Training Courses

Leading Answers offers the following consulting services:

Training Courses

• Agile Project Leadership - 2 days
  For anyone faced with managing an agile project who is dissatisfied with the training offerings from companies “jumping on the agile bandwagon”. This practical two-day course provides no-nonsense agile leadership guidance gained from Mike’s 14 years of agile methods experience. By combining case-studies, instruction, and exercises, the key tools for effective agile leadership are covered in this fast-paced, informal class. Course Outline: Agile Project Leadership - Outline.pdf 

• Agile Project Management Essentials - 1 day
  Need to hit the ground running on agile project management? This focused one day class covers all the basics from scope, planning, estimating, executing and tracking agile projects. Quickly gain an overview of the best practices for agile teams, workspace design, stakeholder engagement, collaboration tools and more. Course Outline: Agile Project Management Essentials - Outline.pdf   

• Agile Project Estimation and Planning – half a day
  Learn the basics of estimating and planning agile projects on this hands-on, half-day course. Using exercises and examples the concepts for user story estimation, team velocity and iteration planning are covered. Learn about Story Points, Ideal Developer Days, Velocity, Planning Poker, and Wideband Delphi. Find out how to calculate optimal team sizes, iteration durations and take home a CD of tools and templates. Course Outline: Agile Project Estimation and Planning - Outline.pdf 

• Agile Project Tracking and Reporting – half a day
  The iterative nature of agile projects introduces new challenges and opportunities for tracking and reporting agile projects. On the one hand are the scope-creep fears and lack of lifecycle understanding experienced by many project stakeholders, on the other hand we get many valuable early-trend and feedback metrics from using an agile approach. This course explains how to track and report on agile projects using powerful, easy to create reports and graphs. Course Outline: Agile Project Tracking and Reporting - Outline.pdf 

• Agile Team Dynamics – half a day
  People are by far the most important factor in determining project outcomes. Attend this course to gain best practice skills for creating and sustaining high performing teams. Learn decision making and conflict resolution techniques especially designed for agile projects. Experience collaboration tools, retrospective techniques and guidance for workspace design. Understand team rewards and recognition, learn how to build problem-busting “juggernaut” teams. Course Outline: Agile Team Dynamics - Outline.pdf 

• Introducing Agile Methods – half a day
  Save your self the frustration and costs associated with of opposition to change and failed agile adoptions. Instead, learn the successful approaches used by other companies adopting agile and the common pitfalls to avoid. This half day course exposes why many agile change initiatives fail and presents a proven roadmap for agile methods introduction. Created from the lessons learned during 14 years of agile roll-outs world wide and case studies from Forrester, Standish and Gartner this half day course has been described as “worth its weight in gold” by participants involved in agile introductions. Course Outline: Introducing Agile Methods - Outline.pdf 

• Agile and Traditional Methods Integration - half a day
  Learn how Agile methods can integrate with your existing processes. Understand the “connects and disconnects” with standard PMO processes and discover how to gain the benefits of agile development without losing control. Course Outline: Agile and Traditional Methods Integration - Outline.pdf 

Pricing and Availability
For current pricing and availability information please contact Training@LeadingAnswers.com. All of the courses listed can be adapted, merged or tailored to meet client specifications.

About the Trainer
All of the training courses listed here are taught by Mike Griffiths. Mike was involved in the creation of the agile method DSDM in 1994 and has been using agile methods (Scrum, XP, FDD, DSDM) in a variety of business and technical domains for the last 14 years. He is active in both the agile community and traditional project management circles. Mike serves on the board of the Agile Alliance and the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN). He was a contributor to the PMBOK v3 Guide and is a trainer for the PMI SeminarsWorld program.