Join Andrea Provaglio and learn, through lectures and practical exercises, why self-organization is so important, what factors prevent it to happen and the countermeasures you can take.

About

Who should attend

Overview

We know that self-organization is a critical aspect of every successful Agile project; we also know that it’s based on trust, respect, openness and responsibility. So, why so many teams have such a hard time to fully achieve it?

One reason is that self-organization changes the leader/team dynamics and the teammate/teammate ones. Resistance to this change may arise in different ways and the source is frequently rooted in mental habits, such as a latent blaming culture, confusing guidance and command, fear of taking responsibility or losing status, unconscious agendas.

Another reason is that self-organization requires a radically different way of thinking about the team and about your development process, compared to the industrial (a.k.a. Waterfall) approach that the IT industry as been practicing for so long.

The industrial approach implies that things happen more or less sequentially and that each step is measurable and predictable, but this linear thinking is just inadequate for the kind of products we create and for the complexity that we find in many software development process. In IT, people are interconnected not just by means of their institutional roles (the organizational chart) but also by interactional and influential relationships, which all together create a web of very articulate dynamics.

For self-organization to really happen, these dynamics should be clear and we should be able to understand those factors that block the interaction and commitment of the people involved in our project.

In this workshop we’ll start with looking at what Agile means, at its core, for a development team and then with understanding why self-organization is so valuable.

We’ll proceed with exploring the different ways by which self-organization may manifest itself or be otherwise prevented, intentionally or unintentionally.

The attendees will also be involved in practical, guided exercises that will let them experiment first-hand the concepts presented. Many of these exercises can be used inside their own organization as simple tools to improve the level of commitment and participation of the team.

Why attend

Attendees will come out of this workshop with a deeper understanding of the dynamics that make the difference between an Agile team that works and one that doesn’t, as well as practical techniques that team members, managers and coaches can use to improve the level of self-organization in their group.

Some of the key objectives are:
• Creating team’s cohesion; counteracting division
• Positioning yourself at your proper guidance level
• Move out from a latent blaming culture by addressing its causes
• Dealing with counterproductive collective traits
• Removing the major roadblocks to self-organization
• Improve the level of communication, participation, cohesion and commitment in your Agile team
• Help managers to be facilitators and enablers
• Help technical teams to work out solutions and make decisions more effectively
• Handle conflicts more easily
• Make your organization more productive and proactive

A note to the attendees

One of the underlying principles of this workshop (also present in the idea of “cross-functional teams”) is that all people in the Agile organization are interconnected and that all of them contribute to the success of the project.

Therefore, this workshop is designed for anyone involved in an Agile software development project, including: technical team members; team leaders; Scrum Masters; Scrum Product Owners; product managers and project managers.

Greater benefits can be obtained when several people from the same team of company attend this workshop together.

Attendees are expected to have a good understanding of the Agile principles and to have played an active role in a professional Agile software development project.

Agenda

• The key role of self-organization in the Agile approach
• Institutional, relational and systemic views of the Agile organization
• Decisional influence shifts in the Agile organization
• Guidance vs. command: Meta-, macro- and micro-guidance levels
• Understanding the manager’s and team’s resistance to self-organization
• Counteracting blame
• Effects of the Controlling Parent pattern
• Unsuspected pitfalls that undermine the team’s cohesion
• Identifying and addressing counterproductive collective traits
• Visualizing the team’s alignment with business goals

Read more about the class here.

Join Andrea Provaglio and learn, through lectures and practical exercises, why self-organization is so important, what factors prevent it to happen and the countermeasures you can take.

About

Who should attend

Overview

We know that self-organization is a critical aspect of every successful Agile project; we also know that it’s based on trust, respect, openness and responsibility. So, why so many teams have such a hard time to fully achieve it?

One reason is that self-organization changes the leader/team dynamics and the teammate/teammate ones. Resistance to this change may arise in different ways and the source is frequently rooted in mental habits, such as a latent blaming culture, confusing guidance and command, fear of taking responsibility or losing status, unconscious agendas.

Another reason is that self-organization requires a radically different way of thinking about the team and about your development process, compared to the industrial (a.k.a. Waterfall) approach that the IT industry as been practicing for so long.

