VersionOne Agile Project Management and Agile Best Practices Webinars

Think of this post as a quick public service announcement for all you folks out there looking to comp some free Agile training ;-)

Over the next month or so… VersionOne is hosting a series of free webinars on Agile Project Management and Agile Best Practices. These talks are done by several of the leading thinkers in the agile community and… given that they are free… and during lunch… there is no reason not to attend ;-) The following is a quick summary what’s coming up. You can visit the VersionOneResources page to get more information, to see archived talks, and to register.

June 24th we have Pete Behrens from Trail Ridge Consulting doing a talk on Agile Program Management and Scaling Agile Projects.

Agile Project Management has driven successful results throughout thousands of projects across the globe through various frameworks like Scrum, Extreme Programming and others. Agile development, quality and project-level practices are allowing teams to react more quickly to changing market and business conditions, meeting customer needs more directly, and driving profits or cost savings sooner. Most organizations are experimenting with agile approaches on one or more projects within their portfolio.

The challenge, however, remains in the coordination across larger organizations aligning many projects, products and teams to deliver complex interdependent programs successfully. This presentation shares Agile Program Management Best Practices to guide project and program managers in larger organizations working across these boundaries to deliver complex programs. These best practices have been leveraged by programs with over 30 teams with hundreds of people (Larger programs are divided into subprograms and replicate similar practices). This presentation addresses best practices for program setup, goals, and investment; organizational team structures and work breakdown; and program coordination, tracking, dependencies, risk, and release predictability.

July 1st, we have David Hussman doing his talk on Pragmatic Personas.

Personas have that stickiness that sticks. With a pragmatic focus, this session covers simple and powerful techniques for crafting personas and using them to drive value into your development stream. The session will start with an overview of what personas are and how they provide value. We will create personas and discuss possible sources of information and potential authors. Once we have created a few personas, we will explore how they can be used to craft stories, create acceptance tests and help keep the user’s experience in the minds of the development community.

July 22nd we have Sanjiv Augustine doing his talk on the Agile PMO: From Process Police to Adaptive Governance.

How should we scale Agile methods beyond individual projects? How can PMOs avoid being process police and instead truly support Scrum teams, enable enterprise rollout of Agile methods, and sustain long-term Scrum adoption?

Learn how industry leaders are scaling Agile with Agile PMOs that:

• Support and empower agile teams through training, coaching, and organizational obstacle removal
• Track project portfolios using Agile tracking techniques
• Bring lean discipline to project prioritization
• Move towards a stable teams model of resource management

Sanjiv will share principles and techniques for an Agile PMO, and discuss how those concepts are being applied in the industry to scale Scrum through adaptive governance of programs and portfolios.

July 29th we have Michele Sliger doing her talk on Beginning with Values.

Agile adoptions can only be successful if corporate values match the values outlined in the Agile Manifesto and in agile frameworks such as XP and Scrum. In this presentation, Michele Sliger discusses the importance of values and the role they play in driving behavior. You’ll understand the real meaning behind the often heard “agile is value-driven, not plan-driven” phrase. You’ll find out how to determine what your company values, and how to compare that to agile values and what to do if they are different. Most importantly, learn how to apply what you’ve learned in your own situation. See how to define values at the team level, a must in order to ensure effective working relationships and that the right actions are taken by everyone to achieve iteration goals. You’ll learn visioning exercises that you can conduct with your team, and on your own – so you can better understand what you personally value and what you plan to do about it.

All of these folks are among the best at what they do and all are excellent presenters… you won’t want to miss these talks.