Introduction to Agile Development and Scrum

Get started with using Agile Development and Scrum with this self-paced introductory course! After successfully completing this course, you will be able to embrace the Agile concepts of adaptive planning, iterative development, and continuous improvement - resulting in early deliveries and value to customers. You will look at Scrum as a framework and learn how to apply it alongside Agile. You will also become familiar with related methodologies like Waterfall, Extreme Programming (XP), and Kanban. Apply Agile practices derived from lean manufacturing concepts, like test-driven development. Learn how a scrum team functions. Also learn about the importance of Agile iterative planning and enable yourself to write good user stories and track your team’s progress using a kanban board. Create and refine a product backlog collaboratively with the team and the customer, in a flexible and blameless culture. You'll also learn how to use burndown charts, achieve sprint goals, and conduct the sprint review and retrospective. This approach will lead you to higher levels of efficiency, with the ability to plan and execute sprints with your development team, measuring success with actionable metrics. This course is about more than facts and processes. It is about working collaboratively on a self-organizing team, coached by a scrum master, and building what is needed, rather than simply following a plan. Developed and taught by an experienced Agile practitioner, the course includes hands-on practice through realistic scenario-based labs using GitHub and ZenHub. The course will benefit anyone who wants to get started with working the Agile way or transform the organizational culture to adopt and realize the benefits of Scrum. This includes Project Managers, Product Managers, and Executives. It is particularly suitable for IT practitioners such as software developers, development managers, and IT Scrum Masters.

• Introduction to Agile and Scrum
• In this module, you will be introduced to the philosophy and characteristics of Agile. You will learn about other methodologies including Waterfall, Extreme Programming (XP) and Kanban, and how they relate to Agile. You’ll explore the five practices of working Agile. Next, you’ll get an overview of Scrum as a framework for applying Agile principles to project management. You’ll learn how Scrum benefits the project management process by advocating defined roles, events, and artifacts. You’ll learn how companies can organize for success using Agile, and how team alignment and autonomy contribute to building better systems. You’ll also learn how to recognize and avoid Agile anti-patterns and measure Scrum team health.
• Agile Planning
• In this module, you will learn more details about Agile iterative planning. You will also learn how to create good user stories, estimate and assign story points, build and refine a product backlog, and build a sprint plan. For managing the Agile Plan and user stories, you can use the GitHub Projects Kanban or if you have an official email account, you can create a trial account on ZenHub and set up a Kanban board.
• Daily Execution
• This module describes the daily workflow for executing a sprint plan, including how to determine which story to work on and how to keep the team updated on progress. You will learn what a daily stand-up is and how to run one. You’ll learn how to use burndown charts to forecast the team’s ability to achieve the sprint goal. You’ll learn how to conduct the sprint review and the sprint retrospective. And you’ll find out how to measure success and use actionable metrics to improve the team’s performance.
• [Optional] HONORS Project - Create an Agile Plan with ZenHub