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In February 2010 I attended a Scrum training course in NYC. Because of a snow storm, I only attended the first day of the two day training. While attending both days may have led to advanced insights, my day-1 experience was below expectations.

Training Offered By: Danube Technologies (now CollabNet, Inc.)
Instructor: Lyssa Adkins

Scrum Training Review - February 2010

Click here for a more detailed review of this training course with Lyssa Adkins

In April 2010, I attended the full two day training. This training was better than the one I attended in February, but I still have open questions on how to effectively implement scrum in certain environments. The detailed review here lists few open questions.

Training Offered By: Danube Technologies (now CollabNet, Inc.)
Instructor: Tamara Sulaiman

Scrum Training Review - April 2010

Click here for a more detailed review of this training course with Tamara Sulaiman

If you are looking for more than basic framework knowledge, take a course with one of the pioneers of scrum instead of going through software vendors that provide training services. I haven’t attended a course with other trainers, but based on discussions with several scrum masters, some good trainers to consider are: Jeff Sutherland, Sanjiv Augustine, Alistair Cockburn, Ken Schwaber, Mike Cohn, Esther Derby, Michele Sliger.

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Training Offered By: Danube Technologies (now CollabNet, Inc.)
Instructor: Tamara Sulaiman

When I first attended the scrum master course in February 2010, I could not attend the second day because of a snow storm. So I re-attended the two day training in April 2010. Overall, this training session was better than the one I attended in February. The instructor’s approach made a big difference (although the breakfast was a huge disappointment). The instructor started with a quick pulse on the attendees’ familiarity with scrum, effectively tying that to expectations one should have from the course (i.e. the course’s focus is on the basics of everything scrum, so don’t expect to get a solution to your complex scenarios).

The instructor did not spend time on evangelizing scrum or belittling waterfall and other methodologies. I particularly liked the instructor’s approach of using scrum to teach scrum. The instructor had prepared a product backlog of items that the team needed to get through in two days of training. She had assigned story points to each item, and moved stories from In-Progress to Done as we went through them. She even tracked work done and work left on a burn-down chart. For those who had never used scrum, this mode of teaching made it easier to see scrum in application. For those who had used scrum, it helped to see scrum functioning in a different setting.

The instructor had also set up a group exercise in which each team had to build a game using the fundamentals of scrum. This exercise was effective in experiencing firsthand the responsibilities of the product owner and scrum master. It also helped to create user stories, assign story points, play planning poker, assign priorities, track work on burn down charts, conduct product demos – all in actual time boxes as part of the game creation exercise. However, as beneficial as this exercise was, it also detracted attention from more pressing discussions. It would have helped to de-scope this exercise and simplify the goal so teams could see the same benefits in less time.

In conclusion, while I left more satisfied with the tips and tools picked up in these two days of training, I still had the same outstanding concerns as earlier – how to make scrum implementations work productively in matrix organizations where shared resources and distributed teams are the norm? How to get scrum masters to efficiently lead multiple scrum teams? How to measure effectiveness of scrum methods and performance of scrum masters?

Related Posts

• A detailed review of a scrum master course (Through CollabNet with Lyssa Adkins in February 2010)
• A summarized review of two scrum master courses: (1) With Lyssa Adkins in February 2010 and (2) With Tamara Sulaiman in April 2010

Summarizing Observations

Scrum Training Review - April 2010

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Training Offered By: Danube Technologies (now CollabNet, Inc.)
Instructor: Lyssa Adkins

In February 2010 I attended a scrum training class as I was keen to learn some new tricks and get the scrum master certification. While I certainly picked up at least two valuable exercises to use in my client engagements in just one day, a fair portion of the training was below satisfactory. I have been a scrum practitioner for almost five years, so maybe some of the material and insights were very rudimentary. Regardless of my level of familiarity with scrum, the training felt lacking in actionable insights that one could take back to the work place.

At times, it seemed as if some attendees were perceiving scrum to be less adaptive as the instructor often stressed the need to implement all of scrum’s rules for it to be effective. Many people were in this course because they believed in scrum’s merits and wanted to understand how to make it work in their environment. If the instructor did not spend so much energy on evangelizing scrum over alternate methodologies, but more energy on sharing lessons learned and actionable insights from implementing scrum in various organizations, the training would have been much more valuable.

