Testimonials

Lance has a great demeanor and approach that really resonated with the team. His background and knowledge helped guide the team through many of the challenges of changing the way we work. If you are looking to improve how your organization delivers software, I couldn’t recommend Lance more.

Dan Stewart

VP of Marketing/eCommerce

Lance’s training class was informative, interactive, and engaging. Our teams found the onsite group training very effective to get everyone (Product Owners, Scrum Teams, Scrum Masters) aligned on the same concept, approach, and best practices… Most importantly, he still works with scrum teams in the trenches and is able to provide thoughtful suggestions for difficult situations.”

Lu Feng

Sr. Director PMO

Mike has a wonderful way of describing the framework in a way that can be easily understood.

James Lance

Excellent course - Mike’s wealth of experience, use of real world anecdotes and examples has provided me with a rich resource to take back to the office.

Gillian Hall

Roche Diagnostics International

Understand how to scale scrum to multi-continent projects and team sizes in the hundreds.

Anecia Johnston

Getting these tips is one of the highlights of my agile experience as a scrum master and coach. I look forward to seeing your emails in my inbox. I gain really good insights that can be readily applied within my team and I’ve shared this with my peers so they too can sign up to get these tips.

Carol Fairbairn

ICP-ACC-Agile Coach / CSM-Agile Scrum Master / SA-Scaled Agile Framework

Mike is a consummate professional whose passion for the subject absolutely shines throughout the seminar. The course is designed well, with breaks between covering materials to do some exercises and work with group members. I would highly recommend Mike’s Product Owner workshop and I look forward to learning and growing in Agile after taking this course. Excellent value and I will take future training with Mike and Mountain Goat Software.

Timothy Boyle

E-commerce officer

Lance’s “Working on A Scrum Team” training class was informative, interactive and engaging. Our teams found the onsite group training very effective to get everyone (Product Owners, Scrum Teams, Scrum Masters) aligned on the same concept, approach, and best practices… Most importantly, he still works with scrum teams in the trenches and is able to provide thoughtful suggestions for difficult situations.

Lu F.

Director PMO

Lance has a great demeanor and approach that really resonated with the team. His background and knowledge helped guide the team through many of the challenges of changing the way we work. If you are looking to step change how your organization delivers software, I couldn’t recommend Lance more.

Dan S.

VP of Marketing/eCommerce

[Lance] has helped us since the beginning of our Scrum transition becoming a trusted part of our organization. The difference in Big Agile from other contracting partners is Lance’s success in the real world before becoming a CST. Lance doesn’t just know the theory he also knows how to apply the theory, speak with the whole programming department and to Executive Leadership on where to improve. Lance is technical enough to help highlight engineering areas for improvement and business minded enough to call out organizational areas of improvements.

Matt K.

Director of Product Engineering

I love the weekly tips you send out. I love that they are concise, immediately actionable (if we wanted to take action on them) and a quick read. Yours are one of the few emails I continue to subscribe to and I know when I see it in my inbox that it isn’t going to take much time or brain power to reduce my inbox by 1, so the effort is well worth the value given.

Kim Kimmey

I love your emails. Whenever I see an email from you, I always pause whatever I’m doing and focus on them. Their nuggets of wisdom are short but deep, practical and meaningful, and touch upon the important aspects of Scrum life.

Gareth Gauci

CTO, ICON

Excellent overview of iteration and release planning The course is a must for anyone working in an agile environment. An excellent description of an iteration and release planning. Key concepts such as velocity, story points and ideal days are very well explained. Good recommendations on how they should be used. I found the “Release Planning” topic examples on how to plan a release when the team has historical data versus when the team does not have historical data extremely informative Good pointers on how to approach planning a release on projects that have either a fixed delivery date, fixed scope or fixed cost.

Alexandra Ursea

It can’t get any better than this Estimating is one of the toughest things that we face in Agile Projects. No body explains it better than the man himself. The logical sequence in which the content is presented, gives a better understanding about estimating. The reasons to use Story Points over other units is explained crystal clearly. A correct mix of Mike in person speaking to you and animated concepts helps you to focus on learning rather than just listening. Even after completing the course, I had the visual of Mike explaining the concept for few days afterwards. A highly recommended course for any agilist.

Raju K.