The industrial approach implies that things happen more or less sequentially and that each step is measurable and predictable, but this linear thinking is just inadequate for the kind of products we create and for the complexity that we find in many software development process. In IT, people are interconnected not just by means of their institutional roles (the organizational chart) but also by interactional and influential relationships, which all together create a web of very articulate dynamics.

For self-organization to really happen, these dynamics should be clear and we should be able to understand those factors that block the interaction and commitment of the people involved in our project.

In this workshop we’ll start with looking at what Agile means, at its core, for a development team and then with understanding why self-organization is so valuable.

We’ll proceed with exploring the different ways by which self-organization may manifest itself or be otherwise prevented, intentionally or unintentionally.

The attendees will also be involved in practical, guided exercises that will let them experiment first-hand the concepts presented. Many of these exercises can be used inside their own organization as simple tools to improve the level of commitment and participation of the team.

Why attend

Attendees will come out of this workshop with a deeper understanding of the dynamics that make the difference between an Agile team that works and one that doesn’t, as well as practical techniques that team members, managers and coaches can use to improve the level of self-organization in their group.

Some of the key objectives are:
• Creating team’s cohesion; counteracting division
• Positioning yourself at your proper guidance level
• Move out from a latent blaming culture by addressing its causes
• Dealing with counterproductive collective traits
• Removing the major roadblocks to self-organization
• Improve the level of communication, participation, cohesion and commitment in your Agile team
• Help managers to be facilitators and enablers
• Help technical teams to work out solutions and make decisions more effectively
• Handle conflicts more easily
• Make your organization more productive and proactive

A note to the attendees

One of the underlying principles of this workshop (also present in the idea of “cross-functional teams”) is that all people in the Agile organization are interconnected and that all of them contribute to the success of the project.

Therefore, this workshop is designed for anyone involved in an Agile software development project, including: technical team members; team leaders; Scrum Masters; Scrum Product Owners; product managers and project managers.

Greater benefits can be obtained when several people from the same team of company attend this workshop together.

Attendees are expected to have a good understanding of the Agile principles and to have played an active role in a professional Agile software development project.

Agenda

• The key role of self-organization in the Agile approach
• Institutional, relational and systemic views of the Agile organization
• Decisional influence shifts in the Agile organization
• Guidance vs. command: Meta-, macro- and micro-guidance levels
• Understanding the manager’s and team’s resistance to self-organization
• Counteracting blame
• Effects of the Controlling Parent pattern
• Unsuspected pitfalls that undermine the team’s cohesion
• Identifying and addressing counterproductive collective traits
• Visualizing the team’s alignment with business goals

Read more about the class here.

Join Alexandru Bolboaca and learn how to save your legacy code.

Benefits

• Learn the techniques that will help you save the legacy code and making sure you never fear it again
• Understand what legacy code is and the problem with saving it
• Learn testing, dependency injection, seams as tools for saving legacy code
• Practice all the techniques on simple exercises and on real projects

Prerequisites

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Alexandru Bolboaca and learn how to save your legacy code.

Benefits

• Learn the techniques that will help you save the legacy code and making sure you never fear it again
• Understand what legacy code is and the problem with saving it
• Learn testing, dependency injection, seams as tools for saving legacy code
• Practice all the techniques on simple exercises and on real projects

Prerequisites

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

The Certified Scrum Product Owner course offers you a one-year membership in the Scrum Alliance

Join Joe Little if you want to understand how to  function effectively as the product owner.

About

Topics covered

Topics and/or exercises include:
• Plan, initiate and lead a Scrum project
• Release planning: what & how & why
• Develop the initial product backlog
• Breaking down user stories (epics)
• The different sources of PBIs in the Product Backlog
• Improve the identification of Business Value
• Story point estimation: how the PO plays, why he cares
• Managing the Gap between customer expectations and the Team’s ability to deliver
• Improving business value engineering: theory, tools, exercises
• Balancing new features against digging out of technical debt
• Refactoring the Release Plan continuously
• Leading the Team and yet have the Team remain self-managing
• Working with Business Stakeholders to make them more effective
• Using the 80-20 rule
• Fixing Product Owner impediments
• Scaling & the Chief Product Owner role
• Managing urgent items
• You have to slow down to go fast
• “Things aren’t perfect at my place; what do I do when…?”
• The PO’s goals abd actions in the basic Scrum meetings
• Managing the flow of business information into the Team
• Using the Release Burndown and other reporting

Why attend

Following the course, each participant is enrolled as a CSPO, which includes a one-year membership in the Scrum Alliance, where additional Scrum materials and information are available.