For instance, the instructor mentioned that scrum is highly effective (optimal) only when fully functional teams are face-to-face. She highlighted that anything else is a coping strategy that will lead to minor benefits. Instead, it would have helped if she dived into some of the challenges of implementing scrum on a globally diversified team. With the increase in outsourcing and globalization, it’s not always viable to collocate one’s entire team. Even if scrum implementations will be sub-optimal for such teams, what can they do to get maximum value from scrum?

Another statement the instructor made was “A good scrum master can be the leader of three teams; a great scrum master can be the leader of one team”. In today’s lean and mean economy very few companies, if any, can afford the luxury of having one person dedicated to leading one project. Leading several projects, juggling multiple priorities and wearing many hats is a given. So instead of rejecting this view, it would have helped to understand what are some strategies scrum masters can build into their approach to be super stars even while managing multiple teams.

Because of a snow storm, I only attended day one of the two day training. While attending both days may have led to more advanced insights, my day-1 experience was below expectations.

Related Posts

• A detailed review of a scrum master course (Through CollabNet with Tamara Sulaiman in April 2010)
• A summarized review of two scrum master courses: (1) With Lyssa Adkins in February 2010 and (2) With Tamara Sulaiman in April 2010

Summarizing Observations

Scrum Training Review - February 2010

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There are many vendors and consultants who are anxious to get your money in return for PDUs! During one of the chapter meetings, I got impressed by one consultant’s speech, and agreed to pay him $25 for 12 PDUs worth of webinars during the year 2009. Needless to say, I got my money’s worth – the webinars were sporadic and the content well below the mark. I didn’t hear much from the consultant throughout 2009 once I paid the fee, but as 2010 started, he reached out again to promote a new round of webinars for 2010 touting the success of last year’s webinars. These claims were baseless as I had firsthand experience of the areas where the consultant had seriously fallen short. At $25 to $200 per person, such efforts to impart knowledge in exchange for PDUs are an unfortunate attempt to take advantage of the naive. Often the goal is to rake in cash from anxious PDU-hungry candidates.

It is understandable that newly certified project managers or those nearing the end of their certification cycle might feel pressurized to collect PDUs, especially given the ever-expanding suite of certifications and PDU requirements. As you commence your search for avenues to collect PDUs, don’t fret – three years is more than enough time and there are plenty of options. There are many credible sources out there – most of which offer very valuable insight on various aspects of project management and give PDUs for no fees or are worthy of the fees they charge. In this post I’ll highlight a few cost-free avenues to pursue and also simplify some of PMI’s PDU reporting category codes. Please chime in with your experiences.

The International Institute of Learning, Inc. (IIL) posts quite a few webinars for free at  http://www2.iil.com/iilwebinars.net/ Dr. Harold Kerzner (Ph.D., MS, Engineering and MBA) is the Senior Executive Director at IIL and a globally recognized expert on project, program and portfolio management. Some of his speeches are not just educational but also very inspirational. Check out your options on the IIL site before you hand over your money to a consultant or another vendor.

Also look into PMI’s available resources. Some useful links are the PMI Career Development Center http://www.pmi.org/CareerDevelopment/Pages/Training-Intro.aspx or the list of local chapters  http://www.pmi.org/GetInvolved/Pages/PMI-Chapters.aspx. Did you know you can get up to 15 PDUs as author or co-author for every article/white paper that gets accepted in a non-referred journal? There are word limits and other qualitative requirements, but if you have good ideas that you want to share with the world, publish a white paper or collaborate with another writer. If you enjoy public speaking, reach out to the local PMI chapters or other organizations to find out if you can present on something that interests them. You can get PDUs for speaking engagements under categories 2C, 2D and 2E.

Some of the easiest ways to earn PDUs often get buried in PMI’s verbiage. If you are an active full-time project manager, you should be able to claim 15 PDUs per certification cycle just for your work without doing anything extra. You can claim 5 PDUs for 6 months of service under the 2H category. Another often neglected category is self-directed learning. You can claim up to 15 PDUs under the category 2-SDL for the time you spend researching, reading and discussing about project management. These two categories alone can get you to the halfway mark without you having to spend an extra dime or do anything out of the ordinary.

