Software engineering is essentially teamwork engineering. Taking a course on Agile software development by yourself is like trying to learn to dribble with a book but without a basketball. Everyone should do drills and practice fundamentals, but in the end some skills can only be acquired by doing them in realistic settings, and Agile software development can only be mastered as a team.
But it takes more energy, commitment, and organization to practice as a team. I surmise this is why two wonderful free resources for Agile training have never been used (as far as I know.) Agile Government Leadership has created two courses as part of its Academy for people and teams who are new to Agile:
- Agile for the Government Product Owner, and
- Agile for the Government Product/Project/Program Manager.
I believe these are great courses; certainly a lot of thought and experience (some mine) from the volunteers on the AGL steering committee went into them. Perhaps because they are completely free people think they are worthless. You can send me $5,000 if it make you feel you are getting more out of them.
The courses take about 15 hours for about 3 weeks for the PM or PO, and some of that time is workshop-hours performed with your whole team. This makes the course both harder and infinitely more valuable than any course you do on your own. When you are seriously ready to lead your organization or team to a new level of productivity, be a leader and initiate your whole team’s commitment to this modest investment in order to start truly getting the benefits of Agile software development.
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