BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Helping Improve LLC - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://helpingimprove.com X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Helping Improve LLC REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Denver BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:MDT DTSTART:20210314T090000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:MST DTSTART:20211107T080000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:MDT DTSTART:20220313T090000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:MST DTSTART:20221106T080000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:MDT DTSTART:20230312T090000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:MST DTSTART:20231105T080000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:MDT DTSTART:20240310T090000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:MST DTSTART:20241103T080000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Chicago BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:CDT DTSTART:20210314T080000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:CST DTSTART:20211107T070000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:CDT DTSTART:20220313T080000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:CST DTSTART:20221106T070000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:CDT DTSTART:20230312T080000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:CST DTSTART:20231105T070000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:CDT DTSTART:20240310T080000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:CST DTSTART:20241103T070000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230504T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230504T110000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230413T195236Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230413T195236Z UID:10000151-1683194400-1683198000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Amplifying Your Voice in the Community DESCRIPTION:Does the thought of speaking in public make your palms sweat? Is there a voice in your head that saying you’re not “expert-enough” to present at a meetup or conference? In this session we’ll help you discover that you’re more ready to start public speaking than you might think. Leaders can engage with people to listen and explore—even as the featured presenter—to help them become what they can be. If you’re thinking about how to become a speaker in the future\, now’s a good time to start! Allison will share her experience as an introvert and lead activities to get you thinking about what you could share with the community. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/amplifying-your-voice-in-the-community/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Microphone-on-stage-to-give-a-presentation-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88938601071 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230502T083000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230504T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230113T192854Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230504T052927Z UID:10000138-1683016200-1683219600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Agile Leadership: Leading Amazing Teams [LAT] - Virtual DESCRIPTION:Gain critical professional coaching tools\, techniques\, skills\, and ideas that help leaders enable high performing teams.\n\n\nAgile Leadership — Leading Amazing Teams for Breakthrough Results\nLeaders today face shifting challenges when helping teams succeed in our complex world. With increasing speed\, change\, and unknowns\, leaders can’t rely on ‘knowing everything’ — there is too much happening. While many leaders realize this\, acting on it to create an environment where teams can thrive and deliver is not simple. Leaders need to bring new and deeper levels of skill and engagement to meet these challenges. \nHigh-performance is more than a catchphrase\, it is a state where teams are self-organizing to solve problems and deliver value to customers. Self-organizing and self-managing are not the same. The process of helping teams reach and maintain high-performance state varies from team to team and organization to organization\, however\, the foundational skills leaders need do not change. \nLeadership – leading to create real empowered high-performance teams. While we want teams to solve many of their own challenges\, leaders play a critical part in this process by helping teams continue to improve and develop. Great leaders engage with people and teams to address issues like conflict head-on\, helping teams find ways to gain from conflict and improve. They don’t have the luxury of telling teams “you are empowered” and walking away – they must do ‘just enough’ to help teams thrive. This requires leaders to have the awareness and protocols in place to know when they might be limiting the team. Agile Leadership — Leading Amazing Teams brings critical tools\, techniques\, skills\, and ideas from professional coaching\, brain-based training\, neuroscience\, leadership\, change management\, and much more to help leaders succeed. \nWhat to Expect\nWe take training and learning seriously and take your decision to spend time advancing your skills and improving yourself seriously. As such\, we use the latest training approaches and techniques\, and bring energy and fun\, to ensure you have the best possible experience and learn as much as possible. \n\n Brain-based training to dramatically increase learning and retention (both instructors are Certified Training From the Back of the Room Trainers)\n Expect to be challenged and look at ways you need to change to help others improve\n Opportunities throughout the course to focus on your real-world situations\n Advanced and cutting-edge skills and techniques to deal with the specific challenges you are facing\n In-depth engagement with your instructors and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture\, this class is NOT for you!