We are not a generic training company. Every one of our trainers has an extensive, balanced record of training, coaching, consulting, and facilitation in Agile. All our courses are experiential and engaging, and all our exercises are original. We continuously keep the material current with Agile thinking. And, we will work with you on a customized agenda as needed.
Leading Toward the Agile Mind-Set (2 days)
— for technology managers/directors/VPs, senior project/program managers, enterprise coaches
Develop effective attitudes and know-how for cultivating team and organizational Agility
If you’re a manager, director, or VP, what are you supposed to do in Agile? And how can you be effective, and fulfilled, along the Agile journey? Most managers we meet are not sure how to answer these questions, and they have nowhere to turn. Their organizations’ whirlwind Agile transformations have left them hanging.
Finally, there’s a course for middle management. Not yet another course on Scrum mechanics, but a workshop designed specifically to help middle management support the Agile journey, and thrive while doing that.
This workshop has a simple objective: increase organizational Agility by fulfilling the conditions in which thriving teams implement truly Agile processes. Several of the world’s largest organizations have had their hundreds of directors and senior managers attend this workshop on-site. Ask us privately for references.
We dive deeply into two key elements of successful Agile environments: the mind-set and the human dimension. (Sputtering implementations are usually due to problems with either one of these elements.)
The more advanced the participants are in terms of leadership experience, the less we cover the basics of the human side, and the more time we spend on Agile’s implications and applications to leadership. If the group ranges from beginner to advanced, we try to find common ground that benefits everyone.
Class size: 12-20 participants.
Curious to hear about this course in Gil’s words? Watch Dave Prior’s interview with him from Agile2016. Start at 04:45 (before that point, they discussed Gil’s conference session, which was about making meetings matter.)
Leading Toward the Agile Mind-Set (1 day)
— for managers/directors/VPs and project/program managers, both technology and business
Work more effectively in Agile environments by solidifying your understanding of the Agile mind-set, its application, and its implications.
If you’re a manager, director, or VP involved with an Agile team, what do you need to know about Agile to be effective and supportive?
Most managers truly don’t know. They think Agile is “better, cheaper, faster”, a process with a set of best practices, or merely a newfangled project management framework for techie work. This is all wrong.
It gets worse. Even when technology managers learn the answers, their business counterparts are usually left guessing.
We have a scalable solution to this problem: the one-day format of “Leading Toward the Agile Mind-Set.” The two-day format (see above) is for those who need to apply; the one-day format is for those who need to know.
Some of the world’s largest organizations are having us lead dozens of sessions, to which they invite managers from both technology and business. This isn’t merely a scalable solution to an education problem; it’s a conversation changer. Ask us privately for references.
Being Agile (1 day)
— for Agile team members, including ScrumMasters, technical leads, product owners and close business partners
Gain a strong feel for the mind-set and thinking tools for adopting it.
If your team has been doing Agile for a few months, are they also being Agile? Do they truly put people before process, deliver value frequently, respond to change economically and without drama, and collaborate with their customer?
Many teams start their Agile journey doing Agile: going through Scrum motions and trying “best practices.” But without a solid grasp of the Agile mindset — values, beliefs, and principles — those motions will not make them agile. People don’t get great with Agile by following recipes and experts, as if they’re learning to drive; they must understands the concepts that make Agility work.
This workshop is perfect both for teams that like Agile and want to improve and for teams that are struggling with it (and perhaps take a dim view of it, for the wrong reasons).
Class size: 12-20 participants.
Pragmatic Scrum (2 days)
— for cross-functional Agile teams including managers and close business partners
Elevate your understanding of Agile development so you can practice it with the right mindset.
This course is designed for teams that realize that simplistic Scrum mechanics, roles, and artifacts won’t make them Agile.
With this course, teams learn the Agile values, beliefs, and principles (= the mindset), what Agile is and isn’t, how to perform good practices correctly and usefully, and what Agile behaviours look like. It also includes critical components that are missing from certified Scrum.
This experiential training makes use of powerful simulations, activities, and interactions not found in the hundreds of publicly available Scrum courses. We evolve the material continuously based on the best knowledge the Agile community has to offer. The instructor, Gil Broza, has been coaching organizations since before Agile had its name, and has authored books on the most commonly neglected aspects of Agile — the mindset and the human side.
Class Size: Up to 20 participants
Agile Engineering: Effective Programming Techniques and Strategies for Sustained Agility (2 days)
— for software developers, architects, database developers, testers who code, and their respective managers
Master the strategies and practices of developing high-quality code and reining in legacy.
Agile changes the rules of the programming game. A software team can’t just use stripped-down versions of traditional programming; they must develop the knowledge, approaches, and habits to be effective in an Agile life-cycle. Otherwise, they’ll just produce instant legacy code and within a year or so, technical debt will compromise quality and productivity. Guaranteed.
In this Agile Engineering course, programmers learn reliable, sustainable and enjoyable software development attitudes and practices. They’ll be poised to become true Agile developers, rather than developers who happen to use Agile practices. They can immediately put to use everything they learn in this course to reduce time to market, increase quality, and reduce technical debt.