We will also get questions and issues from the group, prioritize them, and cover them as much as possible. We have ready far more material than can be covered in the 2 days, in part to be prepared for the different questions. For half the questions at least, another attendee is thinking “oh, I should have asked that.”

This CSPO course is unique in that we are moving beyond theory, applying the Scrum framework in the course and the workshop in more real-world circumstances. It is designed to bring attendees to a level where they feel comfortable experimenting and improvising in Scrum through the role of Product Owner. Thus, you can help the team be more creative and release more business value.

Regarding the Workshop, see this blog post. The feedback we get is that the workshop is essential in taking the ‘ideas’ of the course and making them ‘real’ via real work (with on-site coaching).

Who should attend

The CSPO is for managers, analysts, product managers, Business Stakeholders, business analysts, and ScrumMasters. And many project managers. In fact, since the PO is integral to the Team, we recommend that the Team also attend. You will leave with solid knowledge of how and why Scrum works. Through practical, hands-on exercises and small-group discussion you will be prepared to plan your first (or next) sprint immediately after this class.

ScrumMasters need this course, because they must coach Product Owners in these skills.

PMPs: You can receive 1 Professional Development Units (PDUs) for this course. And more PDUs if you take the workshop.

Course materials

Participants will receive course materials (not books) at the course. The CSPO course was formulated to train and certify Product Owners and is used worldwide for Product Owner training. In addition, participants should obtain (at their own expense) Agile Project Management with Scrum, by Ken Schwaber, which is required reading for the course. You may also wish to obtain the primary Scrum book, Agile Software Development with SCRUM by Schwaber and Beedle, on which the course is based.

Of course, there will be updated material and training exercises in the course which you cannot get from books.

Join Alex Bolboaca and learn how to adopt unit testing.

About

The first version of this workshop was highly successful during the two year period when it ran as in-house and public event. The second version is based on the feedback acquired during these two years. It now features:
• more advanced content
• more structured learning
• better exercises

For the managers:

You will want to adopt unit testing if:
• Your developers spend a lot of non-billable hours fixing bugs
• Your customers or users are unhappy because they keep finding bugs in the application instead of just using it
• Your team adopted unit tests, but now they are complaining that they slow them down
• Your application is huge and developers cannot modify it fast enough. (Also check the “Dealing with legacy code” class for this part)

Who should attend

Software developers that would like to learn how to avoid introducing mistakes in the software.

Prerequisites

You must be proficient in one of Java, C#, C++, php, Python or Ruby. All examples during the class are in Java, but you will work in your preferred language. You need a laptop with a fully working development environment to use during the class.

Why attend

• You want to avoid development mistakes
• You consider adopting unit testing
• You want to adopt unit testing and would like to avoid common pitfalls
• You would like to simplify your unit tests because they are complicated and slow

Topics covered

• Why Unit Testing?
• Basics of Unit Testing
• How to effectively use an xUnit framework
• State and collaboration tests
• Isolated tests using stubs and mocks
• Unit testing styles: mockist vs. classicist
• Organizing tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics: dealing with large objects, test asynchronous code, testing GUI
• Optional: Dealing with legacy code, Acceptance testing

Agenda

One Day

This version is available if your developers already know how to use an xUnit framework.
• Basics of Unit Testing
• State tests, value domain sampling, stubs
• Collaboration tests, mocks
• Basics of behaviour slicing
• Organize tests for a large system
• Optional: topic based on participant’s choice

Two Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Three Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Day 3:
• Dealing with legacy code
• Write tests on the production code
• Refactor existing tests

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Flavius Stef for the best start (or restart) of your Scrum project!

Who should attend:

All members of software teams, managers.

