Organizational Learning Plan

Someone writes: What is your suggested organizational learning plan? What courses or workshops do you recommend?

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Answer:

This is a big question, and depends a LOT on the organization and the people.

First, I am assuming (probably rightly) that you all are fairly new to Agile and Scrum. And that most of the people have done a bit of reading, and a few people have some experience (elsewhere), but there is not a lot of experience doing Agile-Scrum at your place. (This is not always a correct assumption, but often is. A different assumption likely is meaningful.)

• The CSM class with the Agile Release Planning workshop.  [3 days.]

I think it is well worth it to have “everyone” do this first.  The Implementers, the PO, the SM, some managers, some others.

• The CSPO course with Agile Release Planning workshop. [3 days]

After the POs have tried to do the PO job for 3 months or so, then do a CSPO+ARP course. This allows them to ask and get answers for all their questions. They see that they did not understand it well enough, and so they come with questions.

And they leave smarter.  And somewhat prepared—so that they can do the job much better. They will not immediately become the Wayne Gretzky of POs, but they will be notably better.

Who comes? The POs, the SMs, some business stakeholders, some BA types, etc. It is particularly this part of the ecosystem that we want to work on.

• Coaching

Almost certainly, right after the CSM class, the team should have access to a good Agile Coach. How much time do you need? Probably my answer will be more than yours.

• Special workshops?  [1 or 2 days]

These depend on the needs of the people and the situation, but a very common one is the story splitting workshop. Another is the Scaling workshop.

• Team Level-Up Workshop [2 or 3 days]

We use the time to “level set” — remind everyone what Agile and Scrum are. Usually by now, many mis-understandings have started to take root. The golf swing is not as pure as the last day the golf pro was working with you. So, we see where the golf swing is, and try to make it simpler, more pure, more effective as a team.

We also try to raise the level of play. To that end, we solicit buy-in from the team to change things so that they can become notably better.

This includes: higher Velocity, more fun, probably fewer hours, higher quality, less stress, etc. And they leave with a plan and a purpose to become notably better.

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To me, this is as far out into the future as we should look for now.

There are MANY other things we could suggest and almost certainly will as we move forward.  But not sure it helps to discuss them now. For example, for the SM types, the Advanced CSM course is pretty likely but is roughly 12 months down the road right now.

You could do other things. I almost certainly will recommend other things, as time moves on. But don’t get too far form the immediate concern: can we get people trained well enough to make a decent start at this.

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Does this help you?

Follow-up questions?

 

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