Scrum Bootcamp

There is just no replacement for experiential learning. It is not uncommon for a newbie to come away from a two-day (for example) certification course with vocabulary and enthusiasm, but without the confidence to lead a new team through Scrum.

For one of my new Scrum teams, I decided to not send them to training first. Instead, we grabbed a chunk of customer-prioritized requests and set about the goal of delivering them within 3 weeks. I played most of the roles and modeled the values. The only Scrum ceremonies we did were daily stand-ups and a retrospective. Once the first sprint was done, we took a week off for training. Here is the Scrum bootcamp itinerary I put together for them:

Welcome to Scrum Bootcamp Week. We will have 90-minute, in-person sessions each afternoon (usually starting around noon). Each morning before the session, you are expected to watch the preparation videos and read the materials outlined below. Although the morning activities can be done alone, I will reserve a room for those of you that wish to watch them together or want to share your Lynda access with others.

I've also invited an experienced Scrum Master for another team to join us so that he can help pull a common thread across teams and make sure we are all hearing consistent vocabulary. And he could also benefit from hearing the discussions you all may have.

For Monday morning:

• • Watch one of the following videos:

    • Preferred: If you have LinkedIn Learning, watch "Scrum: The Basics" by Kelley O'Connell (1h 2m)

    • If you don't have a LinkedIn Learning membership, watch "Getting Agile with Scrum" by Mike Cohn (56m 01s)

  • Also read "Scrum Backlog" by Mike Cohn (Mountain Goat Software).

For Monday in-person session: Overview of Lean, Kanban, Agile values, Scrum principles, and the Agile mindset. Knowing Agile’s Lean roots will help you (1) know why we do Scrum this way; (2) decide which rules are non-negotiable and which can be bent when push comes to shove. The content for this discussion is here.

For Tuesday morning, you will need Lynda access or need to look on with someone who has it:

• • Watch "Learning JIRA Software" (1h 7m). Ignore the optional setup. Feel free to use the DOWC JIRA for exercises. I can clean up after you later, if needed.

  • Also watch the following chapters of the Lynda course "Atlassian JIRA: Installing and Adminstering" (~27m)

  • Section 3: "Basic JIRA Concepts" (~8m)

    • "Analyzing a JIRA issue" (3m 7s)

    • "Exploring a JIRA workflow" (5m 24s)

  • Section 5: "Making JIRA issues work for you" (~12m)

    • "Documenting and commenting updates to an issue" (8m)

    • "Cloning, linking, or moving an issue" (4m 17s)

  • Section 11: "JIRA Agile" (~7m)

    • "Using a Scrum board" (4m 17s)

    • "Using a Kanban board" (2m 29s)

For Tuesday in-person session: Using JIRA issues (epics, stories, tasks, and subtasks) and our customized workflows and boards.

For Wednesday morning:

• • Watch "User Stories" by Mike Cohn (52m 03s)

  • Also read,

    • "Clear Acceptance Criteria and Why They are Important"

    • "What Characteristics Make Good Acceptance Criteria"

For Wednesday in-person session: Re-examining stories using DOWC examples.

For Thursday:

• • Watch "Agile Estimating" by Mike Cohn (58m 21s)

For Thursday in-person session: Practicing sizing using story points on DOWC stories. I will bring Planning Poker decks.

For Friday morning:

• • TBD depending on what needs reinforcing at this point.

  • Otherwise, choose from these short, review videos by CollabNet.

For Friday session: Begin sprint planning for next sprint.