Why attend:

• Your team has just started or will soon start developing using Scrum
• You want to understand what it means to be agile
• You want clarifications about the various roles in Scrum and how they relate
• Your Scrum meetings are ineffective
• Your Scrum board is unused, almost empty or impossible to decipher
• You want to monitor your process and need some metrics
• You don’t know how to manage the product backlog
• No actions are taken as a result of your retrospectives

This is a hands-on training that aims to teach the Scrum framework with a real example. Teams are encouraged to prepare with examples from their applications, but we can provide an example product to work on.

To achieve optimal results, we recommend the participation of the entire team (Product Owner, programmers, testers, business analysts etc.).

Topics covered:

• Agile Project Management with Scrum
• Iterative, incremental development
• Scrum roles—PO, SM, team member
• Scrum meetings—Release and Sprint planning, Sprint review, Retrospectives, Daily Scrum
• Scrum artifacts—Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Boards, Charts
• User stories and story splitting
• Estimating, planning

Agenda

Day 1
• Quick introduction to Scrum
• Working in agile teams
• Continuous improvement
• Retrospectives
• Intro to Agile Engineering (unit testing, refactoring etc.)
• Q&A, anti-patterns
• Games
• Hands-on work

Day 2
• Agile requirements
• User stories and splitting
• Release Planning
• Sprint planning
• Estimating
• Agile Principles
• Q&A, anti-patterns
• Games
• Hands-on work

Prerequisites

Participants can read before Scrum and XP from the trenches and/or The Scrum Guide.

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Scrum Team doing Planning during the Mosaic Works CSM class of September 2011

Join Joe Little for the best start (or restart) of your Scrum project! Get the complete picture:

• Why does Scrum work
• How does Scrum work
• What are the things you need to do, how, and why in order to obtain repeatable results
• Start (or restart) your project under supervision.

The CSM course was formulated to train and certify ScrumMasters and is used worldwide for ScrumMaster training. All CSM courses are taught by Certified Scrum Trainers. Taking a CSM course and the corresponding evaluation designates you as a Certified ScrumMaster, which indicates that you have been introduced to the basic concepts you need to perform as a ScrumMaster or team member on a Scrum team. This course also satisfies two elements of the CSD track: Scrum Introduction and Elective. Participants will receive Certified ScrumMaster designation from the Scrum Alliance upon completion of an on-line exam. Participants will also receive a one-year membership in the Scrum Alliance, where additional ScrumMaster-only material and information are available.

The Scrum Workshop is a very practical exercise applied on your real project, so the whole team should be present (including the Product Owner and even someone with financial information about the project). You can still get value from this exercise if you cannot do that.

Each Workshop is a little bit different. But the focus is on two things:

• Complete a good (decent) Release Planning for the real project or effort that the team is working on. It is best if the team is just starting the effort. And it is best if the team has access to all the people and resources to make the Release Planning effective. Release Planning includes (over-simplified): Vision, Product Backlog development, Business Value (points), Story Pointing, Risks-dependencies-other, Ordering the work, Deciding the scope-date trade-off, Budget. We also talk about infrastructure, architecture, and design (IAD)
• Complete a version of Sprint Planning. Over-simplified, this includes: Agreeing on the PBIs (product backlog items, or user stories) to commit to in the Sprint, and breaking the Stories into tasks. And fully committing. (I define this as: “We believe, 9 times out of 10, with the usual “stuff happens” around here, we can get all these stories done, in our best professional judgment. And maybe do more.”)

The Workshop is very important because it takes the “theory” of the course, and puts it into practice. So that the stark and real meaning of the ideas becomes so much clearer in the real world of the team’s real work.

The Workshop is done under the guidance of typically two very experienced coaches, who offer as much coaching as it’s appropriate, keeping in mind that too much advice can actually hurt beginners more than help them.
Read more about the class

Live from Joe

Watch our interviews with Joe here.

Join Alex Bolboaca and learn how to adopt unit testing.

About

The first version of this workshop was highly successful during the two year period when it ran as in-house and public event. The second version is based on the feedback acquired during these two years. It now features:
• more advanced content
• more structured learning
• better exercises

For the managers:

You will want to adopt unit testing if:
• Your developers spend a lot of non-billable hours fixing bugs
• Your customers or users are unhappy because they keep finding bugs in the application instead of just using it
• Your team adopted unit tests, but now they are complaining that they slow them down
• Your application is huge and developers cannot modify it fast enough. (Also check the “Dealing with legacy code” class for this part)

Who should attend

Software developers that would like to learn how to avoid introducing mistakes in the software.

