Benefits of Hands-On SCRUM Training in Ottawa

Scrum is an Agile framework for completing complex projects. Scrum was originally established for software development, in the early 2000’s, and has since flourished in many IT departments. In recent years, Agile has become widely adopted across many industries and levels of government as a leading methodology, and even a company culture, aimed at delivering customer-centric, highly innovative products that energize team members in the scope of their immediate work.

At SETC Training Ottawa, our Agile Scrum training courses are geared to government and private sector organizations. We offer several streams, to address the increasing need for Agile training across a wide range of organizations and professions. Our training courses use practical hands-on exercises in small groups, with as few as 5 participants. We can also accommodate larger groups, and offer preferred rates for groups of 2 or more from the same organization, as well as government discounts.

SCRUM is one of several Agile methods, all of which facilitate close team work, close customer relations and collaboration within the organization, the ability to respond and adapt to frequent and the changing requirements of iterative deliverables of software, and a growing range of other products and services. Scrum leverages the power cross-functional teams to complete well-defined pieces of work in short cycles knows as sprints, intent of delivering tangible value to customers and stakeholders on a regular basis.

Scrum Teams are the champions on the ground and at the heart of Scrum Agile sustainable development practices. Scrum Teams are a self-organized, close-knit crew, around 5-7 members with different skills set, but cross-trained to support each other to ensure a successful sprint to a common goal. A sprint is a set period, typically two to four weeks, to complete a stated piece of work. The team usually meets daily to assess progress, known as a daily Scrum, like how rugby teams pack together in a tight formation, heads down and working together, to restart play:

The Scrum Master is the chief facilitator within the team, and champion of Scrum as framework for success. The Scrum Master schedules the required resources for sprint planning, stand-up, sprint review, and the sprint retrospective for each iteration. Scrum Masters connect the dots for the team, the product owner and the business, leveraging the Scrum framework to its fullest potential.

The Product Owner is the business champion for the product, and is focused on understanding and fulfilling the business and marketing requirements. Product Owners are the lynch pin between the Scrum Team and business stakeholders, ensuring continuous interaction between various product interests, with the end-customer top of mind. Product owners create the Product Backlog, a prioritized wish list, and work closely with the Scrum Team to ensure that Product Backlog Items (PBIs) are completed within each sprint iteration.

The Scrum Lifecycle starts with the Product Owner creating the Product Backlog. Next, the Scrum Team pulls a small chunk from the top of the Product Backlog creating a list of which items to complete, called a sprint backlog, and decides how to implement those product backlog items. The Scrum Team usually has 2-4 weeks to complete the sprint, but has a short daily stand-up (daily scrum) to make sure the team is in sync. The Scrum Master ensures that the Scrum Team stays focused on its goal throughout the sprint. At the end of the sprint, the product should be ready to be shipped or demonstrated to the appropriate stakeholders during the sprint review. The cycle concludes with a sprint retrospective of what went well and what didn’t work so well during the sprint, in preparation for the next sprint cycle.

Scrum really took off in 2001 in the software industry, but Agile has since been adopted globally as a framework for transforming the world of work, creating much higher rates of engagement than traditional, bureaucratic models of work organization. Agile is all about creating more value with smarter work practices and is guided by three basic principles that are changing the way products and services are created and delivered, by organizations large and small:

For traditional managers, and professionals of various disciplines, learning to work within the Scrum Agile structure can be a bit challenging, like learning how to navigate in a different culture, speaking a foreign language. An insufficient working knowledge of the Scrum Agile framework and best practices can be a real barrier to organizational adoption, despite the incredible success rates that are possible with Scrum Agile, as evidenced in the 11th Annual State of Agile Survey:

Our main training location is in the heart of Ottawa, Ontario. SETC Training offers guaranteed in-class instruction, but students can participate remotely if they prefer. Will also travel to deliver group-specific training anywhere in Canada.

Our IT clients use Scrum Agile as a model to allow their development processes to be responsive and integrate new technologies, requirements and customer needs and wants into existing and upcoming programming (e.g., apps and services). We have a lot of fun too! Our non-IT clients that have incorporated Agile include organizations working on dynamic projects (Agile is an iterative approach) that need to rapidly and effectively respond to real-word changes and inputs. Agile is moving organizations to a flatter structural style, and fits well with a movement toward Lean Thinking and Lean Management to maximize efficiency and minimize waste, while creating high levels of employee engagement.

SETC Training courses cover Scrum basics including sprints, the Product Backlog, user stories, technical debt and more. Product Owners learn to write requirements and user stories, how to create and manage the Product Backlog and how to identify and interact with key stakeholders. Scrum Masters learn to excel as servile leaders as they learn how to support development teams and Product Owners through the entire Scrum lifecycle. Scrum development teams learn how to define and develop sprint-able PBIs and how to execute a sprint from sprint planning to the sprint retrospective. The Scrum training courses at SETC Training are practical and hands-on, featuring an experienced in-class instructor and a 50:50 theory to practice ratio. Recent comments highlighted the quality of instruction, the practicality of the exercises, and the warmth of the training centre staff at SETC Training.