Agile

In Foundations of Agile Coaching take the first step from scrum master to Agile Coach. Learn and practice the art of running highly effective collaborative events including stand ups, retros, iteration planning sessions and more.

Collaborative working is at the heart of everything that Agile teams do. The whole team shares responsibility andFacilitating a stand up ownership for the work being delivered. Collaboration extends beyond the team to embrace the Product Owner and other critical stakeholders in the organization.

As a scrum master we will have sound technical Agile skills but will often be weak in the critical soft Agile Team Facilitation skills necessary to facilitate greater collaboration across the team. This class is extensively hands-on and offers continued practice at facilitating all the Agile ceremonies with a wide variety of dysfunctional behaviour to manage. Regular student led retrospectives and feedback reinforce the learning opportunities whilst providing effective reinforcing and re-directive feedback to delegates.

Team Facilitation is a skill needed on any Agile team, and can be undertaken by anyone on the team- Foundations of Agile Coaching is intended for any member of the team who wants to take the first steps to becoming an Agile Coach and learn to improve their facilitation skills to better facilitate collaborative work sessions and meetings helping their team become more effective in their ways of working together.

Foundations of Agile Coaching will enable you to gain a deep practical understanding of professional facilitation techniques helping you to: facilitate collaboration and self-organization in the team; remove blockers, provide powerful feedback and help the team to lift its own performance during every stage of the project:

• You’ll learn the 10 steps to successful meetings and use these ideas to help deliver key Agile meetings
• You’ll discover 9 powerful approaches to generate ideas and alternatives from your teams, ranging from ‘Rich Pictures’ through ‘Thinking Hats’ and ‘Mad, Sad, Glad’ through to ‘Brainstorming’
• Learn how to facilitate rapid collaborative decision making using techniques like ‘Open Forum’, ‘Devils Advocate’, ‘Voting’ and more
• Learn about facilitating the various key Agile meetings and consider how to adapt your tactics to allow for the different stages of team development

The course is aligned with the ICAgile Agile Facilitation and Coaching specialty track, which has been designed by leading international experts to outline the skills and knowledge needed to be an effective Agile Coach.

Foundations of Agile Coaching is deeply experiential, immersing the participants in hands-on exercises and using that experience to apply and reinforce the discussions. It will build on your existing technical Agile skills and is the first step in preparing you to effectively undertake the role of Agile Coach in your organisation.

Course Outline

A highly practical hands-on class.

The Mindset and Role of the Agile Team Facilitator

• Provides an understanding of the fundamental functions of the facilitator and leader, emphasizing the facilitation of agile practices, nurturing collaboration across the team and ensuring an environment that leads to self-organization.
• Facilitation is about leading by example; the facilitator must have a deep understanding of how their attitudes and behaviours influence the team

Facilitation Tools and Techniques

• Demonstrates the tools that can be used by the facilitator to promote effective behaviour in the team.
• You will grow your skills by practicing facilitation and by exploring more advanced facilitation concepts, including diverse teams and conflict resolution.

Facilitating Agile Practices

• Shows how to identify the common pitfalls so that the team can avoid or overcome them and perform effectively.
• This section of the course focuses on applying the facilitation and leadership techniques to the agile practices.
• It makes the key concepts presented on the course real by focusing on how to be an effective facilitator in a self-organizing, collaborative environment

Iteration Management

• As well as facilitating the behaviours of the team, we must be able to demonstrate leadership skills through the management of the teams work as it delivers.
• In contrast to the dysfunctional picture presented by the title “Scrum Master”, this course emphasizes the role of servant-leadership.
• This segment of the course emphasizes the hands-on nature of the role as a part of the integrated team. Balancing collaboration and leadership is always a challenge and this course provides an experience-based approach to achieving the best balance.
• The last day of the class is entirely hands on as we practice running a series of Agile ceremonies in realistic role-plays, giving you the opportunity to put everything into practice within a really safe environment whilst receiving insightful feedback.

This training course is accredited by the International Consortium for Agile – ICAgile. The course fulfils the Agile Team Facilitation related learning objectives of the “Agile Coaching” track. Successful completion of the course gives the participant “Certified ICAgile Professional in Agile Team Facilitation” status. The remaining learning objectives in this track are addressed by our ICAgile accredited Agile Coaching class.

Who Should Attend?

• Scrum Masters, Iteration Managers, Agile Project Managers
• Agile Coaches who want to increase their facilitation skills
• Anyone who wants to dramatically increase the collaboration within their team

Completion and Certification

On successfully completing the course, delegates will be certified by the International Consortium of Agile(ICAgile) as an ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Team Facilitation and you will be listed on the ICAgile website. To become a Certified Agile Expert (within this track), you will need to:

• Be a Certified ICAgile Professional (or be recognised at this level by ICAgile)
• Complete all ICAgile Agile Facilitation and Coaching learning objectives (which can be achieved by successfully completing Lamri’s two courses: Foundations of Agile Coaching and Advanced Agile Coaching)
• Have obtained real-life experience in the track discipline
• Complete a knowledge and/or competency evaluation (through ICAgile).

About ICAgile

The goal of the International Consortium for Agile is offering knowledge and competency-based certifications in the diverse disciplines needed to sustain organisational agility. ICAgile has collaborated with Agile experts from around the world to develop over 400 learning objectives that underpin 8 agile disciplines. Have a look at thisvideo to learn what makes ICAgile certification different.

About ICAgile

£995 + VAT