Prerequisites

You must be proficient in one of Java, C#, C++, php, Python or Ruby. All examples during the class are in Java, but you will work in your preferred language. You need a laptop with a fully working development environment to use during the class.

Why attend

• You want to avoid development mistakes
• You consider adopting unit testing
• You want to adopt unit testing and would like to avoid common pitfalls
• You would like to simplify your unit tests because they are complicated and slow

Topics covered

• Why Unit Testing?
• Basics of Unit Testing
• How to effectively use an xUnit framework
• State and collaboration tests
• Isolated tests using stubs and mocks
• Unit testing styles: mockist vs. classicist
• Organizing tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics: dealing with large objects, test asynchronous code, testing GUI
• Optional: Dealing with legacy code, Acceptance testing

Agenda

One Day

This version is available if your developers already know how to use an xUnit framework.
• Basics of Unit Testing
• State tests, value domain sampling, stubs
• Collaboration tests, mocks
• Basics of behaviour slicing
• Organize tests for a large system
• Optional: topic based on participant’s choice

Two Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Three Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Day 3:
• Dealing with legacy code
• Write tests on the production code
• Refactor existing tests

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Flavius Stef for the best start (or restart) of your Scrum project!

Who should attend:

All members of software teams, managers.

Why attend:

• Your team has just started or will soon start developing using Scrum
• You want to understand what it means to be agile
• You want clarifications about the various roles in Scrum and how they relate
• Your Scrum meetings are ineffective
• Your Scrum board is unused, almost empty or impossible to decipher
• You want to monitor your process and need some metrics
• You don’t know how to manage the product backlog
• No actions are taken as a result of your retrospectives

This is a hands-on training that aims to teach the Scrum framework with a real example. Teams are encouraged to prepare with examples from their applications, but we can provide an example product to work on.

To achieve optimal results, we recommend the participation of the entire team (Product Owner, programmers, testers, business analysts etc.).

Topics covered:

• Agile Project Management with Scrum
• Iterative, incremental development
• Scrum roles—PO, SM, team member
• Scrum meetings—Release and Sprint planning, Sprint review, Retrospectives, Daily Scrum
• Scrum artifacts—Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Boards, Charts
• User stories and story splitting
• Estimating, planning

Agenda

Day 1
• Quick introduction to Scrum
• Working in agile teams
• Continuous improvement
• Retrospectives
• Intro to Agile Engineering (unit testing, refactoring etc.)
• Q&A, anti-patterns
• Games
• Hands-on work

Day 2
• Agile requirements
• User stories and splitting
• Release Planning
• Sprint planning
• Estimating
• Agile Principles
• Q&A, anti-patterns
• Games
• Hands-on work

Prerequisites

Participants can read before Scrum and XP from the trenches and/or The Scrum Guide.

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Alex Bolboaca and learn how to adopt unit testing.

About

The first version of this workshop was highly successful during the two year period when it ran as in-house and public event. The second version is based on the feedback acquired during these two years. It now features:
• more advanced content
• more structured learning
• better exercises

For the managers:

You will want to adopt unit testing if:
• Your developers spend a lot of non-billable hours fixing bugs
• Your customers or users are unhappy because they keep finding bugs in the application instead of just using it
• Your team adopted unit tests, but now they are complaining that they slow them down
• Your application is huge and developers cannot modify it fast enough. (Also check the “Dealing with legacy code” class for this part)

Who should attend

Software developers that would like to learn how to avoid introducing mistakes in the software.

Prerequisites

You must be proficient in one of Java, C#, C++, php, Python or Ruby. All examples during the class are in Java, but you will work in your preferred language. You need a laptop with a fully working development environment to use during the class.

