The Job Hackers

Agile Scrum Master Class Tentative Syllabus

Required Reading has links to Amazon website. You can find some of the books on Safari Online (indicated where applicable). Many public libraries give access to Safari books with membership. Some can be found at your local library.

Part 1 - Introduction to Agile and Scrum

We will cover what Agile is, the philosophy behind the Agile Manifesto, why Agile can only be known as a reaction to the prevalent Waterfall approach, the 3Ps of Agile, what is scrum and how does it embody the Agile philosophy, how to use relative estimation techniques to quickly and easily discover Value and Effort and how to achieve Transparency, Predictability and Value. This week we cover the Philosophy and most prevalent Practice (Scrum).

Required Reading:
The Agile Manifesto – A Brief and Bold Guide by Larry Apke
The Scrum Guide – PDF version of most recent official scrum guide (online)

Presentations:
The Why of Agile
Introduction to the Scrum Framework
Relative Estimation Presentation and Exercise

Part 2 – Introduction to Software Quality / Technical Debt / DevOps

This week we will cover two things that are necessary to for sustained Agility over time – Acceptance Test Driven Development (BDD/TDD) and Continuous Integration and Delivery. It can be very difficult to complete, test and deploy software each iteration but it is possible. Over the short term it can be done via sweat and hard work, but over a period of time there are practices that make it possible.

Required Reading:
The Cucumber Book - Matt Wynne
Evolutionary Design (online) – Martin Fowler

Presentations:
BDD – Building Quality into Software
High Cost of Low Cost Software Development

Part 3 – Product Development Flow and Systems Thinking

Reinertsen’s book on Product Development Flow, though not written to do so, provides good explanations why Agile software development works well. We will continue to examine the nature of complexity through systems thinking.

Required Reading:
The Principles of Product Development Flow – Don Reinertsen
The Fifth Discipline – Peter Senge

Presentations:
Principles of Product Development Flow
Introduction to Systems Thinking

Part 4 – Cognitive Biases and the Human Side of Programming

Software development is about people. We cannot understand it unless we understand the people that do the work. If time allows, we will also cover alternative to Scrum like Kanban (Scrumban).

Required Reading:
Drive – Daniel Pink
Peopleware – Tom Demarco
KanBan and Scrum – Making the Most of Both – Henrik Kniberg (online)

Presentations:
Peopleware
Drive
Cognitive Biases

Part 5- Overflow and deeper dives

We will use the last part of time remaining to dive deeper into topics the class needs more information on.