Certified Scrum Product Owner

Short exercises and case studies will be scattered throughout the two-day session. Longer exercises are detailed below. Time spent on each topic will vary depending on the composition of the class and the interest in particular areas.

Day 1

I. Agile Thinking - In order for us to understand the benefits of Scrum and the nuances behind its framework, we begin with the history of agile methods and how relatively new thoughts in software development have brought us to Scrum.

a. How manufacturing has influenced software development
b. The origins of agile thinking
c. The Agile Manifesto
d. The complexity of projects
e. Theoretical Vs. Empirical processes overview
f. The "Iron Triangle" of Project Management

Exercise: The "Art of the Possible." This is an opportunity to understand how small changes in behavior can have a large impact on productivity. This also turns our thinking towards new ideas and a willingness to change for the better.

Exercise: The Ball Point Game", courtesy of Boris Gloger. Project simulation is designed to expose different agile concepts in practice, allowing participants to experience work in an iterative, self-managed environment.

II. The Scrum Framework - Here we'll ensure that we're all working from the same foundational concepts that make up the Scrum Framework.

a. The different Scrum roles
b. Chickens and Pigs
c. Iterative Development vs. Waterfall
d. Self Management concepts
e. Full disclosure and visibility
f. The Scrum Framework Overview

Exercise: The 59-minute Scrum Simulation. This popular exposure to Scrum asks us to work on a short project that lasts for just 59 minutes! We'll actually take more time than that as we walk through all of the key steps under the Scrum framework, work in project teams to deliver a new product.

III. Scrum Roles - Who are the different players in the Scrum game? We'll review checklists of role expectations and discuss some difficult situations that we might encounter.

a. The Team Member
b. The Product Owner
c. The Scrum Master

Exercise: This is a long-running exercise that carries through into our remaining sections that follow where we will discuss and practice various aspects of product and project planning in an agile Scrum environment.

Day 2
IV. The Product Backlog, Product Visioning, and Progressive Elaboration. The Scrum Team must have an understanding of our Product Vision so they can make good decisions. The Product Backlog is a reflection of that vision, and we'll practice developing its content.

a. Defining the Product Vision
b. The Contents of The Product Backlog
c. Prioritizing our Time Spent on the Product Backlog
d. Using User Stories
e. Bill Wake's INVEST Model
f. Product Backlog Granularity

V. Velocity and Story Points. Since a Product Owner is responsible for monitoring progress, we'll discuss and practice how to measure a Team's progress in delivering product features.

a. Relative Effort
b. Planning Poker and Story Points
c. Ideal Team Days
d. Team Capacity
e. Projecting a Schedule
f. Project Management Variables and Velocity

VI. Prioritization Considerations and Methods. Prioritization is the Product Owner's number one tool for maximizing return on investment. In this section we'll review different techniques available to establish meaningful priorities.

a. Bringing Prioritization Into a Project
b. Themes and Relative Weighted Priority
c. Prioritization Questions and Considerations
d. The Value of Increasing our Understanding
e. The Value of Risk Reduction

VII. Extracting Value and the Cost of Change. This section touches on several different areas of interest that influence our ability to extract the most value from our projects.

a. Fixed Date Contracts
b. Product Backlog Refactoring ("Grooming")
c. Release Management
d. The Impact of Project Switching
e. The Impact of Continuous Forced Marches
f. Earned Value in an Agile Environment

VIII. Meetings and Artifacts. While most of this material was discussed in previous portions of class, more detailed documentation is included here for future reference, including sample agendas for each of the Scrum Meetings.

a. A Chart of Scrum Meetings
b. The Product Backlog
c. Sprint Planning
d. The Sprint Backlog
e. The Sprint
f. The Daily Scrum
g. Gathering Metrics
h. The Sprint Demo/Review
i. Getting to "Done"
j. The Retrospective
k. Why Plan?

IX. Advanced Considerations. This section is reserved for reference material. Particular interests from the class may warrant discussion during our class time together.

a. Weighted Impacts
b. Theme Screening
c. Kano Modeling
d. The Meta-Scrum
e. The Scrum of Scrums
f. The Integration Scrum Team
g. Scaling Scrum
h. Developing Architecture

X. Closing Topics. We'll wrap up with direction on where to go next with your Scrum experience, some recommended reading, Scrum reference materials, and our graduation ceremony.