Simplifies and clearly instructs us through complex planning This video course is brilliant. Each chapter has at least 1 quiz with a variety of question types (select best answer or multiple select etc) where we get instant feedback about our answers. During the course, I’ve covered a number of useful planning and estimating practices and tools, some of which are common place in most scrum teams (such as planning poker), but this course really gets back to the basics which helps me understand the theory reasons behind it, and identifies what’s really important. Since completing the course, I am much more confident with what tools I can use to plan and estimate my projects properly. Within this video course, Mike Cohn presents clearly and provides example scenarios. He draws comparisons which we can all relate to. I’ve been very impressed with the quality and clarity of the course and would highly recommend to my friends and colleagues.

James Van Tuyl

Mike Cohn is an incredible teacher. His real world examples and analogies makes this complex material rather easy to comprehend. One of the most beneficial classes that I have completed. Looking forward to more classes by Mike Cohn!

Danny Lopez

This course was absolutely packed with tips, advice, and best practices for both avoiding and resolving issues that occur in using Scrum. I probably checked off a dozen or more issues that I personally experienced over the past 4-5 years that I’d have paid big money for to have the insights that Mike provided in this course. This was by far the most practical, useful course on Scrum I’ve ever taken. I plan to review this course over again as there is just so much useful stuff.

Gregory Luze

Mike has this rare ability of examining complex situations with a lot of gray areas and presenting them with sound recommendations and without any nonsense in simple black and white. Thank you Mike.

Hector Rovira

This course goes much further than just treating basics. It really deals with well-known problems probably every Scrum Master and/or Scrum Coach experiences. Mike always offers several solutions considering different circumstances introducing appropriate examples as well. With his extensive knowledge of all parts of agility he convinces and encourages me to try out his hints without hesitation. I really like the length of the videos, all necessary is said and all unnecessary is omitted. The content is really absolutely substantial, interesting and helpful. I recommend this course to every practising SM and agile Coach.

Eva Gysling

Great straightforward Scrum coverage, with lots of great metaphors and real-world examples that even non-software folks can understand. I appreciated Mike’s great energy and enthusiasm for Scrum.

Rich Hale

Director, QA

This course was a pleasure to attend and the training went by quickly; it was extremely “user-friendly.” Mike had a very well organized syllabus with accompanying overhead slides. The content covered in the course was substantive, meaningful, followed a logical format, and at the end of the course left you with the sense that you could perform effectively and confidently as a Scrum Master. In addition, Mike has an easy going delivery style, with an open and receptive personality. He inspires the participants into active discussion and conversation, and provides countless opportunities to ask questions. It is clear that Mike possesses an in-depth knowledge of Agile/Scrum specifically, and of SW development and project management more broadly. Finally, the conference room was strategically and effectively laid out to facilitate discussion among the group as a whole, and also among the participants at each of the individual tables. The class was very informative, fun, and…he’s also got a great sense of humor.

Gray B.

This class was a great experience for me. It gave me a clear understanding of how a CSPO manages a product . I would recommend this class to anyone interested in obtaining their CSPO and understanding the responsibilities of a product owner.

Morris Young

Commercial Solutions Division Manager at IQAir North America

I enjoyed the course tremendously. Mike’s breadth of experience and knowledge on the subject, plus his teaching style, made the course both valuable and enjoyable.

Brian Furman

Sr. Manager, Practice Enablement

Mike’s very practical approach to Scrum makes the information more relatable and easier to vision how to integrate into your current company/job. One of the most valuable classes I’ve attended.

Karen Hayden

Systems Analyst Consultant

For a current project manager the CSPO course combined with CSM training is PERFECT to understand the division of labor, roles and priorities to make it work in real life. Mike is a superb teacher and a master instructor…but the group exercises were the best!

Barry W.

His training was top notch. Mike is passionate about what he does and it shows in his training. He incorporates interactive dialogue with covering subject matter in a timely manner. Breakfast and lunch were great, breaks and snacks were perfectly timed throughout the day and overall the course was well organized. I would highly recommend anyone considering taking any sort of training on this subject matter to take Mike’s course. This far exceeded my expectations and was far more enjoyable than almost all of the training I’ve done to date.

Kimberly Hammett

Manager II, GBD Member Portals – Digital Technology

Excellent and enjoyable journey to learn and to achieve Certified Scrum Product Owner title.

Ravi P.

I thought the class was a tremendous mix of classroom learning and group interaction. I left feeling like I had the tools I would need to succeed as a product owner.

