Hi,

May I point out that we have some interesting courses coming to Belgium, make sure you're there and improve your Agile skills ;)
Subscribe to both courses at once and save some money!

1. 2-day Certified Scrum Master Course
2. User Stories, Paper Prototyping, Agile Estimating and Planning Course

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2-day Certified Scrum Master Course

Location: Hotel Nazareth, E17 highway between Ghent - Kortrijk, http://hotel.havoc.be/nazareth/index-2.html
Dates: 3rd and 4th of November
Subscribe through http://www.scrumtraining.com/upcoming-events/
Trainer: Robin Dymond (http://www.scrumalliance.org/profiles/5066-robin-dymond)
Co Trainer: Jürgen De Smet (http://www.xpday.net/Xpday2008/Jurgen%20De%20Smet.html)

Contents

Through a combination of immersive team-based learning, exercises, and real-world case studies, you will learn how to:

• Plan, initiate, and lead a Scrum project
• Establish a shared vision for the entire team
• Generate an agile release plan utilizing user stories and story point estimation
• Lead your Scrum team through planning, review, and retrospective sessions
• Create an environment in which self-managing teams can flourish
• Identify, enroll, and engage business stakeholders in your project
  

ScrumMaster training provides an applied understanding of the Scrum process and helps participants begin to develop the tools, insights, and skills required to apply Scrum on their projects and across their organizations.

The days of training will include breakfast, coffee breaks, and lunch.

Who Should Attend?

ScrumMaster training designed for the members of an organization who will lead, support, or participate in Scrum-driven projects; this includes:

• Project leaders
• Development managers
• Team members
• Product managers 
  

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User Stories, Paper Prototyping, Agile Estimating and Planning Course

Location: Hotel Nazareth, E17 highway between Ghent - Kortrijk, http://hotel.havoc.be/nazareth/index-2.html
Dates: 5th of November
Subscribe through http://www.scrumtraining.com/upcoming-events/
Trainer: Robin Dymond (http://www.scrumalliance.org/profiles/5066-robin-dymond)

Contents

Congratulations! Globotech has selected your company to build a new supplier management portal. This exciting project will connect suppliers world wide with Globotech's supply chain. Your first meeting with Globotech's subject matter experts is coming up. How will you capture their knowledge so that you build the right thing? How will you engage the development team with these ideas? How will you create a system and context that will lead to a process of learning, informed decisions, and regular delivery of software? How will you manage expectations of the client, sponsors, and users?

Agile teams establish close ongoing relationships with their customers. This course shows you practical tools to make the relationship between the customer and the team successful.

Understanding vs. Requirements.
Delivering the right software starts by understanding customer problems. User Stories are an effective way to capture requirements that are valuable to the customer. They provide a way to effectively plan the work, and they facilitate communication. Learn how to write User Stories that capture the needs of the customer in a way the development team wants to hear it. You will write user stories, create acceptance criteria, and engage each other in this interactive workshop session. You will also learn how to convert traditional requirements to user stories, and how to transition your customers to thinking in terms of needs instead of solutions.

Prototyping on Paper?
If developers need the screen layouts to code, and designers want to figure out and test complex interactions, you need a prototype. Communication and learning are the end goals of a UI prototype. Agile teams use paper prototyping to quickly create and test UI designs. With a paper UI prototype you can do almost everything possible from a software prototype, with 90% less effort. You will learn how to create paper prototypes, and implement your own. How to test and gain user's feedback from paper will also be covered.

How much does it cost? When will I get it?
In Agile we plan more than in traditional projects. This fact is often surprising to most. However Agile planning is different than traditional work break down, gantt chart and schedule based planning. Agile estimation and planning techniques include:
•    Managing priorities and the product backlog,
•    Story points. What they are and how do we use them
•    Velocity. Understanding capacity of a development team.
•    Minimum marketable feature sets and how to deliver incrementally.
This section is based on Agile Estimating and Planning by Cohn, Planning Poker by Grenning, and others.

All of the practices covered in this class are supported by interactive exercises and real life examples from applying these techniques in the field. After learning these methods, you will be better prepared to engage Globotech or any other customer in a successful Agile project.

The day of training will include breakfast, coffee breaks, and lunch.

Who Should Attend?

This training designed for the members of an organization who will participate in Scrum-driven projects; this includes:

• Business Analysts
• User Interface Analysts
• Product Managers
  
• Project Managers
• Software Developers