Scrum Team Mastery Program

INTRODUCTION TO SCRUM TEAM MASTERY PROGRAM

The Scrum Mastery Program is designed to help quickly increase the capacity of a Scrum Team over a 13 week period using guided continuous improvement.  Your team starts where you are, sets goals for improvement based on an assessment then works toward achieving those goals with an experienced software delivery mentor. 

Many organizations that are using Agile and Scrum are not seeing the benefits they originally expected such as:

• faster time to market
• higher software delivery
• and, and high performing teams

An alternative approach to the SMP could be Agile Coaching.  We do support Agile Coaching but in a very specific way. We view Agile Coaching as a way to train and stand up a team or to provide specific support to solve specific delivery skill problems such as User Story Training, DevOps etc.

Agile Coaching provided by an external company for long periods of time can develop a learned helplessness, where the team continually looks to the Agile Coach for answers.  The goal of this program is for the Team to be able to quickly and consistently solve their own problems and develop leadership skills inside the team.  In effect to be a high performing team and develop their coaching skills inside their teams.

The Scrum Team Mastery program consists of three steps.

• A Delivery Assessment to create a backlog of prioritized goals
• Instruction on how to use PMI’s Agile delivery decision matrix and one-hour, weekly touchpoints to coach Scrum Master and Team on its use.
• Management report based on Cumulative Flow metric to measure and guide the teams, identify rockblock to further improvement and accelerated delivery.

This approach brings Agile to life within teams which ultimately brings Agile to life inside the organization.

SCRUM MASTERY PROGRAM OUTLINE AND STEPS

Step 1 – Scrum Assessment and Prioritized Goal Backlog 

Use proprietary questions to guide us, we gather key business drivers and priorities from the Management Team based on five business dimensions: Cost, Time to Value, Predictability, Quality and Business Value. 

Then, by surveying the Team Members through a series of 45 minute interviews, we create a prioritized list of goals we believe the team should strive to complete to become the best team possible.

Additionally, we introduce the Team and Management to the concept of Cumulative Flow which will be our primary reporting tool.

Cumulative Flow allows us to measure:

• work in progress
• throughput
• sprint progress relative to “done”
• impact of late User Story acceptance
• impact of adding work into the Sprint (adding scope)
• symptoms the team is experiencing that is contributing to completing on-time

Lastly, Scrum Masters Inc assigns a dedicated Agile Performance Coach who will work with the team until the end of the 13 week program is completed.

Step 2 – Agile Delivery Techniques Coaching Guide Workshop – Week 3

• PMI’s Agile delivery decision matrix contains all the major techniques in the Agile community and guidance on how and when to use them.  This reference guide is used to quickly help the Scrum Masters and Team become self-sufficient, make better decisions and quickly become Agile experts and Coaches.  The Scrum Master, Product Owner and each Team Member will receive  a copy of the reference guide.  
• A four hour PMI’s Agile delivery decision matrix for Scrum Team Workshop will be given to the Scrum Master and Team in week 3.  During the Workshop Team Members will learn how to use the decision matrix to support guided continuous improvement based on the context of the situation they find themselves in.  The Agile Performance Coach will verify decisions made and progress during the weekly check in.

Step 3 – Scrum Team Engagement and Management Progress Reporting

Scrum Team Engagement and Process –  Weeks 2-13 inclusive

• Bi-weekly 1 hour Scrum Master meeting to review progress toward goals and providing coaching support to help Scrum Master progress to completion.
• Bi-weekly 1 hour Team, Scrum Master and Product Owner meeting, ideally after or during the retrospective (alternating with the Scrum Master meeting) 

Management Progress Meetings – Weeks 6, 10 and 13 

• Monthly update meeting 
• Management Report
  • Cumulative Flow Diagram update
  • What we saw
  • What we learned
  • Where we need to focus next two Sprints
  • The report will be in the form of three Powerpoint slides and is expected to take 15 min.  If there is a scheduling challenge the report and presentation will be recorded on Zoom and emailed to Management to be viewed at a convenient time.

Outcomes from 13 week Scrum Team Mastery Program

• Scrum Master and Team to be self-sufficient in how to improve, manage and scale agile and on road to becoming their own Coaches
• Management, Teams and the Scrum Master will be able to leverage information provided by the Cumulative Flow metrics to manage how work flows through the delivery system and what to do to improve it using Agile guided continuous improvement from PMI.
• Be able to make better and faster decisions on how to improve their Agile environment.

Notes: Meetings will be conducted using Zoom or equivalent.

Price – $8,500 per team + $50 per participant for Agile Delivery Handbook

EXTENSIONS AVAILABLE 

SPM-1 – Extension – $8,500 – 13 Weeks

• Same as SPM description above, however no Assessment and 2 days of training – Lean and User Stories

SPM-2 – Extension – $8,500 – 13 Weeks

• Same as SPM description above, however no Assessment and 2 days of Advanced PMI Scrum Master Training – (DALSM)
• Certification from PMI – $250 extra per participant

SPM-3 – Extension – $8,500 – 13 Weeks

• Same as SPM description above, however no Assessment and 2 days of PMI Agile Coaching Training
• Agile Coaching Certification from PMI – $250 extra per participant

Scrum Mastery Program weekly suggested schedule