Toronto Agile Training Overview
What We Learned Providing Agile Training To Teams
In 2010 Scrum Masters Inc began providing public open enrollment Agile Training in Toronto at the IBM building at 130 King Street West in downtown Toronto. The content for the courses came from our personal experiences using Agile with our customers to relieve the stress of software delivery.
While we initially offered open enrollment, we learned organizations prefer private team training. Also, they like to have training for the whole team together.
Kirkpatrick Model vs Certification
We also learned that organizations are more interested in skills than certifications. While we believe in certification to promote and progress your career, our courses focus on applying the knowledge you learn and follow the Kirkpatrick model. The Kirkpatrick model emphasizes enabling you to use what is learned during training when you return to the work environment. Therefore, all our courses are designed at a Kirkpatrick level three.
Our Approach to Agile Instructors
The other thing we learned from training our Toronto Agile customers was that people had many questions about applying Agile in their work environments. Most companies have a culture and work environment that cannot easily or quickly adopt agile working methods.
Because of these questions, we decide to hire only instructors who are in the role of an agile delivery manager and have hands-on knowledge of how to transition to Agile. Your instructor has taken time from their full-time job to train you and help you understand how agile can work in your environment. As a result, your questions on agile adoption will come from a credible source and someone who has done it before.
Remote vs on-site
Since the pandemic, most of our training requests have been to accommodate remote workers and are offered with a live virtual instructor. However, we are seeing more companies also asking for in-person training, and we offer that, especially in Toronto, since we are located here.
Results after training
Our approach is to offer you a full suite of training needed to start using the agile framework of Scrum. The training is suitable for a new Agile team or to improve an existing team. Training includes Agile team training, Product Owner and User Story Training and a two-hour Executive workshop.
Below is a complete list of our agile courses, which provide organizations in Toronto with a practical approach to learning agile and putting it to work.
Toronto Agile Training Curriculum
Agile Executive Workshop
This two-hour session is designed to train leaders and managers on the fundamentals of agile, why it works, and how to manage it. We have been involved in over 150 agile transformations. From that experience, we also provide insights into the five things successful organizations do and the one thing that will undoubtedly lead to failure.
At the end of the Agile Executive Workshop, you will know enough about Agile and Scrum to lead a discussion on managing it and adding value to your teams using it.
This course is taught on-site at your Toronto offices or with a Virtual Instructor over Zoom.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING THE AGILE EXECUTIVE WORKSHOP
Scrum Agile Team Training
Our most popular course is our two-day Agile Team Training course, where we teach your team the fundamentals of Agile and Scrum in a format that enables them to start using this way of working immediately following the training.
The Agile Team Training course description can be found here. As summary, it teaches agile fundamentals, the agile manifesto, Scrum roles (Scrum Masters, Product Owner and Team), how to start a Sprint, Sprint Planning, Sprint Demo and Stakeholder Management and agile principles and values.
Several elements make our training unique, but what stands out is the course instructors. The agile/scrum instructors are full-time agile delivery executives for some of Toronto’s best companies. They take time off work to teach agile. Their real-world experience makes a difference, especially when you ask questions about adapting agile to your environment.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING THE AGILE TEAM TRAINING.
Toronto Product Owner Bootcamp
The Product Owner is one of Agile’s most important roles; getting this right is where many organizations need to spend more time.
The Product Owner Bootcamp details how to optimize this role, manage a product, split stories, prioritize work, conduct a Sprint and your part, and facilitate a retrospective and your role during sprint execution.
This one-day workshop is provided either at your offices in Toronto or over video conference with a live virtual instructor.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING THE PRODUCT OWNER BOOTCAMP.
User Story Training Toronto
Whenever practical, we focus on agile values and principles. But in this, it’s all about the specific skill of writing good User Stories and all the elements that make them useful.
This course includes the evolution of stories, gathering agile requirements, user roles and personas, and Product backlog Epics, user stories, business rules, usability, non-functional and defects.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING THE USER STORY TRAINING.
Related Reference Material
This blog describes the results achieved by a Toronto retailer that was expanding and needed to provide training for their Agile Delivery Teams. Click here for this Toronto Agile training case study.
This article discusses how three Toronto-based organizations that underwent our training achieved faster time to market. Click here for the blog article.
This blog article provides an overview of the agile training options in Toronto and our perspective on what courses and certifications are most important. Click here for the article.