Look Forward Consulting » Certified ScrumMaster

Fourteen Observations of Good Scrum Practice

Carlton — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:05:52 +0000

My courses are deliberately designed to exclude PowerPoint presentations and focus on the peer-to-peer interactions, but I recognize that a significant number of students need something physical to take from the class and review later. In addition, there is no possible way for me to cover every topic the same way in a two-day CSM class, so I needed something for the learners to refer to as a reminder on how to do Scrum well. As a result, early last year I wrote a book on Scrum – Fourteen Observations of Good Scrum Practice – as teaching aid for my CSM classes. From the learners I have spoken with, they find the book to be a useful summary of the main concepts in the class, a handy reminder of what we discussed and short introduction to Scrum that they can share with other people at work. When you attend one of my CSM class, you receive a complementary copy.

I have a lot of interest in helping the Spanish speaking Scrum community grow and there is\was a complete lack of books on Scrum written in Spanish or English language books that had been translated into Spanish. Now no more! Earlier this year I published a Spanish translation – Catorce Observaciones para la Práctica de un Buen Scrum - of my book. It was a lot of work, but now there is a high-quality book on the subject for Scrum for my Spanish speaking friends. My translator, Diana Perez, was awesome and did a great job.

Finally, I want to thank Chris Sims at Agile Learning Labs for inspiring me to write my own book on Scrum plus explaining to me how easy it is to publish a book on your own. Without Chris’s inspiration, this book would not be widely available.

The 4C’s

Carlton — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:32:08 +0000

Right before Agile 2011, I had the opportunity to co-train a CSM course with an awesome candidate to join the ranks of Certified Scrum Trainers, Karen Greaves. One of the reasons why I was interested in training with Karen is that she has been applying many of the Training From the Back of the Room (TFBR) concepts that I have been very curious about and looking to apply in my course. I was curious to see how another practitioner would take these concepts and use them to teach Scrum.

The most visible benefit of my collaboration with Karen was for me to “4C” my training plan for my CSM course. 4C is an acronym that stands for “Connection, Content, Concrete Practice, Conclusion” and they are framework for an instructor to help design their class that leverages TFBR and Accelerated Learning. The 4C’s are described in more detail below:

Connections: This is the beginning or opening of a training. It can also include pre-training time as well. During the Connections step, learners make connections with what they already know, or think they know, about the training topic. They also make connections with what they will learn or want to learn with the other learners in the training group, and with you, the trainer.
Concepts: This is the direct instruction, lecture or presentation part of a training, During the Concepts step, learners take in new information in multi-sensory ways: hearing, seeing, discussing, writing, reflecting, imagining, participating and teaching it to others.
Concrete Practice: This is the active review that usually follows information delivery. During the Concrete Practice step, learners actively practice a new skill using the new information, participate in an active review of what they have learned and again teach others what they know or can now do.
Conclusions: This is the wrap-up or closing part of a training. It can also include post-training time as well. During the Conclusions step, learners summarize what they have learned, evaluate it, make a commitment to use it at work or in their lives and end with a short celebration of their learning experience.

From my experience with Karen and applying the 4C’s on my own, the framework offers instructors two powerful advantages:

Your course immediately becomes modular. Each learning objective is achieved by connecting the learners to the topic, teaching them content, allowing them opportunities of concrete practice to try out the material on their own and closes with a conclusion before moving to the next learning objective. Your course then becomes just a series of 4C’s that knocks down one learning objective after another.
The 4C’s provide a fantastic diagnostic tool to help you improve your course. Since the class is now modular, if a connecting activity is not working, you can switch it. Content section is too long? Move to concrete practice sooner. As instructor, I felt that I had really good content and concrete practice exercises, but my courses were weak on connections and conclusions. Look to Sharon Bowman’s book – The Ten Minute Trainer – for over 150 exercises and activities that help with these areas..

Best Links of the Week – July 30th 2010

Carlton — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:15:22 +0000

More great writings gathered from far and wide.

