May 11, 2018 — Posted by Al Shalloway
We've been doing Scrum training since '00. Around '07 we broke with Scrum Alliance because we both didn't like the cert model and felt teaching teams how to be Scrum Masters didn't make any sense. We did Scrum training here or there when Scrum wasn't appropriate but over the last decade of us focusing on mid-large scale and Scrum training becoming essentially a commodity we pretty much got out of Scrum training and did it only as part of larger engagements.
But then a couple of months ago we were asked to train 50 people on a budget for only two 25 person Scrum trainings. I didn't want to do that because I knew it wouldn't stick and I knew they didn't have budget for follow up coaching. So another N.O. person and I discussed the question-"What's the minimum amount you need for Scrum to stick?" The answer was easy- basic ATDD and basic Scrum. The next question was "how do we squeeze 50 people into one class while keeping quality high." That took some thinking-do games and exercises for principles and practices, do 1 on 1 coaching for ATDD. Voila, Scrum with Agile Requirements: Achieving Sustainable Agility was born.
What's cool is not only do people learn enough to avoid the problems most folks face, but the larger class size has people learn together
Al Shalloway is the founder and CEO of Net Objectives. With 45 years of experience, Al is an industry thought leader in Lean, Kanban, product portfolio management, Scrum and agile design. He helps companies transition to Lean and Agile methods enterprise-wide as well teaches courses in these areas.