\n Interactive\, fun\, and experiential learning — increase safety and retention – laughing helps learning\n Two Instructors — This course is co-taught as a partnership by two instructors (Tricia Broderick and Jake Calabrese)\, providing additional depth and insight\, varied experiences and learning opportunities\, and real-time lessons around co-leadership\n\nLearning Objectives\n\nUnderstand the connection between leadership and coaching to achieve high performance\nExplain the value of agile coaching and leading with coaching in today’s world\nExplore and practice using a coaching framework to find your leadership stance\nLearn to assess the level of coaching a team requires and when to ask for help\nDemonstrate how to kick off a new team and provide them with a foundation for success\nApply multiple coaching tools and techniques\, in various situations\, to help individuals and teams create and maintain a high performing team\nDispel common Agile Leadership Myths to address real team challenges\nLearn about and practice shifting your mindset to approach leadership challenges from new perspectives that empower teams\nExplore your ability and capacity as a coach and leader and determine what areas you need to improve\nExplore challenges with organizational agility and multiple teams — and opportunities to address the challenges\nExperience new ideas to help teams embrace healthy conflict as normal\nDemonstrate Training from the Back of the Room\, Brain-based training techniques that you can use as a leader\, manager\, or coach to help your teams continuously improve\nApply practices & skills from the field of Professional Coaching and learn how they are critical to your success as a leader\nEstablish and refine a leadership backlog to apply when you return to work\n\nWho Should Attend\n\nAnyone who is leading teams or groups in an organization\nLeaders involved with helping teams succeed\, including leadership teams\, delivery teams\, Scrum teams\, agile teams\, etc.\nDirectors\, VPs\, managers\, development managers\, agile coaches\, executives\, aspiring leaders (with team experience)\n\nDetails\nLength: 3-days + pre-reading assignments that we will use during class \nLocation: Virtual\, via Zoom with Miro for interactive exercises \nLevel: Intermediate to Advanced \nPrerequisites\n\nAnyone who is leading teams or groups in an organization\nLeaders involved with helping teams succeed\, including leadership teams\, delivery teams\, Scrum teams\, agile teams\, etc.\nDirectors\, VPs\, managers\, development managers\, agile coaches\, executives\, aspiring leaders (with team experience)\n\nCourse Credit & Certifications\n\n27 PMI PDUs\n27 Scrum Alliance SEUs\nICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC)\nScrum Alliance Certified Agile Leadership – Teams (CAL-T)\n\nCourse Facilitators \nLeading Amazing teams is co-trained by Jake Calabrese\, Helping Improve and Tricia Broderick\, Ignite Insight + Innovation. \nJake Calabrese\nJake is a coach\, trainer\, and coach-consultant working to help organizations meet the promise of agile by going beyond agile practices to address culture challenges and help teams and leaders reach and maintain high performance. He has unique expertise as an Organization & Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC)\, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)\, Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)\, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC)\, and as a trainer and coach for Agile Companies (helping non-software organizations use agile). Jake created the AgileSafari cartoon series to introduce humor into the more challenging issues we have to tackle. Jake uses ideas from various areas of thinking such as: Lean\, professional coaching\, neuroscience\, psychology\, facilitation\, brain-based training\, improvisation\, agile\, kanban\, and scrum. Jake regularly speaks at local and national conferences including Mile High Agile\, Scrum Gathering\, and Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. \n \nTricia Broderick\nTricia Broderick is a leadership and organizational advisor. Her transformational leadership at all levels of an organization\, ignites the growth of leaders and high performing teams to deliver quality outcomes. Tricia has more than twenty years of experience in the software development industry. She is a highly-rated trainer\, coach\, facilitator and motivational keynote speaker. Beyond her extensive knowledge and skills\, her biggest offering is inspiring people to believe anything is possible. Her aim is to create connections and environments that challenge and support people in an authentic\, vulnerable\, engaging and fun way. In 2020\, she founded Ignite Insight & Innovation. \n \n\n\nCancellations and Transfers\nPlease email us to request a transfer or to cancel. Refunds will be provided with 30 days notice of cancellation. One-time transfer to a future class will be provided with 14 days notice\, for free. Transfers requests with less than 14 days of notice or additional transfers (after the first transfer)\, will incur a $250 fee. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/agile-leadership-leading-amazing-teams-lat-virtual-6/ CATEGORIES:Courses,Leading Amazing Teams ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/c3a42b63ff538f79eef1a238b969f5fd-MYF3CX.tmp_.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230427T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230427T130000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230320T164824Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230320T165142Z UID:10000150-1682596800-1682600400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Just Say "No" to Handoffs DESCRIPTION:Many organizations want efficiency and seek to reduce waste. But as Allen Ward pointed out\, “What is the most fundamental waste in conventional companies? Hand-offs.” In their pursuit of efficiency\, most organizations actually increase the number of handoffs\, making things worse. This happens when people misunderstand the nature and cost of handoffs. In this session\, we will discuss what a handoff is and how it creates waste. You’ll learn to spot handoffs in your organization and explore what you can do to reduce them. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/no-to-handoffs/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/no_handoff.png LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82559284338 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230419T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230419T130000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230317T204430Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230317T233533Z UID:10000146-1681905600-1681909200@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Facilitating a Product Priority Alignment Workshop DESCRIPTION:One of the largest problems in organizations\, is a lack of alignment and prioritization around work. There are many challenges around solving this problem. Factors that impact the ability to align and prioritize include\, projects\, products\, the size of pieces of work people see as valuable\, budgeting processes\, alignment within the organization on direction – and many more. In this session\, we will walk through an approach to facilitating a multi-stakeholder Product Prioritization Workshop. This type of session can be used to start to find alignment across a department\, division and can be scaled to run for an entire organization. We will work through some key elements\, explore the challenges\, and discuss potential outcomes. Note that the scope of this session will focus on product management and minimum marketable features. We will point out some ways to use this outside of this scope\, as time allows. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/facilitating-a-product-priority-alignment-workshop/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/No-Prioritization-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82407770152 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230417T083000 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230418T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230113T192849Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230418T174540Z UID:10000134-1681720200-1681837200@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Advanced Certified Scrum Master [A-CSM] - Agile Facilitation DESCRIPTION:Looking for an interactive\, fun\, interesting course focused not just on answers but on how to engage others and tap into their knowledge?\n\n\nAdvanced Certified Scrum Master – Agile Facilitation\nWhen working in organizations\, we often hear the question\, “How do we help our teams improve?” Facilitation skills play a crucial role in this process. They help in more subtle and lasting ways than using positional power to tell people what to do. One of the critical challenges is learning how to help bring people together to deliver value without taking ownership. Bringing people together goes beyond getting consensus. Getting to collaboration means tapping into the knowledge and wisdom of the entire team. \nAdvanced Certified Scrum Master® (A-CSM℠) – Agile Facilitation helps ScrumMasters and other Agile leaders with the real day-to-day challenges of helping teams and organizations grow and improve. Throughout the course\, you will use hands-on\, engaging exercises to learn and expand your knowledge of how to: \n\nFacilitate better dialogue between the Product Owner\, team members\, customers\, stakeholders\, and executives.\nRespond confidently when encountering resistance to change\, lack of engagement\, low motivation\, and people’s unavailability.\nTroubleshoot agile challenges and issues – in ways that create more learning.\nIncrease engagement to encourage greater accountability\, commitment\, and buy-in.\nHave valuable agile scaling conversations.\n\nThroughout this course\, you will work through exercises based on common agile and organizational challenges. You will have the opportunity to design and facilitate sessions\, assess and explore conflict models\, assess areas for your own personal development (which is critical for leaders)\, and experience a live professional coaching session to begin to understand the power of professional coaching for leaders and ScrumMasters. \n\n\nWho Should Attend\nTypical attendees include ScrumMasters\, manages\, agile coaches\, project managers\, product owners/managers\, facilitators\, and agile team members. \nWe welcome anyone who wants to level up their facilitation skills or incorporate new leadership approaches\, including: \n\nLeaders and others in the organization who are looking for ways to tap into more of their people’s knowledge\nAnyone who wants to explore new approaches and concepts to help improve as a leader\nThose interested in learning how to use facilitation techniques to increase team engagement\nIndividuals who understand the basics of scrum and want to look at root cause issues behind surface level challenges\nPeople with an interest in improving themselves so they are not – inadvertently – the impediment to progress\n\n\n\nLearning Objectives\n\nUnderstand how facilitation helps leaders achieve high-performance teams\nExplain the value of facilitation and all aspects involved in great facilitation (and learn why it is not the same as ‘leading the meeting’)\nExamine common facilitation challenges to improve your results\nAnalyze challenges and break assumptions to identify the real issues slowing you and your team’s down\nIdentify key aspects of what it means to be a team leader and how you can leverage those skills\nDiscover what drives your team towards shared ownership\nDefine what it means to be a high-performance team and factors to focus on to help teams improve\nPractice designing\, facilitating\, and evaluating several events using multiple facilitation tools and techniques\nExplore key scrum challenges and gain techniques to deal with topics such as conflict\, listening\, collaboration\, and decision making\nRecognize various scaling approaches and discuss when to scale\nObserve and evaluate the differences between coaching and other approaches\nEvaluate how engineering principles and practices can help teams collaborate and deliver value\nLearn new ways to improve how you listen\, how you can stop blocking your listening\, and techniques to have hard conversations\n\n\n\nWhat to Expect\nWe take training and learning seriously\, whether in-person or virtual\, and respect the investment of both time and money you are making to advance your skills. We have significant experience creating engaging and valuable training experiences and believe in building instructor-led sessions that don’t rely on pre-recorded video or extensive slides. \nWhether you choose in-person or virtual instruction\, you can expect: \n\nBrain-friendly\, experiential training to dramatically increase learning and retention. Our aim is a class that’s extremely engaging\, interesting\, and applicable\, taught by instructors practiced in neuroscience-based training methods.