Scrum at Mind Candy – brief video of a task board in action over a three month period.
Confessions of an Agile Project Manager – PMI sponsored a video contest among PMP using Agile – check out the results on YouTube!
Thoughts on two months pairing - Sarah Mei reflects on her experience pair programming and the benefits it has provided her professional & personal life.
Can Agile Learn Anything from PMBOK? - Dennis Stevens looks at how the PMBOK supports, compliments and impedes Agile and proposes some solutions to make the two synchronize better.
Multitasking Gets You There Later - Roger Brown discusses a common paradigm in project management when dealing with too many projects and too few people.
Waterfall, Lean\Kanban and Scrum – Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum, discusses why Scrum relies on empirical process control theory and why they did not choose Lean or a defined process.
The Role of Middle Management in Toyota or a Lean System – special post on the new focus of management in Agile organizations.
Team Room – want to get increased focus, quality and retention from your Team? Check out this team room article by Martin Fowler.
Agile + UX: six strategies for more agile user experience – how Comcast is combining good user experience (UX) practices with Scrum.
June 2010 CSM class – very cool visualization of a Certified ScrumMaster class taught by Tobias Mayer and Bachan Anand.

Welfare CSM 021 – June 7th & June 8th in San Diego

Carlton — Sat, 15 May 2010 16:51:49 +0000

In order to succeed with Scrum, one needs to know, understand and experience the essential principles which are the foundation for all the practices, rituals and tools of the Scrum framework. Unfortunately, most training today focuses on the mechanics of the process, excluding the essential conversation of why these principles are important and how each element infuses the day-to-day activities of Scrum teams. As a result, most students are only able to mimic what their instructors do and are unable to improvise and adapt Scrum to the unique constraints of their environment. Ultimately, they become frustrated by their inability to drive change in their organizations and Scrum is abandoned without producing any lasting effects.

In this two-day class, Carlton Nettleton and Tobias Mayer will examine, illustrate and play with the essential principles of Scrum – commitment, collaboration, visibility, respect, focus and accountability – in a series of exercises, games and creative activities. When you leave this course, you will come to know and understand the Spirit of Scrum and how this spirit of collaboration and change embodies each and every activity in Scrum. Most importantly, you will have learned how to facilitate Scrum among your peers and be successful with this new way of working. Scrum is not a bag of programmer and management tricks to increase productivity, but it is a transformative re-imagining of our relationship with our work and our peers.

Come join us on the journey. It is going to be a lot of fun!

Welfare CSM – June 7th & June 8th (date change)

Carlton — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:32:42 +0000

There has a been a bit of a date change for the Welfare CSM class I am co-teaching with Tobias Mayer. We still have plenty of openings in the class, so please sign-up today.

Welfare CSM – June 7th & June 8th

Carlton — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:41:38 +0000

I am pleased to announce a new and exciting Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) class I created with Tobias Mayer being held in San Diego on June 7th and 8th. This class will be operating under the Welfare CSM model. I am very honored to take part in this effort and help people who want to learn about Scrum but their organizations will not pay for the training, individuals who are unemployed and want to use this time to add to their skills or for people outside the software industry.

For me, this CSM class is a significant departure from previous (uncertified) ScrumMaster classes I offered in 2007-2008. At the time, I was not satisfied with the results, but could not put my finger on what was bothering me about the curriculum I was teaching. The men and women I was training were competently trained on the pieces of Scrum, but were struggling with applying it to their environment. In 2009, I came across this interview from Tobias and was both intrigued and inspired by Tobias’s model. After reflecting on his interview and my experience, what was missing from my trainings became visible.

In order to succeed with Scrum, one needs to know, understand and experience the essential principles of Scrum which are the foundation for all the practices, rituals and tools of the framework. Unfortunately, the training I provided (which mirrored most of today’s commercial CSM offerings) focused on the mechanics of Scrum, excluding the essential conversation of why these principles are important and how each element infuses the day-to-day activities of Scrum teams. As a result, most students were only able to mimic what I was teaching and were unable to improvise and adapt Scrum to the unique constraints of their environment. Ultimately, they become frustrated by their inability to drive change in their organizations and Scrum was abandoned without producing any lasting effects.

In this two-day CSM class, Tobias and I will examine, illustrate and play with the essential principles of Scrum – commitment, collaboration, visibility, respect, focus and accountability – through a series of exercises, games and creative activities. When you leave this course, you will come to know and understand the Spirit of Scrum and how this spirit of collaboration and change embodies each and every activity in Scrum. Most importantly, you will have learned how to facilitate Scrum among your peers and be successful with this new way of working.

Scrum is not a bag of programmer and management tricks to increase productivity, but it is a transformative re-imagining of our relationship with our work and our peers. Come join us on the journey. It is going to be a lot of fun!