Why attend

• You want to avoid development mistakes
• You consider adopting unit testing
• You want to adopt unit testing and would like to avoid common pitfalls
• You would like to simplify your unit tests because they are complicated and slow

Topics covered

• Why Unit Testing?
• Basics of Unit Testing
• How to effectively use an xUnit framework
• State and collaboration tests
• Isolated tests using stubs and mocks
• Unit testing styles: mockist vs. classicist
• Organizing tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics: dealing with large objects, test asynchronous code, testing GUI
• Optional: Dealing with legacy code, Acceptance testing

Agenda

One Day

This version is available if your developers already know how to use an xUnit framework.
• Basics of Unit Testing
• State tests, value domain sampling, stubs
• Collaboration tests, mocks
• Basics of behaviour slicing
• Organize tests for a large system
• Optional: topic based on participant’s choice

Two Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Three Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Day 3:
• Dealing with legacy code
• Write tests on the production code
• Refactor existing tests

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Alex Bolboaca and learn how to adopt unit testing.

About

The first version of this workshop was highly successful during the two year period when it ran as in-house and public event. The second version is based on the feedback acquired during these two years. It now features:
• more advanced content
• more structured learning
• better exercises

For the managers:

You will want to adopt unit testing if:
• Your developers spend a lot of non-billable hours fixing bugs
• Your customers or users are unhappy because they keep finding bugs in the application instead of just using it
• Your team adopted unit tests, but now they are complaining that they slow them down
• Your application is huge and developers cannot modify it fast enough. (Also check the “Dealing with legacy code” class for this part)

Who should attend

Software developers that would like to learn how to avoid introducing mistakes in the software.

Prerequisites

You must be proficient in one of Java, C#, C++, php, Python or Ruby. All examples during the class are in Java, but you will work in your preferred language. You need a laptop with a fully working development environment to use during the class.

Why attend

• You want to avoid development mistakes
• You consider adopting unit testing
• You want to adopt unit testing and would like to avoid common pitfalls
• You would like to simplify your unit tests because they are complicated and slow

Topics covered

• Why Unit Testing?
• Basics of Unit Testing
• How to effectively use an xUnit framework
• State and collaboration tests
• Isolated tests using stubs and mocks
• Unit testing styles: mockist vs. classicist
• Organizing tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics: dealing with large objects, test asynchronous code, testing GUI
• Optional: Dealing with legacy code, Acceptance testing

Agenda

One Day

This version is available if your developers already know how to use an xUnit framework.
• Basics of Unit Testing
• State tests, value domain sampling, stubs
• Collaboration tests, mocks
• Basics of behaviour slicing
• Organize tests for a large system
• Optional: topic based on participant’s choice

Two Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Three Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Day 3:
• Dealing with legacy code
• Write tests on the production code
• Refactor existing tests

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Flavius Stef for the best start (or restart) of your Scrum project!

Who should attend:

All members of software teams, managers.

Why attend:

• Your team has just started or will soon start developing using Scrum
• You want to understand what it means to be agile
• You want clarifications about the various roles in Scrum and how they relate
• Your Scrum meetings are ineffective
• Your Scrum board is unused, almost empty or impossible to decipher
• You want to monitor your process and need some metrics
• You don’t know how to manage the product backlog
• No actions are taken as a result of your retrospectives

This is a hands-on training that aims to teach the Scrum framework with a real example. Teams are encouraged to prepare with examples from their applications, but we can provide an example product to work on.

To achieve optimal results, we recommend the participation of the entire team (Product Owner, programmers, testers, business analysts etc.).

Topics covered:

• Agile Project Management with Scrum
• Iterative, incremental development
• Scrum roles—PO, SM, team member
• Scrum meetings—Release and Sprint planning, Sprint review, Retrospectives, Daily Scrum
• Scrum artifacts—Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Boards, Charts
• User stories and story splitting
• Estimating, planning

Agenda

Day 1
• Quick introduction to Scrum
• Working in agile teams
• Continuous improvement
• Retrospectives
• Intro to Agile Engineering (unit testing, refactoring etc.)
• Q&A, anti-patterns
• Games
• Hands-on work

Day 2
• Agile requirements
• User stories and splitting
• Release Planning
• Sprint planning
• Estimating
• Agile Principles
• Q&A, anti-patterns
• Games
• Hands-on work

Prerequisites

Participants can read before Scrum and XP from the trenches and/or The Scrum Guide.

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Alex Bolboaca and learn how to adopt unit testing.

