Freebies

My workbooks evolved continuously over the years, moving from printouts of slide decks to fill-in exercise sheets. Every course had a presentation dashboard for projection. Each participant had a workbook to write in. Every workbook had additional reference material in the back.

Scrum Alliance® Certified Trainers are encouraged to create their own design for class materials as long as the content and exercises conform to an defined set of Learning Objectives. My workbooks were constantly tweaked based on inspiration from new learning methods, new technologies and collaboration with my many co-trainers and coaching colleagues.

This is the final iteration of my Certified Scrum Master course workbook. Feel free to use the content, structure and exercises as inspiration for your own training materials.

This is the final iteration of my Scrum Alliance® Certified Scrum Product Owner workbook. Some of this duplicates the content and exercises of the CSM workbook covering Scrum essentials. The rest of it covers the essential concepts of product ownership using more appropriate exercises.

I did fewer CSPO courses than CSMs but I always enjoyed seeing the lights go on and the sighs of relief as participants learned how to avoid the dreaded Iron Triangle through continuous Agile planning.

My favorite exercises in this class were the Company Party and the Release Planning Exercise.

This package contain the presentation slides and worksheets for a workshop I gave at several events. I have the best of intentions to create a mini-book containing the workshop narrative but it has not reached the top of the backlog just yet. If this document piques your interest, contact me for more information.

This technical course was my favorite workshop. I first presented it in 2006 and refined it over the years, adapting it to several languages and often combining it with an introduction to Automated Story Testing. This material preceded the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Developer program by many years.

The materials include a slide deck (pretty old design for sure), a Java demonstration in  the form of an annotated slide show (I can't type and talk quickly enough to demo TDD live), various exercises for both TDD and Story Testing with Fitnesse.and some starter backlogs for the exercises. I was always amazed and delighted to see how quickly people were able to grasp the method and power of TDD and Fitnesse as if a whole new world opened up to them. That was the way I felt when first introduced to these techniques. The concepts and exercises could easily be repackaged for any language, especially since all of the main IDEs now support unit testing. Hooray for Progress!

These are a set of decorative classroom posters that can be easily printed at 24 inch x 36 inch at your local office supply or print shop. I originally printed them on paper and had them laminated but in recent years it was possible to print them on a standardized plastic sheet at a much lower cost.

For tips on how to make your own posters, see my post at agilecoachjournal.com.

Here is a collection of 8.5 x 11 signs with reminders of concepts in the world of Agile and Lean. I decorated classroom walls with these. Sometimes we would do an exercise around them. Often times I would point to one when introducing or reinforcing a concept.

These are easily printed on card stock. I would “laminate” the top of them with a strip of packing tape so that they could be stuck to a wall with painter’s tape and cleanly removed for reuse.

A common usage was to tape up relevant reminders as the class progressed as a way to summarize a section or half-day session.

The Company Party is an exercise in prioritization, budgeting, and story mapping. I used in as an early activity in my CSPO classes to get the energy flowing. This document contains a pack of game cards that can be printed on 3×5 cards.

The cards define 6 roles in a company to be assumed by 6 people in a group. Together they will design a company party. OK, it was pre-Covid when many companies had all local employees and they could safely gather in one place. Travel is not one of the cost criteria. Any modern use might require some adjustment for current reality.

Each role has its own viewpoint and opinion so it is expected that not all will agree. One person, the Organizer, has the final say. Like a Product Owner. There are many activities grouped into themes. There is plenty of budget but not enough for all of the activities. There are a few blank cards for new activities that may come up. The group gets 20 minutes to cooperatively design their party. At the end each group gives a brief description of their party and the logic behind their choices.

The Agile Coach Journal is my blog. I did not keep it up all that well but there are some nuggets of wisdom, pointers to useful information, narrations of some of my common class mini-lectures and some peeks into Agile history. I still have a backlog of topics to post but they have not yet bubbled to the top of my personal backlog. I may even have a few things to share from my current work helping a non-profit organization shift from a matrix to a flat structure. That may be an important wave for the future. Check in from time to time.

Here is my collection of event presentations over the years.