This was my first trip to Kansas City. I have flown over the city many times on my way to the west coast but, never had the pleasure of stopping to visit.

We ran our 1st Certified ScrumMaster training course in Kansas City and it was phenominal. The class participants got a ton out of it and when the class goes extremely well so do I.

 During this class we delivered a pre-beta-beta scrum exam.

 It just brings a smile

- Doug Shimp

Hand Written Insights and Evaluations from the class

The first Certified ScrumMaster in Edina was hosted jointly by both 3Back LLC and Normandale College. This 2 day event was open enrollment and continued to lead the trend in bring new Agile Project Management to the Twin Cities. There were a total of 10 students in the class.

“I  like number 12 or less because it really improves the interaction and discussions.”, Doug Shimp

We will be running another Scrum Training Course. Including a Certified Scrum Product Owner and Intro to Agile Methods course. Check our training page for upcoming events. The evaluatiosn as always speak for themselves. Please read.

VersionOne and 3Back offered their first co-hosted Certified ScrumMaster training event in San Mateo, California. This was the first time these two companies co-hosted a joint public event. The event was nothing short of spectacular and continued to show a proven track that these two agile oriented companies are leaders in their complementary market niches. Both companies continue to raise the bar of what passes for excellence in Scrum (Agile) training, tools and implementations.

There were 11 folks in attendance and each person provided an evaluation.

See for yourself Handwritten Scanned Evaluations

The ScrumMaster course in Austin, Texas was held August 6-7, 2008 with 13 folks in attendance.

One thing that characterized this course was the breadth of diversity, experience, backgrounds and work cultures. We had everything form small start ups, gaming, big business and government. All of these varied views made for a rich tapestry of conversation and very engaging dialog.

“If I were to choose one word for the

We will be offering another Scrum training course for ScrumMaster’s and Certified Scrum Product Owners in a few months and are looking forward to the next opportunity to interact with the unique perspectives that Austin’s lively culture provides.

Our ScrumMaster training course in Minneapolis got off to a great start.

What an awesome scrummaster jam session we had

Jam works as a word because we were piled into the room was on the small side. The interesting thing was that a tight room caused a different synergy among participants. As a group of 13 we were able to stay more connected and work well together. With a small room we were easily able to hear each other and see detailed face expression which improved our communication bandwidth. After having done several of these types of trainings it was bit of a surprise at how a smaller room improved our ability to gel and connect. I have seen larger rooms with an extra 4+ ft of width and the same number of people. We were not able to connect as easily and we certainly did not achieve the same level of synergy.

Lesson learned, small rooms are tight but, they can help a team connect.

All the best

- Doug

We ran another Certified ScrumMaster training course in Chicago.

The newest topic that has been emerging with increased regularity is Agile Contracts. How do we avoid the pressures of big waterfall contracting models in and increasingly aware agile client world. Our old methods of contracting and working are becoming irrelevant and clients are no longer buying into the big bang waterfall contracting model. You can’t wald in with your big in house methodology and expect clients to be amazed at how smart (overly complex) your process is.

 Thank you for a wonderful 2 days together.

- Doug

 Michele Sliger with Sliger Consulting and Douglas Shimp with 3Back LLC ran a 2 day joint
Certified ScrumMaster training in El Segundo, CA  on May 12-13, 2008.

This was the second time we worked together to deliver a Scrum Training course and the duet is getting better each time.  The course was delivered as a two trainer combo who quickly established rapport. By working as a tag team we zeroed in on answering questions and greatly improved learning. The experiences that both trainers/consultants can bring to the table magnified the enrichment experience for the students. We leveraged multiple mediums for feedback and learning including numerous pictures, simulations and applied experiences from real world scrum implementations.

Scrum understanding is growing in the agile community. We see evidence of this by nature of the questions being asked. Questions are changing from previous courses in Scrum to a deeper focus on tuning / applying scrum.

We would like to thank all attendees. These courses are best
when we all learn. We like these courses best when the questions
are challenging. Your questions were often challenging and
presented opportunities for the trainers to learn as well.

 Thank you for choosing to spend your time with us.

Michele and Doug

We had another great course today in Illinois. This was the 6th Chicago Area based scrum training event that we have run . It was a small course with great feedback on the evals.

Each class our materials and delivery continue to evolve. We continue to see the questions changing from class to class and a growing trend to use Scrum in other areas besides just software development This class was characterised by a small focused group. There was nterest using Scrum for large packaged implementations like SAP that are configuration driven and questions on how an architecture like team can work from a distance in a distributed manner.

The title is a little dramatic :)  but, it was a 40 year storm. The last day of the certified scrummaster course we got hit with a 18 inch storm which challenged a record that has been standing since 1961.

 This course was delivered by Doug Shimp and Sam Hazziez.

 Again we have continued to show that agile courses delivered as a duet offer a better richer experience for attendees. Students learn to apply the framework of scrum and they actually experience the framework applied by a well-formed-team in flight as they deliver the course in a scrum like manner.

The picture shown right was our 2-days of frontburner, backburner, fridge and done (product backlog and sprint backlog. 

Thank you for the time you took to spend with us. We appreciate all of the good insights and conversation we generated.

- Doug & Sam

A tight, focused group made up the first public “Agile for Distributed Teams” course. Despite a wide range of experience with Agile and distributed development, students gained several unexpected insights from the course. Highlighted topics included the subtleties of Agile practices from first-hand experience, ways of communicating with distant teams, andhow the RallyDev tool can be used effectively.

I was most happy to see everyone expand their definition of The Product to also include their own processes. Using Scrum and Agile principles to explicitly change the way the organization works — is there nothing that Agile can’t do?

A big thank-you to everyone for their participation, discussion, and engagement in the exercises.