about the different roles, meetings, and artifacts. Despite the name, it's perfect for anyone who wants to understand Scrum, not only ScrumMasters.

For two days, Scrum is brought to life with lectures, lively discussions, and exercises that show participants how to use Scrum in their work. We’ll teach how to work with the product backlog and sprint backlog, run effective daily meetings and sprint planning meetings, as well as estimate and plan projects. Aside from learning how to apply Scrum to projects, participants who successfully complete the Certified ScrumMaster training are ready to take the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master exam and become a Certified ScrumMaster.

Description:

A two-day class taught by one of our Certified Scrum Trainers, the Certified ScrumMaster course covers the fundamental principles of Scrum as well as detail about the different roles, meetings, and artifacts. Despite the name, it's perfect for anyone who wants to understand Scrum, not only ScrumMasters.

For two days, Scrum is brought to life with lectures, lively discussions, and exercises that show participants how to use Scrum in their work. We’ll teach how to work with the product backlog and sprint backlog, run effective daily meetings and sprint planning meetings, as well as estimate and plan projects. Aside from learning how to apply Scrum to projects, participants who successfully complete the Certified ScrumMaster training are ready to take the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master exam and become a Certified ScrumMaster.

Description:

Taught by one of our Certified Scrum Trainers, this two-day course is appropriate for new product owners, aspiring product owners, and analysts. Here, we fully equip participants with the knowledge and skills they need to excel.

The course begins with a Scrum overview, introducing the roles of a Scrum team and how products are developed using sprints.

Participants learn the responsibilities, characteristics, and different environments in which a product owner may work. They will practice five techniques for creating and communicating a clear, elevating goal that promotes team commitment and focus.

The product backlog is a central component of every product owner’s work. So they are equipped to write product backlog items for any product, course participants gain experience with user, job, and technical stories. We also cover story mapping, which can help engage stakeholders so that user needs are discovered early—avoiding the late surprises that can derail projects.

Product owners will go beyond knowing what to build, into ensuring features are developed in the optimal order, using the multiple prioritization techniques they’ll practice in this course.

Participants will learn how to produce accurate fixed-date and fixed-scope plans, enabling better decision-making throughout the organization.

Following the successful completion of this course, each participant will become a Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Product Owner.

Description:

A great product begins with a great product backlog. User stories are by far the most common way of writing product backlog items, used by an increasing number of agile teams.

This course will help participants learn solutions to some of the most common problems with user stories and product backlogs. You will finish the course with known, proven techniques to overcome your current challenges, from spending too much time splitting stories to adding too much detail to managing the need for a requirements document.

During the course, participants will work on product ideas or features you provide. Or they can work on ones we’ve designed to maximize shared learning and bring out the subtle challenges teams can face. During the course, participants can also identify new products to work on throughout the day. This flexibility ensures they are always working on relevant ideas.

Participants will practice conducting a story-writing workshop and will learn how to create a story map to improve communication with stakeholders and to uncover user needs earlier—so last-minute requirements don’t derail a project.

The Better User Stories course goes beyond user stories to give participants practice writing job stories and technical stories, two exciting approaches that can immediately improve a team’s backlog-writing skills.

Knowing how much detail to include (and how early to add it) is a vital skill for agile team members to develop. Adding too much detail too early wastes precious time that could be used on higher priority features. Adding too little detail or adding it too late can jeopardize delivery. Through this course, participants learn simple questions to ask that will get them the right amount of detail every time.

Participants will learn how to split stories so that each can fit within an iteration. Our SPIDR story-splitting framework, taught in this class, will give participants a reliable, repeatable way to split any story.

After taking this course, teams will spend more time building features that deliver the most value to stakeholders each iteration.

Description:

A story-writing workshop is tailored to meet the needs of the one to three teams participating. A typical workshop begins with an educational section devoted to topics selected during a pre-course call. Common topics include:

• Understanding user, job, and technical stories, including when and how to use each
• Splitting stories simply and easily using a proven framework
• Knowing how much detail needs to be included, when, and by whom
• Adding detail to user stories with acceptance criteria and sub-stories
• The six attributes (INVEST) of a good story
• Story mapping to visualize the relationships among stories
• Troubleshooting common problems

This workshop is perfect for:

• Teams constantly tackling distractions and struggling to deliver the value they know they are capable of
• Teams that find their own story-writing produces a lot of ideas, but few actionable results 
• Teams that want to plan and write better stories

At the end of this session, teams will leave with stories for their own product backlog that are well written, refined, and clearly understood.

Description:

Participants will be introduced to the fundamental principles of agile and Scrum as well as the three roles of a Scrum team. They’ll learn how sprints are used to maximize the value delivered—by creating feedback cycles to amplify and accelerate learning. 

All three roles of a Scrum project team are covered, with special emphasis on challenges and responsibilities of being an effective product owner. The course equips product owners to make better decisions and improve their relationships with stakeholders.

We’ll teach five techniques that product owners can use to create a shared, elevating vision of the product’s near- and long-term future. Practice creating a product backlog in story-writing workshops, especially with story mapping. 

Participants gain practical experience with user, job, and technical stories. 

