Due to popular demand, we have added another Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) training to our listing of courses.  There is an overwhelming need for well trained Product Owners, and we’re happy to take up the challenge. The next CSPO will happen on January 14 & 15 at our office in Newmarket, just north of Toronto.

During this seminar, our Certified Scrum Trainer will teach participants how to do the fundamental tasks of the Product Owner in the Scrum environment.  The attendees will learn:

• how to develop a comprehensive Product Backlog
• competently add value to the Scrum team during the Sprint
• fully understand how Scrum works and their role within the agile environment

With a maximum class size of five people, this seminar is designed to allow participants to dig deep into the role of the Certified Scrum Product Owner. After completing this course, attendees of this seminar will be able to create and manage a Product Backlog, work with a Scrum Team to create high-quality software, and use the Scrum framework to build and deliver the right software.  Please refer to our website for a course description and to reserve space for yourself or others on your team. http://www.berteigconsulting.com/CSPOCourseDescription

We look forward to adding value to your team!

If you would like more information contact us at sales@berteigconsulting.com

This summer, Berteig Consulting delivered an intensive OpenAgile training to Infonium, developers of enterprise application software for the Canadian healthcare industry.  Based in Ottawa, Infonium collaborates with Canadian healthcare practitioners to develop innovative software solutions that solve issues that are specific to the healthcare industry. 

http://www.infonium.ca/about-infonium/news/96-news-berteig

Berteig Consulting is proud to be helping Infonium achieve their vision of transforming healthcare across Canada.

Interesting link – the “Learning Manifesto” of OpenAgile: http://www.openagile.com/LearningManifesto

“Learning is the key that unlocks human capacity…”

At Berteig Consulting, we have made some changes to our already well-received Certified ScrumMaster training seminar.  These changes will apply to courses starting in January 2010.

- Our seminar is now a more effective, participatory 2-day seminar giving more value for your time
- The price is now lowered to $995.00 per participant to reflect economic conditions
- We have created a new agenda which is even more practical and more hands-on
- You will experience an improved facilitator/participant ratio with a maximum of 20 participants per seminar
- We have scheduled more locations across Canada to serve you better
- Our preparatory reading material replaces lecture-oriented course content to allow more effective use of classroom time
- The Scrum Alliance knowledge test helps you consolidate your learning of the core Scrum principles and practices
- We now offer high-value, discounted add-ons for coaching and other support to make you even more effective

Why would we make these changes?

All these changes help participants to be more engaged in their own learning, and derive more value from this seminar.  Our seminar, combined with our facilitator’s real-life experience, provides some of the best training value available!  By learning to use Scrum effectively in our Practical Certified ScrumMaster course, you can radically improve the performance and quality of the work of your team and organization!

Register now while spots are still available!

I’ve been researching teamwork lately.  I just finished reading “The Discipline of Teams” by Katzenbach and Smith which is an HBR summary of their much more substantial book “The Wisdom of Teams”.  I decided that it would be good to be able to describe the essential skills an individual needs to acquire in order to work effectively in a team.  First stop, Google and a search of “list of teamwork skills”.

Strangely, not much turned up on the first page.  The best result is found at “7 Essential Skills for Teamwork” which is a page on a public elementary school web site.  So, here’s my adaptation of their list:

Active Listening

Active listening is a skill that allows a person to completely focus on the communication of another person including both verbal and non-verbal aspects.  Active listening requires the ability to not think of your own responses until after a person has finished speaking.  One simple way of doing this is to echo what a person is saying in your silent internal voice.  When someone says “I think we should build a new gimbal on the widget”, you are saying exactly the same thing in your own mind.  Active listening also requires that you request clarification, often by rephrasing what a person has said and asking if you have understood correctly.

Questioning

Being able to frame and express questions effectively helps us understand and integrate knowledge into our own mental model of the world, or even to modify our mental model.  Asking questions is easy.  Asking good questions is much harder.  We need to use an appropriate set of words and tone of voice so that we do not alienate or offend the recipient of the question.  For example, asking “why did you do that?” will often put people on the defensive since they will assume that you mean you disagree with their actions.  Instead, saying “I do not understand the reason you did that.  Could you please explain it to me?” can be a much more gentle way of getting to the same information.