\nColor\, in-depth printed workbooks provided for all students. For virtual courses\, we ship worksbooks direct to your home (or other location).\nLearning canvasses\, interactive discussions\, and answers to reality-based questions beyond the theory.\nOpportunities for challenging work throughout the course that focus on your real-world situations.\nIn-depth engagement with your instructor and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture (or to watch your instructor click through endless slides)\, this class is NOT for you!\n\nWe’re happy to walk you through a live training session to illustrate how we teach and answer any questions.  We offer this course publicly and privately for your organization. Currently\, public classes are running virtually to accommodate people from multiple locations. If you are interested in a private class for your organization\, please contact us to discuss options. \n\n\nDetails\nLength\, Level & Credit\nLength: 2-days + prework \nLevel: Intermediate \nCourse Credit: \n\n16 PMI PDUs\n16 Scrum Alliance® SEUs\nQualified to apply for the Scrum Alliance – Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (A-CSM)\n\nPrerequisites\n\nAnyone interested in learning these practices and ideas with a mindset open to new concepts (skeptical is still okay as long as you are open)\nFor the A-CSM Certification\, see the Certification Requirements below\n\n\n\nA-CSM Certification Requirements\nThe course meets the learning objectives for the Scrum Alliance Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (A-CSM) Certification Training. This class is one of the requirements to receive the A-CSM certification. To qualify\, you must: \n\nHave an active Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) certification with the Scrum Alliance.\nComplete the class prework.\nAttend and participate in the entire A-CSM class.\nDocument at least 12 months of experience as a ScrumMaster on your Scrum Alliance Profile. Note: If you do not meet this requirement\, you can take the class and document the experience as you get it. You will not receive the certification until the documentation is complete.\n\nThe A-CSM is an advanced course on the path to certification as a Certified Scrum Professional. Read more about the A-CSM and Scrum Alliance Certification process or read all of the A-CSM Learning Objectives. \n\n\n\n\nCourse Facilitators \n\n\n\nJake Calabrese\nJake is a coach\, trainer\, and coach-consultant working to help organizations meet the promise of agile by going beyond agile practices to address culture challenges and help teams and leaders reach and maintain high performance. He has unique expertise as an Organization & Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC)\, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)\, Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)\, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC)\, and as a trainer and coach for Agile Companies (helping non-software organizations use agile). Jake created the AgileSafari cartoon series to introduce humor into the more challenging issues we have to tackle. Jake uses ideas from various areas of thinking such as: Lean\, professional coaching\, neuroscience\, psychology\, facilitation\, brain-based training\, improvisation\, agile\, kanban\, and scrum. Jake regularly speaks at local and national conferences including Mile High Agile\, Scrum Gathering\, and Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. \n \n\n\nCancellations and Transfers\nPlease email us to request a transfer or to cancel. Refunds will be provided with 30 days notice of cancellation. One-time transfer to a future class will be provided with 14 days notice\, for free. Transfers requests with less than 14 days of notice or additional transfers (after the first transfer)\, will incur a $250 fee. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/advanced-certified-scrum-master-a-csm-agile-facilitation/ CATEGORIES:Agile Facilitation Training with A-CSM,Courses ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/493b38e8044b4e57f1bec4231b2fee6b-S6P1wU.tmp_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230411T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230411T120000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230317T225651Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230317T225651Z UID:10000147-1681210800-1681214400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Don't Take Yes for an Answer DESCRIPTION:Working together effectively relies on people being able to say both “yes” and “no.” But when was the last time you said “no” to your boss? And when was the last time someone gave you a “counterfeit yes” or the “corporate nod” and didn’t follow through with what they agreed to? This session will explore how power and positional authority affect people’s ability to say no. We will also introduce three techniques to help you know that when someone says “yes\,” they mean it. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/dont-take-yes-for-an-answer-2/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/dont_take_yes.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82781999227 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230404T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230404T120000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230316T192928Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230316T192928Z UID:10000145-1680606000-1680609600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Regenerative Change DESCRIPTION:Are you sometimes tired from the effort needed to become more Agile? Do you or your team avoid improvements that require more than one sprint to make? Continuous improvement depends upon a willingness to change plus energy\, which changes frequently for us humans! A lack of energy or willingness to change can show up as resistance and be difficult to work with. What if improving could feel easier? In this session\, Allison Pollard shares a visual technique to see where the energy for a change is and help figure out what to do next. Learn how to work with your change style rather than against it\, and discover how to generate more willingness and energy for change within your team. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/regenerative-change/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/AdobeStock_565159863-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84570009995 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230404T084500 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230405T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230113T192849Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230405T170006Z UID:10000133-1680597900-1680714000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Certified ScrumMaster® [CSM] Training - Virtual DESCRIPTION:Learn the core elements of Scrum and the ScrumMaster role and how Scrum helps teams thrive so they can deliver for customers.\n\n\nCertified ScrumMaster® Training \nA ScrumMaster is someone who works to help the Scrum Team and the organization continuously improve. This work includes helping to remove organizational impediments that slow the team down\, or making the impediments transparent (everyone agrees they are okay going slower). They are not a project manager\, given they are not accountable for delivery of a project. Instead they are accountable to help everyone on the team improve and help create an environment and structure where they can thrive and deliver for customers. \nStudents will work on engaging exercises and a simulation (to keep things fun and interesting) throughout the class. These activities provide opportunities to think and experience Scrum concepts by working on them in small groups. Throughout the course\, we will dig into real life situations and tackle tough questions. Our approach is reality based\, and we expect students to push back and challenge concepts that don’t work in their organization. Expect to work in various groups and be engaged throughout the course. We never use slides – so if you planned for a nap\, this is the wrong class for you. \nWhat is Scrum?\nScrum is an agile framework used to get work done. Scrum works in a variety of situations\, but it thrives when either the work or the environment is complex and not as predicable as we would like. Scrum focuses on delivering incrementally in small chunks\, to allow us to learn more and adapt\, rather than just continuing to deliver things that are no longer needed or perhaps never were. \nScrum is based on the principles of inspection\, adaptation\, and transparency. These three principles are the foundation to being success in the face of complexity. Transparency allows people to see issues\, challenges\, and places that can be improved. Inspection and adaptation focus on continuous learning and improvement. Scrum consists of a number of events\, artifacts\, jobs to be done\, and practices. You can read more about Scrum in the Scrum Guide\, which is free to read or download. \nWho Should Attend\nThis course should be attended by anyone who wants a foundational knowledge of scrum and what scrum is in practice. \n\nScrumMasters\, Agile Coaches\, Product Owners\nScrum team members\, agile team members\nArchitects\, business analysts\, database administrators\, developers\, operations and support\, quality assurance testers\, usability specialists\, etc.\nManagers\, directors\, and others tasked with helping teams succeed with scrum and agile (very hard to do if you do not understand it)\nAnyone outside of software or IT: Our CSM class covers topics and examples that are applicable to those outside of software. We also offer training specifically geared to this group. See our Agile Beyond Software course for more information.\n\nWhat to Expect\nWe take training and learning seriously. We respect the investment of both time and money that you are making to advance your skills. As such\, we use the latest training approaches and techniques. We also bring energy and fun to ensure you have the best possible experience and learn as much as possible. In this course\, you can expect: \n\nBrain-friendly training to dramatically increase learning and retention (instructors are Certified Training from the Back of the Room Trainers).\nOpportunities throughout the course to focus on your real-world situations.\nIn-depth engagement with your instructors and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture (we use zero slides)\, this class is NOT for you!\nInteractive\, fun\, and experiential learning — increasing safety and retention — laughing helps learning.\nChallenging work with others that focuses on your real organizational issues.\n\nLearning Objectives\n\nWhat is agile and why does it matter: Learn how to discuss agile and scrum with others in your organization and explain why agile is useful and in what contexts.\nDiscuss how complexity and empiricism impact our business decisions and impact our success.\nAnalyze agile principles and values as well as lean principles to understand which are most valuable to you and consider how you could apply them in real life.\nLearn the differences between doing agile practices and being an agile organization.\nPractice using scrum with a simulation where you work as a small team (3-6 people) to create a product.\nLearn the ins-and-outs of scrum events (sprint\, sprint planning\, daily scrum\, sprint review\, sprint retrospective).\nLearn how scrum artifacts and supporting practices help you be successful as well as tips and tricks for doing them well (product backlog\, sprint backlog\, sprint goal\, product goal\, definition of done\, definition of ready\, product increment\, etc.).\nUnderstand what each of the three jobs (not titles) in scrum are\, how they work together\, what they are accountable for\, and what to avoid.\nExplore why scrum values mean little without focusing on the behaviors that support them.\nTrue leadership and servant leadership – what does it mean to lead?\nReality – we expect you to ask the tough questions. We expect you to bring up situations where scrum did not work for you.\nUncover the role of the ScrumMaster regarding impediments and how to first ask the team to solve issues then make the costs transparent!\nReview additional approaches such as facilitation and professional coaching to understand new ways to engage people and teams.\nDiscuss reality: We don’t tell you to “trust us” or include “agile is cool” as a reason to use agile. We EXPECT you to ask hard questions\, as long as you are open to digging into the answers. Scrum is NOT a silver-bullet\, nor is agile. They still require hard work.