• Properly align your development efforts around building the highest business value features first
• Effectively and efficiently incorporate new insights into the product during the project lifecycle Seed a product backlog to quickly establish enough backlog items
• Demonstrate how to write user stories to clearly articulate the who, what, and the how
• Relatively estimate backlog items to factor in implementation complexity
• Quickly assess business value and establish an initial priority for the backlog items in your product backlog
• Key meetings in Scrum to verify what is happening, before, during, and after each sprint
• Determine a good user story from a bad one and create a better product backlog
• Ensure that the right features are being implemented for the right reasons at the right time
• Demonstrate how to track development team progress and make more informed prioritization decisions and forecast possible release dates
• Gain organizational trust and improve your team's reputation for on-time and on-budget delivery by setting them up for frequent successes
• Rapidly respond to changing market conditions and increase customer satisfaction and time-to-market delivery

Exercise 1: Buy a Feature

In this collaborative group approach to prioritization, explore the concept of assessing business value and gaining consensus.

Exercise 2: Agile Principles

The founding fathers of agile defined 12 principles that characterize an agile environment. Discover what they are, which are most important, and how your organization may be challenged to adopt them.

Exercise 3: Defined and Empirical Work

Analyze types of work and choose several that are suited for defined and empirical process control.

Exercise 5: Agile and Scrum Concepts

Find out what you remember about agile and Scrum terms in this group-based exercise.

Exercise 6-1: Product Owner Deep Dive

In this detailed case study, put yourself in the shoes of the product owner and determine the best course of action.

Exercise 6-2: Manager/Employee

In this minor physical challenge, experience the difference between command, control, and servant leadership.

Exercise 6-3: Fact or Crap

Play this card-based game in a group to reinforce your understanding of the roles and responsibilities in Scrum.

Exercise 7: Scrum Simulation Instructions

Learn the topic of your Scrum simulation and define roles within your team.

Exercise 8: Create a Product Vision Statement

With the help of your stakeholders, develop a compelling vision statement to guide your team.

Exercise 9-1: Identifying User Roles

Identify the user roles of your product.

Exercise 9-2: Develop a Persona

Develop a persona for your product.

Exercise 11: Seed the Product Backlog

With the help of your stakeholders, author user stories (with acceptance criteria) to support your product vision.

Exercise 12: Chinese Zodiac Points

Walking one-by-one through the animals of the Chinese zodiac, relatively rank them by physical size.

Exercise 13: Prioritize Your Product Backlog

Utilizing MoSCoW rules, assess business value and rank your product backlog.

Exercise 15: User Story Writing Workshop

Learn how to apply the latest techniques in group collaboration, silent working, and driving innovative thinking.

Exercise 16: Reprioritize the Product Backlog

Apply your favorite technique for assessing business value and reprioritize your product backlog.

Exercise 17: Ball Points

In this minor physical challenge, experience the difference between estimated and actual velocity.

Exercise 18-1: Create a Product Road Map

Map out your products future six to nine months in advance.

Exercise 18-2: Create a Release Plan

Plan when you will release your product's "potentially shippable product increments" to your customers and end users.

Exercise 19: Product Box

Identify product features that are exciting to your customers by designing the product box.

Exercise 21: The Scrum Café or Open Space Technologies

Utilizing one of these innovative frameworks, you will have the opportunity to explore the deepest questions on Scrum.

Technical professionals associated with the specification, design, development and testing of products will benefit from this two-day program. Some of the professionals this will benefit include:

• Product Managers/Business Analysts
• Functional/Operational Managers/Directors
• Project Sponsors
• IT Leadership (Managers/Directors/VPs/CIOs/CTOs)
• Anyone interested in learning the benefits of Scrum for Product Management

This class is suitable for those who are responsible for setting product direction on a Scrum project. While current Certified ScrumMasters are welcome to attend, this class should not be considered as a next step after taking the CSM Class, but instead should be viewed as an alternative to the CSM Class.