Logical Argument

When presenting an idea or position, being able to logically support it is important to exploring the truth of it.  This includes being able to share your assumptions or axioms, the data you are basing your argument upon, and the logical sequence of reasoning to reach your conclusion.  Being able to avoid fallacious logical methods is also important.

Respecting

Showing respect includes acknowledging the fundamental human value of the existence of your teammates, and being able to step back from your own understanding of the world to acknowledge the legitimate nature of the perspective that other people have.  This does not mean that you have to let teammates get away with inappropriate behavior.  In fact, respect for your teammates will allow you to support them in behaving in ways that are in alignment with their fundamental nobility as human beings.

Helping

Offering help and actually following through with real assistance are aspects of helping.  When you suspect that a team member is struggling with something, you offer to help both verbally and with your actions.  This can take the form of offering information, offering emotional support, offering to assist with problem-solving, or actually taking action to do an activity together.  When we help someone, we share their burden.

Sharing

Sharing our knowledge, time, skills or physical resources are all aspects of sharing.  Sharing among team members is focused on those things which will help a team reach its goals.  This is similar to helping except that it tends to be more of a transaction than an ongoing activity.  The transaction is that you give a gift and then the other person uses that gift to meet their needs.  Sharing does not require reciprocity.  If you share something with another person, you should not expect that that person will return the gift at any time in the future.

Participating

It’s probably obvious, but in order to effectively be on a team, you need to participate!  Participation itself is mostly obvious: do work with the other team members.  However, there are also some less obvious aspects of it.  You are not participating when the team is having a discussion, you find it boring, so you check your email.  You are not participating when the team makes a decision and you abstain from helping to execute the decision because you disagree.  You are not participating in a work team when you are mentally checked out because of a crisis at home.

All of these skills are critical teamwork skills… but there may be others.  Do you think there are other skills missing from this list that are critical for effective teamwork?

http://theagileexecutive.com/2009/09/29/technical-debt-on-your-balance-sheet/

Many people in my CSM classes start by thinking that the ScrumMaster job is easy and can be part time.  Here’s a good article that summarizes why this is not the case, and provides even more useful references.

New to Agile? What Does the ScrumMaster Do Anyway?

We have wrapped up our Summer Special. There are still a few classes scheduled this year that have the discount price, but others have reverted to our normal price. I encourage you to take a look at our course schedule at http://www.berteigconsulting.com/ to see what is still available.

Also, all our future Certified ScrumMaster courses will have a knowledge test as part of the certification process. Please see the Scrum Alliance website for more information at http://www.scrumalliance.org/.

Imagine your father is in surgery for a routine tonsillectomy.  Something goes wrong with the anesthesia and his heart goes nuts.  The defibrillator is brought out, the paddles applied to your father’s chest and the surgeon yells “CLEAR!”.  He triggers the defibrillator, but nothing happens, just a small clicking noise.  He quickly checks the machine, and everything looks okay.  He tries again.  “CLEAR!”  There’s a small buzzing noise and your father’s body trembles slightly.  The surgeon puts the paddles down, and, getting frantic, yells at the nurses to find another defib machine, “NOW!!!”.  Thirty agonizing seconds pass.  One of the nurses rushes into O.R. with a cart with another defibrillator machine on it.  It gets set up.  Another fifteen seconds pass.  It charges and the surgeon applies it again.  “CLEAR!”  There’s a huge shock and your father is killed instantly.  It takes a few more minutes for him to be officially pronounced dead.

Is this how projects are run in your organization?

If this had been a description of a real event, you would be furious.  You would demand that the defibrillators work better – one hundred percent of the time would be about right!  You would sue the hospital for buying shoddy defibrillators.  You would sue the company that made them.  You would sue the surgeon.

Let’s stop running projects this way.  Agile is a reliable defibrillator for your organization’s heart.

Berteig Consulting is a silver sponsor for the 2009 Toronto leg of the Agile Tour conference. The date for Toronto is October 20th. You can find more information at the Toronto Agile Community web site – http://www.torontoagilecommunity.org/.