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Agile Project Management for Today’s Project Leader

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Agile Project Management for Today’s Project Leader

Don’t settle for “business as usual”. Rise to the challenge and give yourself and your team a competitive edge!

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This class meets two consecutive days. Wednesday June 19 & Thursday June 20, 2024

Do your customers complain that their projects take too long to get completed?

Are you trying to understand and apply new Agile concepts on your own, but don’t know how or where to start?

Or are you trying to improve what you have started with your Agile process?

Are you ready to:

  • Accept your customer’s requests for change easily and quickly
  • Set up leaders and stakeholders for successful change
  • Develop stronger, quicker acting teams
  • Create a workplace culture that connects business and service groups
  • Get more done

If you want to learn the nitty-gritty of what to do, and what not to do, with change driven projects, this interactive, hands-on class will bring Agile project management to life for you. You will return to your workplace ready to fully contribute and improve your existing teams to provide better project deliverables fast for your company.  The class material can be applied quickly for far reaching benefits on your projects, and processes and can be leveraged in a broad spectrum of functional areas and for employees of all levels of responsibility.

Don’t settle for “business as usual”.  Rise to the challenge and give yourself and your team a competitive edge!

To keep that momentum going once you are back at your workplace, each participant will receive a copy of the book “SCRUM: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time“, by Jeff Sutherland, and co-creator of Scrum J.J. Sutherland.  This book will be a useful resource as you put the tools learned in the classroom into practice on the job!

Key concepts:

  • Determining the right approach for each project.
  • Creating success criteria with multiple stakeholders.
  • Working hands-on with the Agile concepts, understanding each step of a basic process.
  • Building and communicating measures for steady progress and successful deliveries.
  • Creating high performance Agile teams.
  • Gathering and grouping deliverables into a successful sprint.
  • Defining quality/benefits for Agile projects.
  • Building an Agile mindset and learn how to transfer to others.

Agile projects

  • What’s what in Agile methodologies
  • Graphs showing the difference in project management methods
  • Change-driven methods:
    • Agile
    • Lean
    • Kanban
    • Scrum
    • Test-Driven Development
    • Extreme Programming
    • SAFe
  • Case studies

 

Value to the business

  • How to size Agile projects for the correct number of team members
  • Understanding the value of now
  • Forecasting costs plus tracking benefits
  • Eliminate waste
  • Determine early the point of no added value

 

Stakeholder and management oversight

  • Key roles defined for all Agile team members
  • Contributing to and monitoring Agile projects
  • When to stay out and when to step in
  • Leveraging ongoing stakeholder involvement

 

High level processes

  • Scope
  • Backlog development
  • Sprints setups
  • Design, build and configurations
  • Test and deploy

 

Requirements

  • Storyboards for Agile
  • User stories and other techniques
  • Elicit Agile size deliverables
  • Grouping deliverables – the negotiation dance
  • Determining the point of “good enough”
  • Testing user stories

 

Quality

  • Demoing, testing – Live feedback loop
  • Success criteria
  • Get out of jail free card

 

Using different Agile approaches

  • Principles and practices
  • Tools and techniques
  • Change driven life cycles

 

The whole team

  • The Agility and lean mindset blend
  • Agile leaders characteristics
  • Logistics and daily activities
  • Tight team dynamics
  • How to improve  Agile teams

 

Team meetings

  • Determine sprint size and daily meetings
  • Agile “poker” cards for estimating
  • Re-prioritizing the remaining work plan (backlog)
  • Retrospective reviews

 

Burn-up or burn-down charts

  • Define key agile metrics
  • Graphing methods and tools
  • Cadence – velocity
  • Pick up the pace
  • Successes early and late

 

Integration topics

  • Frequent collaboration
  • Number of outstanding defects
  • Change management
  • Procurement

 

Other project management deliverables

  • Project charters
  • Risks
  • Issues
  • Communication plans

Adjustments based on customer requests, the drive for improved efficiencies, the time from order to creation to delivery – all these measurements are being sandwiched into smaller and shorter increments.  

If you are struggling to keep up with the speed of the customer, and your competitor, consider exploring the methodology of Agile.  It doesn’t work everywhere, and it’s not a brand new system.  It’s a tool set that when applied in the appropriate place, can be the difference in survival for your company.

Your first step in that survival…taking this class and understanding what it takes to think and act AGILE!

“I learned excellent overall concepts which I am able to bring back to the workplace, share with with my colleagues and implement right away. Looking forward to other great classes with CMD.”

Jason Popp, Product Owner, Cargill

 

“The class is so good and I will recommend my manager to try to schedule it for all our entire  team. “

Nancy N. Taha, EHS Manager, Pfizer McPherson KS 

 

“This class was probably the most challenging class I have taken within the Project Management Certification program. I loved Anita and her real world examples. She tailored the class to our experience with Agile Projects and pushed all of us to think outside the box.  You could see the progress that was made throughout the class by each individual person. I found her insights and knowledge very valuable.”

Jenna Ginest, USD 259, Wichita, Kansas

To keep that momentum going once you are back at your workplace, each participant will receive a copy of the book “SCRUM: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time“, by Jeff Sutherland, and Co-creator of Scrum J.J. Sutherland.  This book will be a useful resource as you put the tools learned in the classroom into practice on the job!

Substitutions are free and must be done prior to the start of the class or certificate program.

Cancellations or rescheduling must be received in writing and full refunds will be given up to four business days prior to the start of class.

Any cancellation or reschedule submitted with three or less business days notice is subject to a $35 charge on 1 or 2 day classes and a $75 charge on certificate programs.  

No refunds after the first day of the class or certificate program.

If your team or department need to understand and determine how to apply AGILE, we can have this program at your facility.  Give me a call to explore the possibilities.  Paula.Seiwert@wichita.edu

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