You can claim even more PDUs if you are a committee member or an officer of a PMO (categories 5A, 5B) or if you have helped institute best practices or learning programs at your work place (category 2G). Let’s say you download a project management podcast from a source that isn’t a PMI registered education provider (REP) – you can still claim PDUs for time spent listening to that podcast under category 4 (Other Provider). So stop before you pay others for PDUs only because you think it is economical and easier to do so.

However, in conclusion, if you do decide to pay independent consultants or vendors for PDUs, at least seek out the good reputable ones. To that end, do your homework. Ask around to see if others have had a positive experience with this person or company. Linked-In is a great place to post a question and get feedback. Check out the person or company’s web-site to see if it is easy to navigate and professional or a haphazard effort to just throw something together. If there is a blog linked to the site, read some of the blog’s content to assess the quality of the instructional material so you know what to expect. Ask such service providers to give you a sneak peek into their services for no cost so you can gauge if the material interests you. In short, pay for content, not just for PDUs.

Rest assured, collecting PDUs is easier than you think. Otherwise I would not have collected 60 PDUs in a little over a year without even realizing when I got to 60. In recent weeks, I noticed many posts asking people to pay for webinars and collect PDUs, so just wanted to share my experience and highlight some resources available to us as project managers.

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This review was updated and republished as three separate posts on May 4, 2010.

The three posts are -

• A detailed review of a scrum master course (Through CollabNet with Tamara Sulaiman in April 2010)
• A detailed review of a scrum master course (Through CollabNet with Lyssa Adkins in February 2010)
• A summarized review of two scrum master courses: (1) With Lyssa Adkins in February 2010 and (2) With Tamara Sulaiman in April 2010

In February 2010 I attended a Scrum training course in NYC. Because of a snow storm, I only attended the first day of the two day training. While attending both days may have led to more advanced insights, my day-1 experience was below my expectations.

Training Offered By: Danube Technologies (now CollabNet, Inc.)
Instructor: Lyssa Adkins

Scrum Training Review - February 2010

Click here for a more detailed review of this training course with Lyssa Adkins

In April 2010, I attended the full two day training. While the training was better than the one I attended in February, I still have open questions on how to effectively implement scrum in certain environments.

Training Offered By: Danube Technologies (now CollabNet, Inc.)
Instructor: Tamara Sulaiman

Scrum Training Review - April 2010

Click here for a more detailed review of this training course with Tamara Sulaiman

In conclusion, if you are looking for more than basic framework knowledge, try to attend a scrum master course with thought leaders on the subject instead of software vendors that provide training services. Some trainers to consider are: Jeff Sutherland, Sanjiv Augustine, Alistair Cockburn, Ken Schwaber, Mike Cohn, Esther Derby, Michele Sliger.

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So, as an update to my thoughts on scrum over the past couple weeks, I signed up for a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course.  It is in the second week of February.  Will share my lessons learned and experiences in due time.  Looking forward to picking up some new tips and tools to use on my projects.

For those interested in reading more about Scrum, read this guide (it’s an excellent intro and overview): http://www.scrum.org/scrumguides/

Cheers!
-V

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Over the past three years, I have implemented Scrum at start-up companies as well as large corporations.  While most of this has been in the world of software development and some in operations, every experience has been unique, always presenting different challenges and teaching something new.

There is an increasing level of buzz regarding what Scrum can and cannot do, and how it is similar to or different from other project management methodologies.  I have to admit that enforcing Scrum’s guidelines or building processes around Agile concepts has been easier in small teams and start-up companies than in large corporations.

I’ll elaborate on the challenges, what worked and what did not work in future posts.  In brief some of the main challenges included (1) an inability to integrate post-development activities such as QA/testing and release management fully into the sprint cycle, (2) the product owner and scrum master roles spilling over one another (also the product owner getting over loaded) and (3) various aspects of the organizational culture and business realities becoming not necessarily blocks, but valid constraints.

Anyway, lately, I have been considering signing up for a CSM (Certified Scrum Master) course, in the hope of learning something new and exchanging experiences with others.  I wonder what challenges other people have had in implementing Scrum or other Agile methods, and what can I fit into my practice to help clients better incorporate these methods into their process.

If you’d like to share your experience using Scrum, feel free to comment or drop me an email at varunpoddar@poddarco.com

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