About

The first version of this workshop was highly successful during the two year period when it ran as in-house and public event. The second version is based on the feedback acquired during these two years. It now features:
• more advanced content
• more structured learning
• better exercises

For the managers:

You will want to adopt unit testing if:
• Your developers spend a lot of non-billable hours fixing bugs
• Your customers or users are unhappy because they keep finding bugs in the application instead of just using it
• Your team adopted unit tests, but now they are complaining that they slow them down
• Your application is huge and developers cannot modify it fast enough. (Also check the “Dealing with legacy code” class for this part)

Who should attend

Software developers that would like to learn how to avoid introducing mistakes in the software.

Prerequisites

You must be proficient in one of Java, C#, C++, php, Python or Ruby. All examples during the class are in Java, but you will work in your preferred language. You need a laptop with a fully working development environment to use during the class.

Why attend

• You want to avoid development mistakes
• You consider adopting unit testing
• You want to adopt unit testing and would like to avoid common pitfalls
• You would like to simplify your unit tests because they are complicated and slow

Topics covered

• Why Unit Testing?
• Basics of Unit Testing
• How to effectively use an xUnit framework
• State and collaboration tests
• Isolated tests using stubs and mocks
• Unit testing styles: mockist vs. classicist
• Organizing tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics: dealing with large objects, test asynchronous code, testing GUI
• Optional: Dealing with legacy code, Acceptance testing

Agenda

One Day

This version is available if your developers already know how to use an xUnit framework.
• Basics of Unit Testing
• State tests, value domain sampling, stubs
• Collaboration tests, mocks
• Basics of behaviour slicing
• Organize tests for a large system
• Optional: topic based on participant’s choice

Two Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Three Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Day 3:
• Dealing with legacy code
• Write tests on the production code
• Refactor existing tests

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Join Alex Bolboaca and learn how to adopt unit testing.

About

The first version of this workshop was highly successful during the two year period when it ran as in-house and public event. The second version is based on the feedback acquired during these two years. It now features:
• more advanced content
• more structured learning
• better exercises

For the managers:

You will want to adopt unit testing if:
• Your developers spend a lot of non-billable hours fixing bugs
• Your customers or users are unhappy because they keep finding bugs in the application instead of just using it
• Your team adopted unit tests, but now they are complaining that they slow them down
• Your application is huge and developers cannot modify it fast enough. (Also check the “Dealing with legacy code” class for this part)

Who should attend

Software developers that would like to learn how to avoid introducing mistakes in the software.

Prerequisites

You must be proficient in one of Java, C#, C++, php, Python or Ruby. All examples during the class are in Java, but you will work in your preferred language. You need a laptop with a fully working development environment to use during the class.

Why attend

• You want to avoid development mistakes
• You consider adopting unit testing
• You want to adopt unit testing and would like to avoid common pitfalls
• You would like to simplify your unit tests because they are complicated and slow

Topics covered

• Why Unit Testing?
• Basics of Unit Testing
• How to effectively use an xUnit framework
• State and collaboration tests
• Isolated tests using stubs and mocks
• Unit testing styles: mockist vs. classicist
• Organizing tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics: dealing with large objects, test asynchronous code, testing GUI
• Optional: Dealing with legacy code, Acceptance testing

Agenda

One Day

This version is available if your developers already know how to use an xUnit framework.
• Basics of Unit Testing
• State tests, value domain sampling, stubs
• Collaboration tests, mocks
• Basics of behaviour slicing
• Organize tests for a large system
• Optional: topic based on participant’s choice

Two Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Three Days

Day 1:
• Basics of Unit Testing
• Hand-rolled unit testing framework
• xUnit Frameworks
• State tests, value domain sampling
• Hand-rolled stubs
• Collaboration tests
• Hand-rolled mocks
• Behavior slicing

Day 2:
• Mock framework
• Refactoring tests
• Organize tests for a large system
• Advanced unit testing topics

Day 3:
• Dealing with legacy code
• Write tests on the production code
• Refactor existing tests

Available Discounts

• 5% for a group of ≥3 persons
• 10% for a group of ≥5 persons

For more details regarding our discount offers contact us.

Who should attend: Current or prospective Product Owners, product managers, analysts, software team members.

Why attend: Building a product with a new process can be a daunting prospect. Being asked to serve as the team’s Product Owner can be downright intimidating. You’ve got an idea of what Scrum is, and have read a few articles or books on the topic, but you really don’t know how to start putting that theory into action.

