program selection system

Modelling agile methods in the classroom also allows students to see the depth and power of agile methods as a general approach to working, and simultaneously confirms that the instructor actually walks the talk. In this workshop, attendees will explore using agile methods to deliver agile training. The first half will go through the methods used by Mishkin Berteig, an experienced agile trainer. These methods will be presented as a set of patterns. In the second half of the workshop participants will collaboratively discover and refine more patterns.

Over the three years that I have been delivering agile training to the public and to in-house corporate audiences, I have developed, with the help of a few key contributors*, a method of training that uses agile processes as the framework for the training itself. The main advantage of this approach to delivering training rests in the fact that students are immersed in an agile environment at the same time that they are learning the concepts, discussing their particular problems, and experiencing mini-simulations. Modeling agile methods in the classroom also allows students to see the depth and power of agile methods as a general approach to working, and simultaneously confirms that the instructor actually walks the talk (despite the old adage about “those who can’t do, teach”). For example, through the use of “Flexible Module Order”, and “Too Much Value”, attendees understand that they need to pace themselves, collaborate and make trade-off decisions about what will actually be covered in the course… much like is needed in a software project with a fixed release date.

This session is ideal for other people who are coaching or delivering training in agile methods. There will be a substantial time devoted to allowing participants to work together to share techniques for integrating agile processes into the learning environment. The result of this will be the identification of a small number of patterns for using agile methods in an instructional context, which will then be published in an “open-source” format.

The following are the starting patterns that will be described in terms of how I deliver the courses, these are not all “new”, but the idea is to put them into a coherent package which trainers can use as appropriate and add to these more patterns both large and small:

1. Feedback forms - improvements across delivery boundaries
2. Repair on the spot - zero known defects
3. Prioritized module backlog - release planning
4. Timebox days, not modules - iteration length
5. Flexible module order - customer re-prioritization
6. Modular parking lot - deferring issues to appropriate modules
7. Module wall - big visual chart/information radiator
8. Daily assessment - iteration retrospective
9. Too much value - choice making within the release timebox

Examples will be given from both the Agile Work for Teams and Certified ScrumMaster courses that I deliver on a regular basis.

• Key Contributors: Deborah Hartmann, David Chilcott, Garry Berteig, Shabnam Tashakour