Certified LeSS Basics

This event has been cancelled.

89 Chestnut St
Toronto
M5G 1R1
Canada

Description :

What is Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)? Why should you care?

Do any of the below problems sound familiar to you?

  • Multiple teams in your organization are working on the same initiatives and you do not know how to scale development while still retaining the benefits of Scrum

  • Multiple teams working on the same product are having coordination challenges

  • Senior Management / Leadership is not able to align the work of different teams and ensure all the teams are going in the same direction. Some teams are working on very important stuff (from the leadership perspective) while other teams are working on (less) important stuff because of some constraints. You feel stuck and don't know what to do

  • Your teams are spread across multiple locations and do not know how Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, Sprint Reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives should work

  • The process of planning is overly complicated with 100s of people and multiple days. And still, you do not get the speed and efficiency that you got when doing one team Scrum

  • Your teams are unable to have a "releasable" product increment at the end of the Sprint 

  • You do not know what your "product" is. Or you are releasing your "product" only to find that other "products" also need to be released along with your "product" for the customer to use it.

If any of the above problems resonate with you, you are not alone. You have run into many of the common scaling challenges. The most common way to deal with these challenges is (a) to bury the head in sand, like an ostrich, and think the problem does not exist  and secretly wish these problems go away or (b) adopt a heavy-weight, overly prescriptive framework with new labels for existing roles, layers upon layers of new artifacts, and fancy metrics so that management can have (an illusion of) control. While you may get marginal improvements with either of the approaches, over a period of time, it is not sustainable.  The benefits fade away and the organization loses agility and its competitive edge. 

Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) takes a different approach to scaling Scrum. Rather than applying a band-aid to a fracture, it directly tackles the root cause of these problems by helping you think about the problem deeply using Systems Thinking using Systems Modeling. Through this, you get to "own your insight" rather than renting them. You understand how to see problems systemically so that you can ensure that your scaling approach is simple, effective,  and sustainable ensuring that you do not lose agility and your competitive edge.

What Past Participants have said about Ram's LeSS Workshops (actual recommendations from LinkedIn)

Ram's workshops are very popular and are highly recommended by his past participants (tip - register soon). Below are a few select recommendations from 500+ LinkedIn recommendations. Please see LinkedIn for the latest recommendations

Thank you Ram for another excellent workshop! As you know, this is my second workshop with you and like the first, you did not disappoint and have exceeded my expectations in educating me about LeSS. You reinforced what I have been pushing for with my own clients in the past without knowing such framework existed and helped me learn principles that I can take with me over the upcoming years to work withy next clients on how to implement Scrum and which scrum framework would be the most ideal. I look forward to continuously learn from you as I embark on my journey of learning more about Scrum as a framework. I highly recommend that anyone considering to take courses from Scrum Alliance to seek out Ram as the trainer. - Frances Mak - Business Consultant, Financial Services

I took Ram’s one-day Certified LeSS Basics (CLB) workshop in Toronto earlier this year. This workshop provided a very good overview of LeSS including the benefits and requirements to make LeSS effective. The workshop began with a review of SCRUM fundamentals, followed with a presentation of the LeSS principles coupled with group exercises to reinforce the concepts presented. Ram did an excellent job in presenting the material and providing practical examples based on his experience implementing LeSS. As manager of a Product Management organization, I found this workshop extremely useful to quickly understand the scope and potential of LeSS. As a follow-up to this workshop we have begun sending our Product Managers to the Certified LeSS Practitioner workshops to gain more in-depth LeSS training. Thanks Ram - Charles Smolich , Head of Product Management, HERE Technologies