The CSPO course gives you just enough information to understand how Scrum works, but focuses mainly on functioning as the product owner, or customer, for a Scrum team. You will learn about activities such as managing stakeholders, ROI, backlog grooming, creating effective stories, acceptance criteria for stories, defining done, and so on.

Through practical, hands-on exercises and small-group discussion you will be prepared to plan your first (or next) sprint immediately after this class. ScrumMasters can benefit from this course, because they must coach Product Owners in these skills.

Following the course, each participant is enrolled as a CSPO, which includes a one-year membership in the Scrum Alliance, where additional Scrum materials and information are available.

Participants will learn to:

• Plan, initiate and lead a Scrum project
• Develop the initial Product Backlog
• Improve the identification of Business Value
• Establish a shared vision for the entire team
• Generate an agile release plan utilizing user stories and story point estimation
• Manage the Gap between customer expectations and the Team’s ability to deliver
• Improve business value engineering
• Balance new features against digging out of technical debt
• Refactor the Product Backlog continuously
• Lead the Team and yet have the Team remain self-managing
• Work with Stakeholders to make them more effective

Who should attend: all members of software development teams that want to adopt Scrum or have used Scrum for 1-2 years

Why attend: Becoming a member of a Scrum team can be a daunting prospect and being asked to serve as the team’s ScrumMaster can be downright intimidating. You’ve got an idea of what Scrum is and have read a few articles or books on the topic, but you really don’t know how to go about putting that theory into action.

This course focuses on the Scrum framework, including team roles, activities, and artifacts, so that you can be an effective member of a Scrum team.

The CSM course was formulated to train and certify ScrumMasters and it is used worldwide for ScrumMaster training. This class has to cover a specific syllabus provided by Scrum Alliance, but each instructor creates his or her own material, allowing courses to differ based on the strengths, interests, and experiences of the instructor.

All CSM courses are taught by Certified Scrum Trainers. Taking a CSM course and the corresponding evaluation designates you as a Certified ScrumMaster, which indicates that you have been introduced to the concepts you need to perform as a ScrumMaster or team member on a Scrum team. Participants will receive Certified ScrumMaster designation from the Scrum Alliance upon completion of an on-line exam. Participants will also receive a one-year membership in the Scrum Alliance, where additional ScrumMaster-only material and information are available.

Participants Will Learn:

• Practical, project-proven practices
• The essentials of getting a project off on the right foot
• How to write user stories for the product backlog
• Why there’s more to leading a self-organizing team than buying pizza and getting out of the way
• How to help both new and experienced teams be more successful
• How to successfully scale Scrum to large, multi-continent projects with team sizes in the hundreds
• Tips and tricks from the instructors’ years of using Scrum in a wide variety of situations

Who should attend: Software developers that want to learn some basic techniques for changing code they have difficulties understanding and cannot verify.

Why attend:

• To practice techniques for changing legacy code in a low stress environment.

A legacy code retreat has a similar format with a code retreat but attendees work on an existing codebase.

Participants are encouraged to try out techniques like: writing tests on legacy code, test driving changes, refactoring, generating test suites.

Topics covered:

• creating and identifying seams in software (places where we can decouple tightly-coupled modules)
• adding tests
• isolating behavior from frameworks
• introducing mocks
• writing characterization tests

Who should attend: Software developers that need to change code they have difficulties understanding and can’t verify.

Prerequisites: You must know one of Java, C# or php. All examples during the class are in Java, but you will work in your preferred language. You need a laptop with a fully working development environment to use during the class.

Why attend:

• You would like to increase estimates accuracy while developing on a large existing codebase
• You want to learn how to rescue legacy code today so that you avoid introducing bugs or unexpected side effects
• You want to reduce the pain of working on an existing codebase
• You want to add automated tests to an existing codebase

This workshop introduces specific techniques that help developers deal with legacy code. We start with documenting the existing behavior through automated tests. We continue with refactoring the legacy code using the tests as a safety net. Finally we learn how to test drive changes – bug fixes or new features.

Participants apply all techniques on existing codebases and, if possible, on their own codebase.

Topics covered:

• Basic Unit Testing
• Quick techniques for documenting behavior
• Getting the code in a test harness
• Breaking dependencies
• Safe Refactorings