John Coyle

Mike is perhaps the best speaker trainer that I’ve ever seen. He’s extremely prepared, knows his material, is able to handle questions and yet stay on track, he has a GREAT sense of humor, he interacts with the group, has real world examples and anecdotes, has GREAT energy. I’ve been to lots of training classes and Mike is probably the best. And that’s saying a lot.

Thomas D.

I really liked that this course was very concrete and down to earth, that we talked not only about what how SCRUM is supposed to work in an ideal world but also how it can be applied in our messy work environments.

Daniele Brazzolotto

Project Manager

Unlike other Agile training sessions, Mike used real world examples that help draw correlation to your own experiences. This, coupled with the breakout sessions make this training class outstanding.

Jerimy Gregory

CSPO, PMC III, Senior Product Manager

Really enjoyed the course and Mike’s instruction. He covered a lot of material yet he still allowed for ample questions and discussion while still finishing each day on time. I personally learned a lot about Scrum/Agile and it will make me a better ScrumMaster.

Mark Davidson

Project Manager/Senior Software Engineer

Mike is an outstanding instructor! I would highly recommend this class for anyone in a project related role regardless of you are in the software field or not. He made it easy to understand and challenged the class with many collaborative exercises. He made time before and after class to answer any questions and made himself available even during the breaks and lunch hour to pick his brain to help me have better clarity over the Product Owner role.

Bobby Burns

Southwest Airlines Technology Department

The Certified Scrum Product Owner training was great. Mike shares so much useful information. Combine that with some practical application and you have a really great experience. We definitely walked away with several things we can implement in our organization

Mark Hudson

Manager of Implementation and Sales

Mike has such an amazing background and wide range of experience therefore being able to give answers with great explanations for all questions asked. The presentation was easy to understand, had great visuals and great content. I enjoyed Mike’s personality, his knowledge and his ability to keep everyone engaged. This was in my top 5 best training courses I have attended in over 20 years in the financial services industry. Thank you!

Dani Sorrenson

HD Vest Project Manager

Great class! I felt it was a very worthwhile investment in my future and look forward to applying what I learned!

Sandy Schmidt

Principal Systems Analyst

The topics covered and the way they were presented were easy to understand and relevant to my daily work. The breaks were timed perfectly, breakfast and lunch and the snacks were good, the exercises were helpful, the dialogue was interesting, all in all this was a perfect series. I would highly recommend Mike’s courses to anyone considering Scrum or CPO training. He has a knack for giving an effective presentation and keeping everyone actively engaged - well worth the cost!

Kimberly Hammett

Manager, Technology
Anthem, Inc.

As one of the original employees of Tandem Diabetes Care, my opinion is that the most important strategic decisions we made early on was to use Scrum. Every one of our Scrum masters received their training from Mike Cohn. Not only did Mike help us understand how to use scrum for our software development, his training gave us a base from which we figured out how to use Scrum for both our electrical and mechanical engineering groups.

Tom Ulrich

Sr. Director of Software Engineering
Tandem Diabetes Care

Thank you so much for such a fun and captivating training! I’ve been in the Scrum Master role for about two years now and this training offered a solid foundation of knowledge to help push the teams forward. The stickers and tattoos were a great bonus!

Jillian Patterson

Business Analyst
Advent Software, Inc.

After the recent Certified ScrumMaster course that Mike ran for us in the UK, everyone went back to their teams completely re-energized and determined to make Scrum work. Mike is a passionate and inspirational teacher with a wealth of experience from working with a wide variety of companies. We can’t wait to have him back later this year to work with more teams and to help guide us through the transition to a fully Agile way of managing our complex projects.

Harvey Wheaton

Senior Development Director
Electronic Arts

I recommend all of Mike’s courses to colleagues unreservedly, and specifically point them to Succeeding With Agile when they’ve been doing scrum for a while and are starting to hit the next wall of organizational impediments that naturally follow early adoption.

Peter Green

Agile Transformation Leader
Adobe Systems, Inc.

Mike’s wealth of experience and exuberant style of training leads to courses that always deliver a heavy-weight punch. From his ScrumMaster Certification to User Stories Applied course, there is always useful material to apply to your project. The best part is that no matter how ‘trivial’ a question you may have, Mike always takes the time to listen patiently and provides sound guidance.

Ian Wermerling

Scrum Master
easyJet