I have had the pleasure of participating in 2 of Ram's teaching classes. Ram taught the first ever CLB (Certified LeSS Basics) class in Canada, which I was privileged to attend. I also attended Ram's CSM class in Toronto, purely to gain knowledge (as I had already done CSM before). Ram is am excellent orator, with immense knowledge & depth of LeSS and CSM and Agile/Scrum practices. I have attended a number of Certification courses over the last 12 months, and these 2 classes would be my favorite. Ram takes the additional interest to ensure that the students leave the class equipped with the tool-kit & the necessary knowledge and confidence to make a difference in the organizations we work in from Day One. I was able to absorb & digest the exhaustive material that Ram covers in his class with ease, as the pace is well set with ample time to revise & reflect on the leanings and even question or challenge some items. The amount of material that Ram power-packs in his time-boxed classes is incredible , always ensuring that his students leave with maximum & optimum knowledge and many new ideas that students can explore further as part of the Agile learning journey. I would love attend any of Ram's courses at a heartbeat! Mustafa Poonawala - Agile Coach, Scotiabank

You can read all the recommendations in Ram's LinkedIn profile

Agenda :

  • Why Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) ?

    • Clearing misconceptions about what is Scrum and what is not
    • Why LeSS (and Scrum) are "barely sufficient" and "intentionally incomplete"
    • Systems Thinking, System Goal and System Optimization
      • Local vs Global Optimization (a.k.a Scaling vs DeScaling)
      • Understanding Org Design for (De)Scaling
  • What is Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)?

    • Difference between Multi-team Scrum (LeSS) and multiple Scrum Teams, and why multi-team Scrum is optimal
    • The LeSS Complete Picture - Principles, Rules, Guide and Experiments
      • (Smaller) LeSS Framework (upto "8" teams)
      • LeSS Huge Framework (beyond 8 teams)
    • The minor differences between Scrum and LeSS
  • LeSS Roles

    • Product Owner
      • Why only ONE Product Owner even for "N" teams - understanding global optimization
    • Srum Master 
      • Role of a Scrum Master in LeSS
    • Team
      • Differences between Component Teams and Feature Teams 
      • Understanding why Feature teams might be better
  • LeSS Artifacts

    • Product Backlog
      • Defining your "Product"
      • Why only ONE product Backlog
    • Sprint Backlog
      • Each team has its own Sprint Backlog
    • Increment
      • Understanding Definition of "Done" when multiple teams are building the same "Product"
      • Why multiple teams should coordinate to build ONE single Product Increment
  • LeSS Events

    • Sprint Planning
      • Understanding multi-team Sprint Planning
    • Daily Scrum
    • Sprint Review
      • Why only ONE Sprint Review
    • Sprint Retrospective
      • Team Retrospective
      • Overall Retrospective
    • Product Backlog Refinement (PBR)
      • Overall PBR, multi-team PBR and single team PBR
  • Multi-team coordination and integration practices

    • Coordinate in Code
    • Just Talk
    • Importance of Technical Practices
  • Implementing LeSS

    • Understanding your Organizational Landscape
    • LeSS Adoption
    • A Guide to getting started with LeSS
    • Initial Product Backlog Refinement
    • Definition of Done
    • Beyond "8" teams - LeSS Huge Adoption guidelines
    • LeSS Resources

Details :

Target Audience:

Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Developers, Agile Coaches, Managers and Leaders who are interested in learning how to scale their Scrum adoption beyond a single Development Team. After the workshop, the participants will be able to understand that LeSS is multi-team Scrum,  understand what is LeSS, what is not LeSS, and the principles behind LeSS, understand how the current organizational design comes in the way of the organization being Agile and evaluate what changes need to be made to help the organization adopt LeSS

Before the training, participants must have knowledge about Scrum and Agile, gained from training (e.g. Certified ScrumMaster), experience, or other forms of education. We recommend checking your knowledge by completing the Scrum Quiz. Knowledge of basic information about LeSS is helpful, but not obligatory. You can get them on the LeSS website .

After the workshop, the participants will be able to

  • Understand that LeSS is multi-team Scrum
  • Understand what is LeSS, what is not LeSS, and the principles behind LeSS
  • Understand how the current organizational design comes in the way of the organization being Agile
  • Evaluate what changes need to be made to help the organization adopt LeSS

Price: 895 CAD

Early Bird Price: 745 CAD (End Date: 2019-04-26)

Additional Price Information: Early bird available ONLY for the first five registrations