Product backlog maintenance and refinement are fully covered, equipping participants with time-saving skills. 

Multiple techniques are practiced for prioritizing a product backlog to maximize value delivery, improve flow, and eliminate bottlenecks that can delay progress.

Participants learn how to create accurate plans of when a product will be delivered with which features. Starting with the content in our Certified Scrum Product Owner course, the Effective Product Owner course can be configured so that specific topics are shortened, lengthed, removed, or added to create the ideal course. 

Prior to the course you will work with one of our instructors to identify the most important course content. If, for example, you want more time spent on user stories and less on prioritizing the product backlog, you can easily make this the course for you.
 

Description:

Taught by one of our Certified Scrum Trainers, this two-day course is appropriate for new product owners, aspiring product owners, and analysts. Here, we fully equip participants with the knowledge and skills they need to excel.

The course begins with a Scrum overview, introducing the roles of a Scrum team and how products are developed using sprints.

Participants learn the responsibilities, characteristics, and different environments in which a product owner may work. They will practice five techniques for creating and communicating a clear, elevating goal that promotes team commitment and focus.

The product backlog is a central component of every product owner’s work. So they are equipped to write product backlog items for any product, course participants gain experience with user, job, and technical stories. We also cover story mapping, which can help engage stakeholders so that user needs are discovered early—avoiding the late surprises that can derail projects.

Product owners will go beyond knowing what to build, into ensuring features are developed in the optimal order, using the multiple prioritization techniques they’ll practice in this course.

Participants will learn how to produce accurate fixed-date and fixed-scope plans, enabling better decision-making throughout the organization.

Following the successful completion of this course, each participant will become a Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Product Owner.

Description:

A great product begins with a great product backlog. User stories are by far the most common way of writing product backlog items, used by an increasing number of agile teams.

This course will help participants learn solutions to some of the most common problems with user stories and product backlogs. You will finish the course with known, proven techniques to overcome your current challenges, from spending too much time splitting stories to adding too much detail to managing the need for a requirements document.

During the course, participants will work on product ideas or features you provide. Or they can work on ones we’ve designed to maximize shared learning and bring out the subtle challenges teams can face. During the course, participants can also identify new products to work on throughout the day. This flexibility ensures they are always working on relevant ideas.

Participants will practice conducting a story-writing workshop and will learn how to create a story map to improve communication with stakeholders and to uncover user needs earlier—so last-minute requirements don’t derail a project.

The Better User Stories course goes beyond user stories to give participants practice writing job stories and technical stories, two exciting approaches that can immediately improve a team’s backlog-writing skills.

Knowing how much detail to include (and how early to add it) is a vital skill for agile team members to develop. Adding too much detail too early wastes precious time that could be used on higher priority features. Adding too little detail or adding it too late can jeopardize delivery. Through this course, participants learn simple questions to ask that will get them the right amount of detail every time.

Participants will learn how to split stories so that each can fit within an iteration. Our SPIDR story-splitting framework, taught in this class, will give participants a reliable, repeatable way to split any story.

After taking this course, teams will spend more time building features that deliver the most value to stakeholders each iteration.

Description:

A story-writing workshop is tailored to meet the needs of the one to three teams participating. A typical workshop begins with an educational section devoted to topics selected during a pre-course call. Common topics include:

• Understanding user, job, and technical stories, including when and how to use each
• Splitting stories simply and easily using a proven framework
• Knowing how much detail needs to be included, when, and by whom
• Adding detail to user stories with acceptance criteria and sub-stories
• The six attributes (INVEST) of a good story
• Story mapping to visualize the relationships among stories
• Troubleshooting common problems

This workshop is perfect for:

• Teams constantly tackling distractions and struggling to deliver the value they know they are capable of
• Teams that find their own story-writing produces a lot of ideas, but few actionable results 
• Teams that want to plan and write better stories

At the end of this session, teams will leave with stories for their own product backlog that are well written, refined, and clearly understood.

Description:

Backlog refinement is the act of ensuring the product backlog is well maintained. High priority items should be small, relatively well understood and achievable in a single iteration.

Agile teams typically conduct product backlog refinement meetings once per iteration—or shorter meetings weekly—to ensure high-priority product backlog items are ready to be brought into the next sprint.

Our backlog refinement workshop is tailored to meet the needs of the participating teams, which can number one to three. A typical workshop begins with an educational section devoted to topics selected during a pre-course call. Common topics include:

• Understanding how much detail is appropriate
• Understanding who is responsible for adding detail
• The purpose of estimating product backlog items
• How to know when an item is ready for a sprint
• How to stop spending so much time in backlog refinement
• When to do backlog refinement

Each three-hour, interactive backlog refinement workshop is led by an experienced Mountain Goat Software mentor.

At the end of this session, participants will be able to refine backlog items much more quickly with less disagreement over how much detail is appropriate. Participants will also be able to plan improvements to clean up messy product backlogs and ensure they remain in good shape.

This workshop is perfect for:

• Teams who spend too much time in product backlog refinement Teams and product owners who disagree on how much detail should be included before a sprint starts
• Teams whose product backlogs are a mess and need help improving them. We helped a company with over 2 million backlog items; we can help with yours.

