The Job Hackers

The class is comprehensive and designed to give participants the understanding, reasoning, and applicable tools to apply Scrum to software development. The instructor has firsthand experience, engages with the class through examples, speakers, activities,... Read More Q&A, dialogue, events, and resources for professional job search and certification preparation are provided. It's a great community that stays together even after the course to support each other and continue shared knowledge. Great environment of people. Very convenient to have in person and online class sessions, catering to all participants.

This class inspired my desire to facilitate change to improve working environments for development teams and allow for delivery of greater value to the companies they work for. I now have a much better understanding on how the agile philosophy drives... Read More value and the components that are necessary to be truly agile. I can also now see how the many myths impede agle transformations and how to better combat those myths.

I have moved few years back from a core technical profile to TPM role. This class have provided me great insight into Agile methodology and helped me learn a lot a in a short duration. . Larry is a great instructor and have a tons of real world experience.... Read More I highly recommend this course.

When I joined this program, I thought it would be another class with Agile content, covering Agile manifesto, principles, frameworks like scrum with description of events, artifacts and some test samples. Although I am a certified Scrum master and have... Read More been applying Agile project management in my consulting engagements for few years now, I decided to attend the class because it was highly recommended by people I volunteer with, at PMI SF Bay Are Chapter. That was a very good decision. Here is why:
- Besides the Agile content referred above, which I would recommend that attendees find online and read before starting this class, the training included content which provided a holistic approach to the application of Agile framework. Examples of topics are: Relative estimation and predictability with backlog sequencing according to value and effort, behavior-driven-development and test-driven-development, product development flow, system dynamics.
- The training also included an equal part of leadership training, as an agile implementation starts from changes in our philosophy in order to embrace a new way of operating and producing value in the era of “knowledge workers”. We were exposed to our cognitive biases through exercises, learned about mental models for optimal decision making, how to build and sustain productive teams and realized the power of many proven, simple and true statements like: “..our success stems from good human interactions by all participants in the effort..” and many more.
I highly recommend this class to people who want to learn about Agile principles, pass the Scrum and/or Product owner certificate exams as well as to all leaders who would like to learn and be inspired in order to apply a successful Agile transformation in their organizations.

If you are looking to learn about Agile( SRUM, Lean, XP, Kanban, home grown), to augment your managerial skillset, to add "cool tools" to your production toolbox, to engage in thought provoking discussions, or to learn something new a new way. If you... Read More have been on failed Agile teams and wish to understand reasons for its failure, if you want to further the cause of a Learning Organization, if you get some cross-discipline pollination with others out in the business, please contact The Job Hackers. Many in may class alone feel they learned more in this 6 week course than in their traditional MBA. I felt from a development point of view that it helped me understand the discipline of Agility in many aspects of the knowledge workers craft. I took the class online during their San Francisco local class and felt that their choice of platform (Zoom) was adequate for valuable return on effort.

https://www.thejobhackers.org/

Larry Apke's The Job Hackers Agile MBA is a thought-provoking class, with members from different industries and areas, reading different materials and learning in a holistic manner. Non-conventional, as it not only deals with the certification exam but... Read More makes all of us think deeply about why this methodology works in product development.

Pros:
-Free
-Boring topic made interesting by charismatic teacher
-Lots of support by students, alumni, and staff for your certification (PSM) and job search.
-Class was conveniently timed to be 7:45-9:00am for students who worked
Cons:
-The lectures aren’t... Read More detailed, the granular knowledge is gained from outside reading assignments (people who are expecting all this to be covered by the instructor were disappointed).
-There was very little discussion or Demo of software used to manage projects in Scrum. I think this was an oversight. The instructor spoke ill about products like Jira, but those are what’s in use. Ignoring them by discussing their flaws isn’t going to land someone a job as a scrum master.
-I would have liked a few more real world scenarios. It’s one thing to learn the ideal, but it would have been nice to learn a few practical methods of bringing poor agile teams back in line.

Today is the first Tuesday when I don't have to wake up at 5.45 am and commute to SF downtown to take Larry's class. It feels empty without it. Even though I can sleep longer now.

When I reflect on my experience with the course, I cannot believe we were... Read More able to cover so many topics in only 6 weeks - Scrum Framework, Software Quality , Technical Debt, BDD&TDD, Continuous Integration, Lean Product Development, Systems Thinking, Cognitive Biases, and many-many others.. So many new books appeared on my bookshelf: by Tom Demarco, Daniel Pink, Don Reinertsen, Peter Senge, Matt Wynne, Eliyahu Goldratt, Nassim Taleb! Also, I was able to pass PSM (Scrum Master certification) from the first attempt :)

You don't just go through a series of concepts, learn tools and techniques, you deal with the WHY and HOW, on each level of organization, human and technology related. We were encouraged to discover, debate, research, answer tough questions, and last but not least - have fun and make friends :) All this is the foundation of a strong community and I'm happy to be part of it now:) It's very common for former students to have intellectual meetups with interesting sessions or just invite each other for coffee while discussing our future Agile endeavors. For example, tomorrow we are meeting to discuss Scrum Simulation Design Team creation and organization of "Scrum Games Night" meetup.

Anyway, I'm jealous if you about to take the course. It's for you if you want to challenge yourself intellectually and broaden your professional and personal horizons.

There is a small (BIG) team behind the curtains, a lot of passionate and badass professionals supporting and enabling JH Brand, and it's gazillion times worth your time!

This class is awesome, the instructor is great and the learning environment is mainly presentation and discussion style. I highly recommend this course for anyone looking for a great learning environment with in-depth details on scrum, agile and having... Read More better overall view on human interaction.