Participants’ learning objectives:
Note: Delivered in Java, this course is perfect for C#, C++, PHP, Python, and web developers too.
Class Size: Up to 20 participants
Consult the curriculum and read rave testimonials from students in Toronto, Vancouver, Boston, and Israel.
Product Owner and other Agile Customers (2 days)
— for product managers, business analysts, UX designers, domain architects, and others who act as customers for an Agile delivery team
Learn the mindset and techniques for discovering, shaping, and evolving valuable products the Lean/Agile way
Product managers, UX/UI designers, business analysts, and domain architects are all Agile Customers. (One of these roles is typically designated as the lead, or Product Owner.) This role comes with great responsibility, far beyond merely writing user stories and prioritizing a backlog.
To be successful their role, the Agile mindset must permeate everything Agile customers do: choosing the work, engaging with delivery teams, working better. They need to know how to make commitments while eschewing predictions, how to thin-slice work items, and how to chart meaningful evolutionary paths. The tools and techniques are secondary, yet somehow they are the focus of most PO courses out there.
Participants’ learning objectives:
Class Size: Up to 20 participants
Agile Testing (2 days)
— for testers, test leads, and QA managers
Learn the mindset, skills, and behaviours of great Agile testers
If you’re a tester, your Agile team invites you to be an equal, contributing member from the very first day. What are you supposed to do? How can you contribute? What are effective, desirable behaviours and attitudes? And what would you need to do to adopt them easily and confidently?
The course is designed to turn testers from people who “happen to be in a Scrum team” to bona fide Agile testers. Participants will see exactly where they fit in an Agile team throughout the work’s life-cycle. They’ll understand how Agile teams can deliver working software on time without squeezing the testers (or testing in the next iteration). Throughout the course, they will examine their beliefs and assumptions about software testing and adjust them easily to an Agile environment.
Participants’ learning objectives:
Class Size: Up to 18 participants
Grow A Solid Agile Team: Practical Skills for Cultivating Excellence (2 days)
— for ScrumMasters, managers, team/delivery leads
If your team is not as solid, as Agile, or as much a team as they could be, develop the key soft skills to help your team grow into a solid Agile team.
Agile is predicated on empowered, collaborative teams. In most real-world Agile teams, the situation is not rosy. There are managers, and it’s not clear who owns which decisions and activities. The team might “storm with a happy face”, because they have no reason to feel accountable to each other. Their self-organization is rather basic, and most of their retrospectives result in minor changes. The promises of hyper-productivity are just that — promises.
Such teams benefit from strong leadership. If you’re the leader, this experiential course will help you learn to:
Class size: Up to 20 people
All the details, including testimonials, are here. Curious to hear about it in Gil’s words? Watch Dave Prior’s 8-minute interview with him from Agile2014.
I left the workshop with both a much better defined framework of what soft skills are needed to grow my team, and techniques to improve those skills.
- Byron JungSoftware development project manager
Sometimes, reading good advice 147 times on blogs is not as effective as having one person ask you to actually do it. I paid for the course, not an employer; I consider that fee a sound investment.
- Duncan McRaeSoftware developer
Our teams responded enthusiastically to the ideas that Gil presented in "Being Agile." With an Agile mind-set, many immediately began re-examining how they were working, with a new sense of freedom and empowerment.
- Philip WhitcombeDirector, Digital Operations, CBC
Gil helped my team learn and implement Agile engineering. Later, his assistance was vital in providing me with the confidence, knowledge, and skills for becoming an Agile Team Leader... He is an excellent down-to-earth coach and mentor.
- Matthew CampbellSenior software developer
Gil fundamentally changed the way that I think about software development. He consistently provided our team with thoughtful and pragmatic advice that helped us work together more effectively and provide better value for our clients.
- Scott MacLellanSenior software developer
I found the information Gil provided invaluable and very well presented. The insights gained in that seminar will change my approach to software development forever.
- Alon SabiCTO, Functionpoint Software
Gil is an exceptional agile coach and amazing facilitator. His delivery of seminars was well thought out with great exercises that really captured the essence and complexity of real-life situations and yet were condensed and focused.
- Claudio GambettiEngineering director
Gil delivered an excellent interactive workshop for all our team members. It was an absolute pleasure to learn more about the Agile culture and what that means for us. Seeing the difference between "Being Agile" and "Doing Agile" was incredibly useful.
- Sean McKaigSenior manager, UI development, CBC
Gil brings an enormously helpful message that companies ignore at their peril if they want to deepen their investment in Agile. He’s experienced in many of the challenges to Agile teams, and resourceful in coaching teams through new challenges.
- Michael GoiteinPrincipal project manager at Mobiquity
The course content was excellent and tailored to our needs... Being primarily based on code samples and exercises it was a chance for in-context and practical learning that I have already seen being applied in our code.
- Simon PalmerCTO, Empathica
