We are excited to help you achieve your goal of becoming an Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (ACSM). This page contains the mandatory pre-work to prepare everyone to have a great experience in our course. If you need any assistance before the class, please contact tricia.broderick@igniteii.com.
The mandatory prework on this page consists of three parts: read the Agile/Scrum/Kanban refresher sections, download and fill in leadership development pdf to bring to class, and submit your answers to the three questions at the bottom of the page. So no “dog ate my homework” excuses please!
Agile has roots in Lean and object-oriented thinking, which is many decades old. The Harvard Business Review article “The New New Product Development Game” from 1986 helped popularize lean thinking in the West and intensified these conversations about a better way to do work. Along with other inspirations, this began the development of numerous frameworks such as Extreme Programming, SCRUM, DSDM, Adaptive Software Development, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development, Pragmatic Programming, and others – sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes that were not working.
On February 11-13, 2001, at The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, seventeen people (from these various frameworks) met to talk, ski, relax, and try to find common ground—and of course, to eat. What emerged was the Agile ‘Software Development’ Manifesto.
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
© 2001-2019 Agile Manifesto Authors. This declaration may be freely copied in any form, but only in its entirety through this notice.
Scrum is an Agile framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value. The term “Scrum” comes from a 1986 Harvard Business Review article in which authors Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka made an analogy comparing high-performing, cross-functional teams to the scrum formation used by rugby teams. Created by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber.
We’ll answer these questions: Why Scrum? What is it built to do?
We’ll explain the three roles within the Scrum Team.
We’ll get an overview of how all of the Scrum Events work together as a system.
We’ll highlight the three artifacts of Scrum (something that humans make).
There are two other commonly used agile frameworks in addition to Scrum: eXtreme Programming (XP) (we will cover at a high-level during class) and Kanban.
Kanban can have several meanings and word uses in the agile space. The term gets thrown around a lot; let’s start with definitions:
Kanban, as it’s known today in the agile space, is the application of lean concepts and kanban systems, by people and teams, to optimize the flow of value to your customers.
Image Source: Dr. Ian Mitchell (wikipedia)
Based on these principles, there are many practices to determine priorities, focus, and improve. That is what Kanban is about. Additionally, there are other lists of principles, practices, and ideas out there around Kanban – these are simply the four we use. There can be a bit of confusion around if something is a principle or a practice as well. Some Kanban principles out there seem to be more practices AND some may even look at the four principles listed above and say those are practices, not principles. That is okay. The world allows for variation.
Kanban does require that management and employees be “all in” to make problems transparent and then to work together to solve them and continuously improve. This might not be immediate, but if these issues are not being worked on quickly, the chances of value decrease. Kanban simply expects that everyone is doing work as issues emerge.
There are many opinions on this as you might guess. We typically look at a few factors when assessing which might work best. Kanban can be a good place to start when:
Please download and print this PDF on leadership development areas to bring to class. At the very end is an assessment chart. For each skill or responsibility, self-assess your knowledge and use. Place an ‘x’ in the column corresponding to the appropriate number:
Please submit your answers to the following questions. Unfortunately, you will not receive an indicator if your answers were correct. Bring your answers to the course and we’ll find out!
