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During this two-day hands-on class, you'll gain a basic understanding of Scrum while learning how to function as a Product Owner for the team. You'll learn about activities such as defining the product vision, managing stakeholders, grooming the backlog, and defining done.

This class is intended for anyone currently serving as a Scrum Product Owner or transitioning into the role. While ScrumMasters and team members are welcome to attend, it is not a continuation of the CSM class.

After completing this class, you'll be registered with the Scrum Alliance as a Certified Scrum Product Owner. Registration includes a two-year Scrum Alliance membership. PMPs can also claim 14 PDUs with the PMI.

Course Outline

Day 1

• Agile Thinking. 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.
1. How manufacturing has influenced software development
2. The origins of Agile thinking
3. The Agile Manifesto
4. The complexity of projects
5. Theoretical vs. empirical processes overview
6. The "Iron Triangle" of project management

Exercise: The Art of the Possible. We'll explore how small changes in behavior can have a large impact on productivity. This exercise also turns your thinking toward new ideas and a willingness to change for the better.

Exercise: The Ball Point Game. This project simulation is designed to expose different Agile concepts in practice, allowing participants to experience work in an iterative, self-managed environment.

• The Scrum Framework. During this time, we'll ensure everyone is working from the same foundational concepts that make up the Scrum framework.

Exercise: The 59-minute Scrum Simulation. In this exercise, you'll work on a short project that lasts for just 59 minutes. Working in project teams, you will walk through the key steps of the Scrum framework as you work in project teams to deliver a new product.

1. The different Scrum roles
2. Chickens and pigs
3. Iterative development vs. waterfall
4. Self-management concepts
5. Full disclosure and visibility
6. Overview of the Scrum framework

• Scrum Roles. What are the different roles in Scrum? We'll review checklists of role expectations and discuss some difficult situations you might encounter.

1. The Team Member
2. The Product Owner
3. The Scrum Master

Exercise: Establishing Product Expectations. In this long-running exercise, which continues on Day 2, we'll discuss and practice various aspects of product and project planning in an Agile Scrum environment.

Day 2

• The Product Backlog, Product Visioning, and Progressive Elaboration. The Scrum Team must have an understanding of your product vision so they can make good decisions. The product backlog is a reflection of that vision, and we'll practice developing its content.

1. Defining the product vision
2. The contents of the product backlog
3. Prioritizing time spent on the product backlog
4. Using user stories
5. Bill Wake's INVEST model
6. Product backlog granularity

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

1. Relative effort
2. Planning Poker and story points
3. Ideal team days
4. Team capacity
5. Projecting a schedule
6. Project management variables and velocity

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

1. Bringing prioritization into a project
2. Themes and relative weighted priority
3. Prioritization questions and considerations
4. Value of risk reduction
5. Weighted impacts
6. Theme screening
7. Kano modeling

• Extracting Value. This section touches on different areas of interest that influence your ability to extract the most value from your projects.

1. Fixed date contracts
2. Product backlog refactoring ("grooming")
3. Release management
4. Impact of project switching
5. Impact of continuous forced marches
6. Earned value in an Agile environment

• Meetings and Artifacts Reference Material. 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.

1. Chart of Scrum meetings
2. The product backlog
3. Sprint planning
4. The sprint backlog
5. The sprint
6. The daily Scrum
7. Gathering metrics
8. The sprint demo/review
9. Getting to "done"
10. The retrospective
11. Why plan?

• Advanced Considerations. This section is reserved for reference material. If a topic in this section is of particular interest to the class, we may discuss it during class time.

1. The MetaScrum
2. The Scrum of Scrums
3. The integration Scrum team
4. Scaling Scrum
5. Developing architecture

• Closing Topics. We'll wrap up with direction on where to go next with your Scrum experience, recommended reading and Scrum reference sites, and a graduation ceremony.