This one-day experiential workshop will equip you with tools to understand who your users are, what they do, what they need, and how your product can deliver maximum value to them.  You will be ready to provide product leadership to your development team, at agile speed.

What you will learn
Through hands-on exercises and simulations, you will learn:

• User Personas
• User Story Crafting
• Kano Analysis
• Paper Prototyping
• Story Sizing and Estimation
• Acceptance Criteria
• Release Planning
• Iteration Planning
• Backlog Creation and Grooming
• Story Mapping
• How to steer a successful agile product release

Who should learn this stuff
This workshop is ideal for agile product owners, product managers, business analysts, and anyone who wants to understand how to gather and manage requirements for an agile development team.  Developers are encouraged to participate in order to experience what it's like to own the product.


Learn from two instructors
Chris Sims and Steve Bockman are collaborating to put on this workshop.  Together they bring diverse experience, and complementary teaching styles to the classroom.

Learn by doing
You don't want to spend a day sitting back listening to someone talk at you, and we wouldn't want to run a class that way.  You will spend the day writing stories, creating personas, calculating business value, and designing and building a product.

Learn in a fun environment
Who wants to be entombed in a corporate training center on a glorious fall day? Class will be held in a bright, cheery room overlooking Redwood City harbor, where you can take your catered lunch out on the deck and get some sun and fresh air. Feel free to dress comfortably (think college campus casual, not casual Friday at Dunder Mifflin or Initech ).

Keep learning after the class
This class comes complete with 2 hours of follow-up coaching from Chris Sims or Steve Bockman. This is two hours of their time that you get to use any way you see fit (note: uses that violate the Geneva Convention or international treaties are prohibited). We'll also be organizing a "class reunion" at a local pub, so you can check in and compare notes about how you've adapted what you learned out in the world.

Instructors

Chris Sims

Chris Sims helps software development teams improve their productivity and happiness. His approach combines experiential training, coaching, and even direct technical contribution.

Chris is the founder of Agile Learning Labs. In addition, he is chair of the IEEE Technical Management Council of Silicon Valley, and is on the board of BayAPLN, the Bay Area chapter of the Agile Project Leadership Network.

Chris is a certified scrum master and practitioner, who has been leading successful agile software projects since the turn of the century. He has made a living in roles such as: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Engineering Manager, Project Manager, C++ Developer, Musician, and Auto Mechanic.

Steve Bockman

Steve Bockman is a certified ScrumMaster, agile coach and innovator who began his career as a software developer in 1977.  He has developed software in the fields of speech recognition, terrain analysis, computer graphics, desktop publishing, industrial automation and web applications.

Steve's conference presentations include: Agile2007, Agile2008, as well as Agile Open California 2007 and 2008.  He has presented for professional organizations including: North Bay Agile, BayXP, Bay Agile Project Leadership Network, and the Bay Area Association of Database Developers.

As the founder of North Bay Agile, a special interest group dedicated to the pursuit and study of Agile software development, Steve continually strives to communicate the essence of Agile development to novices and help advanced practitioners grow their skills.

© 2009 Chris Sims & Agile Learning Labs