\n\nWho Should Attend\nThis course should be attended by anyone who wants a foundational knowledge of scrum and what scrum is in practice. \n\nScrumMasters\, Agile Coaches\, Product Owners\nScrum team members\, agile team members\nArchitects\, business analysts\, database administrators\, developers\, operations and support\, quality assurance testers\, usability specialists\, etc.\nManagers\, directors\, and others tasked with helping teams succeed with scrum and agile (very hard to do if you do not understand it)\nAnyone outside of software or IT: Our CSM class covers topics and examples that are applicable to those outside of software. We also offer training specifically geared to this group. See our Agile Beyond Software course for more information.\n\nDetails\nCourse Length: 4 1/2 day sessions (2 full days total) 2-days + pre-work \nLevel: Introductory to Intermediate (ask about more in-depth versions) \nPrerequisites\n\nAn interest in learning and discovering new ideas\nFor the CSM Certification\, see the Certification Requirements section\n\nCourse Credit\n\n16 PMI PDUs\n16 Scrum Alliance SEUs\nQualified to take the CSM Exam (exam fee is included in the course fee)\n\nCertification Requirements\nThe course meets the learning objectives for the Scrum Alliance Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) Certification Training. This class is one of the requirements to receive the CSM certification from Scrum Alliance. To qualify\, you must: \n\nComplete the class prework.\nAttend and participate in the entire CSM class.\nComplete and pass the CSM exam after completing the class. We will submit your name to Scrum Alliance® after completing the class and you can create a profile and take the exam at that time. We cover everything you need to pass the exam in the course.\n\nCourse Facilitator\nJake Calabrese\nJake is a coach\, trainer\, and coach-consultant working to help organizations meet the promise of agile by going beyond agile practices to address culture challenges and help teams and leaders reach and maintain high performance. He has unique expertise as an Organization & Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC)\, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)\, Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)\, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC)\, and as a trainer and coach for Agile Companies (helping non-software organizations use agile). Jake created the AgileSafari cartoon series to introduce humor into the more challenging issues we have to tackle. Jake uses ideas from various areas of thinking such as: Lean\, professional coaching\, neuroscience\, psychology\, facilitation\, brain-based training\, improvisation\, agile\, kanban\, and scrum. Jake regularly speaks at local and national conferences including Mile High Agile\, Scrum Gathering\, and Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. \n\n\nCancellations and Transfers\nPlease email us to request a transfer or to cancel. Refunds will be provided with 30 days notice of cancellation. One-time transfer to a future class will be provided with 14 days notice\, for free. Transfers requests with less than 14 days of notice or additional transfers (after the first transfer)\, will incur a $250 fee. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/certified-scrummaster-csm-training-virtual-7/ CATEGORIES:Certified ScrumMaster,Courses ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/969a11b325505cb1fc6d267abf1a2018-wHTxRk.tmp_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230327T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230327T140000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230214T060423Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230214T061235Z UID:10000143-1679922000-1679925600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:How does 50 stakeholders + 1 Product Backlog = No Problem DESCRIPTION:Okay\, it may be a problem\, but maybe not as big of a problem as you expected. This issue of so many stakeholders and so little time is and will always be a problem. We will always have more ideas than we will have people to attempt to act on them. A key part of managing this type of backlog situation is to start to engage stakeholders in the process. This session will look at what happens when one person tries to manage all of this themselves\, what it means to engage stakeholders transparently. We will outline a decent flow of work from stakeholders to the product backlog and what this means for priorities. Finally we will look at stakeholder backlog management and how that might lead to” “no problem” or at least less of one! URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/how-does-50-stakeholders-1-product-backlog-no-problem/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/AdobeStock_124279995-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89249669613 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230321T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230321T110000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230209T134707Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230209T134707Z UID:10000141-1679392800-1679396400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Thinking Differently About Behavior Change DESCRIPTION:Making your organization better requires people to behave differently. Whether it’s applying Test-Driven Development\, sending out meeting agendas in advance\, or putting the new cover sheets on their TPS reports\, there’s something that the people you work with could be doing to be more effective. Yet many change efforts fail because people don’t seem to buy in to these new ways of working (even after attending training). This session introduces a way of thinking about what influences behavior: What keeps the current ones in place and what could enable the new ones you want. We’ll explore ways to encourage people to “act their way to a new way of thinking” instead of the other way around. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/thinking-differently-about-behavior-change/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/old_ways_new_doors-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81121137226 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230316T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230316T110000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230216T210053Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230216T210053Z UID:10000144-1678960800-1678964400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:3 Problems Everyone has with Working Agreements – How to Solve Them DESCRIPTION:Your team created working agreements but doesn’t really use them. They have perpetual issues that working agreements don’t seem to help them tackle as a team. A new person joins the team after working agreements have been established. We’ll explore these common scenarios and how to level up your working agreements. An improved atmosphere of psychological safety and co-responsibility ARE possible! URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/3-problems-everyone-has-with-working-agreements-how-to-solve-them/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/AdobeStock_472875002-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88542669703 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230307T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230307T120000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230214T052733Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230214T053049Z UID:10000142-1678186800-1678190400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Projects vs Product Management: Which is Best? DESCRIPTION:Delivering value via projects can be quite different than delivering via product backlogs. Projects and products are often not clearly defined or even discussed clearly. In this session we will align on what projects and products (and product backlogs) are and how they relate. We will dig into the challenges that come from placing long term bets\, why having options is better\, and how to stop gambling. And yes that last part is ALL about products and projects. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/projects-vs-product-management-which-is-best/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/AdobeStock_567937368.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88993579732 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230301T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230301T130000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230208T133130Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230208T133420Z UID:10000139-1677672000-1677675600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Don't Take Yes for an Answer DESCRIPTION:Working together effectively relies on people being able to say both “yes” and “no.” But when was the last time you said “no” to your boss? And when was the last time someone gave you a “counterfeit yes” and didn’t follow through with what they agreed to? This session will explore how power and positional authority affect people’s ability to say no. We will also introduce three techniques to help you know that when someone says “yes\,” they mean it. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/dont-take-yes-for-an-answer/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/dont_take_yes.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89279700774 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230221T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230221T110000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230112T025939Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230112T025939Z UID:10000132-1676973600-1676977200@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Don’t Go Chasing Competitors’ Features Like a Waterfall DESCRIPTION:Company X delivered an innovative new feature\, and now it’s a high priority for your team to deliver something similar. Seeing another company’s solution can push us to focusing on our speed of delivery. However\, neglecting discovery work can lead to a mediocre customer response to our feature launch. This session will look at idea validation speed and the 3 types of assumptions we make when trying to catch up to our competitors. Discover what these assumptions look like in feature delivery and how to recognize which ones are the riskiest. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/dont-go-chasing-competitors-features-like-a-waterfall/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/AdobeStock_56613881-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84417494854 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230215T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230215T130000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230110T061249Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230110T173906Z UID:10000128-1676462400-1676466000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Why Explaining Agile to Managment Doesn't Have to Suck DESCRIPTION:The idea of explaining agile to management is tricky in many ways.  One of the first things to do is to clarify assumptions. What and who is “management”\, what do they understand about agile\, what do we understand about business\, and what is important to them. These are quite often assumptions\, not facts.  Then\, we need to look at options to explain agile in a way align with the facts we know and what is important.  Simple. And who knows… maybe “management” is not the issue. \n  URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/why-explaining-agile-to-managment-doesnt-have-to-suck/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Joy-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86437112960 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230213T084500 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230214T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20220805T224305Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230214T223921Z UID:10000112-1676277900-1676394000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Certified Scrum Product Owner [CSPO®] Training DESCRIPTION:Learn the how the Scrum Product Owner (Scrum’s version of a Product Manager) engages with stakeholders & helps the Scrum Team deliver value.\n\n\nCertified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO®) Training\nThe product owner\, in scrum\, is accountable for maximizing the value for that product\, through the work of the scrum team. The product owner is scrum’s name for a product manager. The product owner engages with customers\, other stakeholders\, and the scrum team to create a product backlog and to prioritize the work in the product backlog. The scrum product owner’s approach to doing this work differs in a few key ways from older\, less flexible approaches. \nSpecifically\, the product owner: \n\nclearly articulates and communicates the product vision or goal. The scrum team\, which includes the people building the product or service\, understand what they are building and why.