Description:

This course is for anyone who needs to answer the question: 

“How much can be delivered… by when?”

If you’re working on contract-development or high-visibility projects, it’s critical to tell bosses, clients, and customers what can be delivered—and when. 

But this isn’t easy when: 

• Stakeholders often have unrealistic expectations (and don’t believe you when you say something isn’t possible)
• Teams get confused by story points and struggle to estimate accurately and quickly
• It’s not easy to plan for what you don’t know - some requirements may be hidden at the point of planning 

This course shows you how to solve those problems. 

You’ll learn proven estimating approaches in an easy-to-understand way so you can: 

• Guide any team to estimate quickly and accurately
• Tackle risk and uncertainty upfront - and plan accordingly
• Communicate plans with confidence - answering questions and managing expectations

In just one day you can create accurate, agile plans for fixed scope, fixed date, and fixed everything projects. 

This course is ideal for agile leaders at the team or group level including: 

• Technical leads
• Team leads
• Scrum Masters
• Product owners
• Product managers
• Agile coaches

The course is intermediate. If you’re new to agile, you can still benefit from this course as long as you are familiar with iterations, product backlogs, velocity, and backlog items such as user stories. 

Read the Course Outline below for more details.
 

Description:

We estimate product backlog items so that product owners can better prioritize the product backlog and teams can predict how much they’ll deliver by given dates. Story points—abstract, relative measures of effort—can lead to more accurate plans, but many teams struggle with them at first. Our estimating workshop is tailored to meet the needs of the one to three participating teams. A typical workshop begins with an educational section devoted to topics selected during a pre-course call. Common topics include:

• Understanding the subtle but critical relationship between story points and time
• Learning the four factors that determine an estimate
• Establishing a baseline that can be used for all later estimates
• Triangulating estimates to improve accuracy
• Estimating with Planning Poker® and Affinity Estimation

This workshop is perfect for: 

• Teams that need to improve their ability to accurately predict what can be delivered when
• Teams suffering from different understandings of what a story point is
• Teams that want to provide estimates and plans the organization can trust

At the end of this session, teams will understand what story points are and how to use them to estimate more accurately. They will also estimate some of their actual product backlog items—and those estimated items can be used as a baseline for future estimates.

Description:

This course is for anyone who needs to answer the question: 

“How much can be delivered… by when?”

If you’re working on contract-development or high-visibility projects, it’s critical to tell bosses, clients, and customers what can be delivered—and when. 

But this isn’t easy when: 

• Stakeholders often have unrealistic expectations (and don’t believe you when you say something isn’t possible)
• Teams get confused by story points and struggle to estimate accurately and quickly
• It’s not easy to plan for what you don’t know - some requirements may be hidden at the point of planning 

This course shows you how to solve those problems. 

You’ll learn proven estimating approaches in an easy-to-understand way so you can: 

• Guide any team to estimate quickly and accurately
• Tackle risk and uncertainty upfront - and plan accordingly
• Communicate plans with confidence - answering questions and managing expectations

In just one day you can create accurate, agile plans for fixed scope, fixed date, and fixed everything projects. 

This course is ideal for agile leaders at the team or group level including: 

• Technical leads
• Team leads
• Scrum Masters
• Product owners
• Product managers
• Agile coaches

The course is intermediate. If you’re new to agile, you can still benefit from this course as long as you are familiar with iterations, product backlogs, velocity, and backlog items such as user stories. 

Read the Course Outline below for more details.
 

Description:

Mountain Goat Software workshops are very practical—we spend the majority of time working directly on issues faced by your teams. 

In advance of the workshop, one of our experienced agile mentors will host a Zoom session with key team members in order to understand the challenges faced by the team and expectations of a successful retrospective.

The retrospective will begin with a brief educational piece during which your mentor may present a few slides prepared as a result of the Zoom session. 

Then the majority of the workshop will be spent conducting an actual retrospective. 

The workshop will conclude with recommendations for conducting future retrospectives.

In this workshop, a trainer will facilitate a retrospective for the team so they can see how to run one successfully. 

This workshop is perfect for: 

• Teams struggling to get valuable feedback in retrospectives and reviews
• Scrum Masters and product owners whose teams are frustrated with (and tempted to skip) retrospectives
• Teams that simply list completed tasks during a review—failing to engage stakeholders.

They’ll learn how to: 

• Avoid stale retrospectives 
• Highlight areas for improvement during a retrospective and act on them
• Elicit actionable feedback in reviews—feedback that will help teams build better products

At the end of this session, teams will understand the importance of retrospectives and have a tool kit of techniques to increase engagement.
 

Description:

This course ensures that leaders and executives can support agile and Scrum initiatives by understanding the fundamentals of these frameworks.

This session is designed for busy schedules—distilling content into actionable knowledge that leaders need to succeed.

By the end of this course, participants will have a solid understanding of Scrum and agile and know how to support teams to get the best results.

Description:

Assess the current state of your organization using a proprietary Elements of Agile® framework that gives recommendations on the most promising areas for improvement.