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Scrum Training Exercises

Posted by Dan Puckett on Nov 22, 2010

Sections
Process & Practices,
Architecture & Design
Topics
Introducing Agile ,
Agile in the Enterprise ,
Scrum ,
Agile ,
Training / Certification

What are some good training exercises that can help people experience Agile planning, prioritization, burning down, reflecting, and so on?

"scrumnoob" writes:

I am running a 60 minute session in a couple of weeks for some of the employees close to, but not part of my project (Scrum project). What I would like to do is have a 1 or 2 sprint cycle as part of the hour but am lacking the inspiration to think of some backlog items that could be used. The old "make a cup of tea" or "book a holiday" ideas are floating around, but I am wondering if anyone has tried anything that has worked.

"David H" recommends a sixty-minute Scrum exercise that he says was part of the original Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) course material. This Scrum exercise runs through two sprints in an hour, complete with a sprint planning meeting, "daily" Scrum meeting, and a sprint review/demo. This slide deck by Pam Rostal gives the timing for each phase of the exercise and also provides some sample backlogs for the participants to use. "David H" says that the exercise backlog for the "Martian visiting Earth" tourist brochure is particularly popular.

Mark Levison recommends the Agile Games Google group as a good place to find ideas for Agile games. Levison also recommends the Tasty Cupcakes site for new Agile game ideas.

Sometimes a separate exercise is not necessary for effective learning, however. André Heijstek writes:

What I often do in my courses is to treat each course module as a sprint. I maintain a Scrum board with post-its for each module in my slide deck and move the post-its from TO-DO to IN-WORK to DONE (using animated post-its on the slides). When moving to the next topic I also plot the next item on the burn-down chart. This shows the ideas quite clearly. And it has a great side effect. As soon as we're running late, the whole class knows and they understand that they have to help me speed up to get home in time.

By using this method, the structure of the course itself illustrates Scrum principles and techniques.

  • This article is part of a featured topic series on Agile

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1 comment

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use a near life example by Roshan venu Posted

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    use a near life example

    by Roshan venu

    during my training session, i ask the team to build a webpage for NY Yankees. Since its is focussed on IT folks, the audience grasps concepts faster.

    Roshan

    Reply