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Would you recommend the APS course to a newbie scrum team, and Why?

Discover how the APS course can empower your newbie Scrum team to create value and thrive in an Agile environment. Watch now! #Scrum #Agile #Training

Published on 23 March 2023

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

4 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/rPxverzgPz0

Would you recommend the APS course to a newbie scrum team, and Why?

Why the APS Course is a Must for Newbie Scrum Teams

In this article, I’d like to share some thoughts on the Agile Practitioner Series (APS) course and its relevance to newbie Scrum teams.

But first, let me answer ‘yes’ to the article’s question. In fact, I’d even say that if you’re considering whether it’s worth the investment for your team, I believe this course hits the sweet spot for beginners in Scrum.

Stepping into the realm of Agile and Scrum can be overwhelming for newcomers. However, the Agile Practitioner Series (APS) course is designed to make this transition seamless for newbie Scrum teams. This course breaks down the complexities of Scrum into digestible modules, ensuring a steady progression from foundational concepts to more advanced methodologies.

Outcomes are Priceless 🌟

As I’ve discussed in previous articles, APS’s outcomes are exceptional and enlightening. This course gives you a clear understanding of the changes your organisation and team need to make to implement Scrum successfully. 🚀

It’s not just about learning the ropes of Scrum but also about realising the modifications required in your current operational structures. 🔄

Organisational Change

One of the most impactful exercises in the APS course involves reflecting on what changes your organisation, as a team, needs to make to be successful with Scrum. 🤔

If you’re a new team, you have the benefit of a fresh perspective. This course helps you identify gaps in transparency, accountability, and interactions that may be missing in your organisation.

It’s all about strategising for success. 🎯👍

Organisational Change Backlog

The highlight of the course for many new teams is creating an ‘Organizational Change Backlog’. This achievement can be incredibly powerful, especially when leaders are in the room. 💪 And it’s usually not difficult for me to tell who the leaders are in that room and nearly always, I’m right.

This backlog represents a collective understanding of what needs to shift in your organisation to make Scrum work effectively. This is a great way to ensure your team feels heard and it promotes active participation from leadership. 🗣️

Teams Drive Change

The beauty of APS is that it doesn’t stop at identifying the changes needed within an organisation. The course motivates individuals to volunteer and help implement the items on the backlog.

This is where teams feel empowered, involved, and ready to try something new. They feel they’re being heard, which fuels a sense of initiative and drives a proactive change. 👏

For me, these are the main reasons why the APS course makes the most sense for a newbie team moving into Agility and Scrum.

Course that Realigns

The APS course is excellent for realignment too. While it’s incredibly effective for newbie teams, it also serves as a valuable realignment tool for those who’ve been in the Scrum game for a while and could do with undertaking regular refresher courses. Without a refresher course, getting lost in the latest jargon, misconceptions, and misguided new practices is easy.

APS helps realign teams to the core principles of Scrum, busting myths like we can’t change the sprint backlog after we’ve started the sprint, which has nothing to do with Scrum whatsoever. The APS course taken as a refresher course ensures teams adapt, evolve and get better at what they do.✨

The idea is to continually adapt and bring empirical processes into the way we do business. So, I highly recommend the APS course to all newbie Scrum teams to learn Scrum and facilitate a deep understanding of how to create effective change within their organisations.

So why wait? Let’s get started on this transformational journey.

If you want to learn more about Scrum and Agile methodologies, check out my Agile and Scrum courses that cater to all levels. I promise you’ll find immense value! 🚀💡

Naked Agility is an #agile consultancy that specializes in #scrumtraining, #agilecoaching and #agileconsulting to help teams evolve, integrate, and continuously improve.

We recognize the positive impact that a happy AND inspired workforce can have on customer experience, and we actively help organizations to tap into the power of creative, collaborative, and high-performing teams that is unique to #agile and #scrum environments.

