Executive overview

Growing Scrum Masters and Kanban coaches to be competent after 2-3 days training is a serious challenge.  Many look to advanced courses to handle the challenge.  Unfortunately, these “advanced” courses, while going deeper, don’t go much broader. When one reflects on why there are two popular methods – Scrum and Kanban – it’s because each has a lot to offer. An advanced coach needs to know both.

The best way to advance from novice to competent (not to mention true mastery) is to learn while working. In this case, this would be while coaching the team. Short, intensive trainings are one of the most ineffective (while being the most expensive) method of training. It’s why we at Net Objectives have invested so much in scaled learning methods. The decision on which course to take should be based on:

• format – is it conducive to learning and does it include total cost (i.e., time away from work)
• content – should you go deeper into what’s known or provide a broader perspective
• training style – how the course is run will have a lot to do with how much is actually retained
• cost – while the least important of the four factors, it is an important factor if you have a lot of Scrum Masters to grow

We’ll now compare our Advanced Scrum Master / Kanban Online Workshop and with the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course.

Format

Advanced Scrum Master Course

One day.

Advanced SM / Kanban Online Workshop

14 sessions, 1 a week. This provides learning over time where attendees can learn something, try it and ask for help afterwards. They can also repeat the process if need be and lessons act as a reference in the future.

Instructor

Advanced Scrum Master Course

• You are almost certainly get someone who makes their living off of Scrum. This means that they will not have the depth of experience in Kanban that is needed when going beyond being just a Scrum Master
• Possibly get someone who just does training

Advanced SM / Kanban Online Workshop

• You will get Al Shalloway, a thought leader in Scrum, Kanban, Lean, design patterns, ATDD, TDD, SAFe and more. His experience will enable him to answer your real-world questions and not be stuck on any particular approach.

Content

Advanced Scrum Master Course

• Facilitate better dialogue between the Product Owner, Team members, customers, stakeholders, and executives.
• Respond confidently when encountering resistance to change, lack of engagement, low motivation, and unavailability of key people.
• Increase engagement to encourage greater accountability, commitment, and buy-in.
• Scale Scrum and Agile beyond a single team.
• Distinguish yourself in the global marketplace. An A-CSM certification helps you stand out among the global Scrum community

Advanced SM / Kanban Online Workshop

Getting Started

Team Agility as a Tool Box: Scrum as Example

• FLEX and Team Agility
• Scrum as Example
• Team Agility flow scorecard

The Mindsets of Business Agility

• Outcome-based thinking mindset
• Definitions of Ready and Done
• Team DoR-DoD template
• MBI mindset
• Optimizing throughput of business value realization

Systems Thinking, Explicit Workflow, and Agreements

• Systems thinking
• Art of Action
• Make work visible

The Team Agility Coach and the Guardrails

• Overview of the guardrails
• Reading about each guardrail

The Value of Consistent Objectives Across Teams

• Reading about the value of having consistent objectives across teams

Using Business Agility as a Guide to Working with Other Teams

• Foundation: Team Agility is a subset of Business Agility
• Techniques: Coordinating teams with backlog management and visual controls
• Realization, not just development

Kaizen and Retrospection

• Kaizen
• Retrospection

Creating a Process for On-boarding and Levelling Up

• Background
• No matter how it looks at first, it’s always a people problem
• How to use a framework and how to do training for it

How to Improve and Change Practices

• Objectives-based practice improvement of Scrum
• Using Scrum as Example to fix where you are or jump to something that works
• An easy way to start
• Problems with collaboration
• Common challenges when using Scrum
• Trim Tabs

Useful Games and Exercises

• Dot Game
• Clean Slate exercise

Understanding the Science of Coaching

• Fundamental attribution error
• Confirmation bias
• Resistance is not to change
• The Dunning-Kruger Effect
• The Satir Change Model

Competencies and Tools of an Effective Scrum Master

• What a Scrum Master needs to know
• Different levels in what being a Scrum Master is

Summing Up

Training style

Advanced Scrum Master Course

Interactive lecture and short exercises. All students work in the same manner.

Advanced SM / Kanban Online Workshop

Flipped classroom style. This has students read/watch their lessons individually. Then, they try out what they’ve learned with their teams and help teach each other as well. After this there is a Q&A session to report what successes and challenges they had. This all happens at their own pace but one session a week is suggested so that they can keep up with their learning group. This style has been shown to be the most effective for all learning styles.

Cost

Advanced Scrum Master Course

$1295 per person for the course fee plus 1 day lost for being at the training plus any additional time required for travel.

Advanced SM / Kanban Online Workshop

$595 per person.  Essentially no time is lost and there are no travel expenses.

When offered throughout an organization cost can be dramatically lowered.