If you are interested in #agiletraining, visit https://nkdagility.com/training/

If you have identified the need for #agilecoaching and #agileconsulting, visit https://nkdagility.com/agile-consulting-coaching/

We would love to work with you.

#scrum #agile #scrumteam #agileprojectmanagement #agileproductdevelopment #projectmanagement #productdevelopment #agilecoach #agileconsultant #agiletraining #scrumtraining #scrumorg

Keywords: Agile Practitioner Series, Scrum teams, Organizational Change Backlog,

Hashtags #Scrum #Agile #APS #OrganizationalChange

#Agile, #AgileCoach, #Scrum, #ScrumMaster, #AgileCentre, #ProductOwner, #BusinessAnalyst, #AgileProjectManagement, #BusinessAgility, #ScrumTraining, #AgileProductDevelopment.

So would I recommend the APS course to a newbie scrum team? I think that’s its sweet spot and what it was designed for. The outcomes I love about the EPS I’ve talked in other videos about like what happens in the APS, but the outcome is a realisation of what needs to be different in your organisation in order to give this thing a try.

So if you’re a new team in an organisation moving towards scrum and your organisation maybe has done a little bit of scrum, maybe hasn’t, maybe it’s brand new to them, one of the exercises near the end of the class is based on everything that you as a team, you as a group of people attending this class have learned. What are the things that are going that you would need to change in your organisation in order to be successful at this? Because we’ve just talked about what it should look like, the levels of transparency, the interactions between people, the accountabilities, and perhaps those are just not present in your organisation. So what does need to change?

Especially when I have groups of people that are new, very new to scrum, there’s a moment at the end where we create an organisational change backlog. It works the best when you have leaders in the room. If you’ve got a big class and you’ve got leaders in the room, I can actually say, so who’s the most powerful person in the room? Who’s the hippo? Right? Who’s the most powerful person? And I’ve done this in classes where it’s the CEO, right? And the CEO says, “I am.” I’m like, this backlog’s for you, right? And I literally give it to them. It’s one bit that’s maybe a little bit better in person because you’re ceremonially giving them this huge stack. I’ve had 50 cards out of a class before. Here are all of the things that this group of people that have just been through this class believe need to change in your organisation in order to be successful at this. That’s hugely powerful, not only from the perspective of the people feeling that they’re heard to come up with it, but also powerful from the CEO participating in the class, like demonstrating that this is important enough that I turn up and receiving that backlog, but then actually doing something with it.

That’s where there’s been the most impact from the EPS, is when there is somebody in the room who can take that backlog, who can then do something with it. Because you get like, who’s the most important person? Here’s your backlog. Who can help them? People volunteer in the room. Could one person from each team volunteer to help this person action some of these items and figure it out? People volunteer and they feel involved and they feel empowered, and it creates this, like, I don’t know, get up and go, this gumption to go make the change, go do this thing differently and try something new, right? Try something different and see if it’s successful.

And I think that for me is why a newbie team moving into scrum, moving into agility is almost the sweet spot of the EPS class. It’s also great to realign people who have been doing scrum for a while and think they know everything, right? We need to be doing user stories and we need to be doing story points and we have to do estimation and scrum says we can’t change the sprint backlog after we’ve started the sprint, and all of these crap things that are nothing to do with scrum whatsoever. But people believe they are because that’s how they do things in the organisation. And that realignment also results in some of the same epiphanies as well. It’s not as huge as new teams, but creating that organisational change backlog, “Oh, we’ve got something wrong, let’s adapt, let’s change it, let’s bring some of that empirical process into the way we do business as well.” Hugely important.

Thanks for watching the video. If you enjoyed it, please like, follow, and subscribe. I always reply to comments, and if you want to have a chat about this or anything else agile, scrum, or DevOps, then please book a coffee with me through Naked Agility.

People and Process Agile Project Management Organisational Agility Agile Transformation Scrum Product Development Agile Frameworks Organisational Change Scrum Team Change Management Team Collaboration

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