\nprioritizes the backlog by ordering all items against each other. There is not two “#1s” or ten. The backlog items are ordered as 1\, 2\, 3\, 4\, 5\, … 40 … and so on. They make decisions about what is more or less important.\ncreates transparency around the product backlog and the product backlog items\, so that it is visible and available to everyone involved.\n\nWhile these ideas are often what people aim for or espouse to\, the scrum product owner does them. Without transparency of work\, clear decisions on priorities\, and clarity of goal\, we can’t expect teams to be engaged and deliver. The scrum product owner understands this and is accountable to provide these to the scrum team and organization. \nThroughout the course\, you will have an opportunity to engage in practical\, reality-based work with small groups. Explore what the product owner is accountable for in the scrum framework\, learn new ways to engage customers to understand what they truly need\, and create product backlog items and refine them. You will have the opportunity to dig into the tough questions about project vs product thinking and create dialogue in your organization about the problem of too much work in process. \n\n\nWhat is Scrum?\nScrum is an agile framework used to get work done. Scrum works in a variety of situations\, but it thrives when either the work or the environment is complex and not as predicable as we would like. Scrum focuses on delivering incrementally in small chunks\, to allow us to learn more and adapt\, rather than just continuing to deliver things that are no longer needed or perhaps never were. \nScrum is based on the principles of inspection\, adaptation\, and transparency. These three principles are the foundation to being success in the face of complexity. Transparency allows people to see issues\, challenges\, and places that can be improved. Inspection and adaptation focus on continuous learning and improvement. Scrum consists of a number of events\, artifacts\, jobs to be done\, and practices. You can read more about Scrum in the Scrum Guide\, which is free to read or download. \n\n\nWho Should Attend\nThis course should be attended by anyone who wants to understand what the product owner role is and how the product owner does their job. \n\nProduct Owners\, Product Managers\, Business Analysts\, QA Testers\nAgile Coaches\, Scrum Masters \nScrum team members\, agile team members\nManagers\, directors\, and others tasked with helping teams succeed with scrum and agile (very hard to do if you do not understand it)\nAnyone outside of software or IT: Our product owner training covers topics and examples that are applicable to those outside of software. We also offer training specifically geared to product management and product ownership outside of software\n\n\n\nWhat to Expect\nWe take training and learning seriously. We respect the investment of both time and money that you are making to advance your skills. As such\, we use the latest training approaches and techniques. We also bring energy and fun to ensure you have the best possible experience and learn as much as possible. In this course\, you can expect: \n\nBrain-friendly training to dramatically increase learning and retention (instructors are Certified Training from the Back of the Room Trainers).\nOpportunities throughout the course to focus on your real-world situations.\nIn-depth engagement with your instructors and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture (we use zero slides)\, this class is NOT for you!\nInteractive\, fun\, and experiential learning — increasing safety and retention — laughing helps learning.\nChallenging work with others that focuses on your real organizational issues.\n\n\n\nLearning Objectives\n\nExamine where typical product owner (product manager) roles align with the Scrum Framework\nCompare the types of business decisions you and your organization make and decide if those are sufficient\nIllustrate how risks and assumptions are handled in Scrum by product owners (product managers); summarize how agile adds value and the types of value\nReview common reasons why visions and product goals are not motivating and discuss characteristics that make up good visions\nCompare types of stakeholders and contrast stakeholder analysis approaches\nLearn how customer segmentation is often done wrong and a better approach to understanding customer needs\nAnalyze a case study for stakeholders jobs\, pains and gains\, and review the impact in your work\nLearn the key attributes of a product backlog and analyze a bad product backlog and find errors\nExplore the differences between products and projects and how they impact risk\nUncover the simplicity and challenge of handling multiple products in one backlog with one or more teams\n\nTake an in-depth look at backlog refinement and what it means to have backlog items ready for sprint planning\n\nIllustrate the typical problems with ‘epics’ and why they don’t typically add any value; then learn about a better option to help slice epics\n\nAnalyze a project request for valuable features\, then create detailed assessments and a feature backlog\n\nBreak down features into stories and compile a list of user stories\n\nSlice user stories into smaller parts\, using multiple refinement approaches; explain what a vertical slice is and its value\n\nLearn exactly what the definition of done should be\, why it is challenging\, and understand the pros and cons of multiple definitions of done\n\nLearn why a product backlog is almost never sufficient and how roadmaps\, release maps\, and Product Boards present much more clarity and content for teams\, product owners (product managers)\, and stakeholders — and how to create one\n\n\n\nDetails\nCourse Length: 2 full day sessions 8:30AM-5:00PM (Verify the time zone listed for this class) (a total of 2 days ) + pre-work \nLevel: Introductory to Intermediate (ask about more in-depth versions) \nPrerequisites\n\nAn interest in learning and discovering new ideas\nDesire to engage with other and participate throughout the course\n\nCourse Credit\n\n15 PMI PDUs\n15 Scrum Alliance SEUs\nQualified to become a CSPO (registration fee is included in the course fee)\n\n\n\nCourse Facilitator \n\n\n\nJake Calabrese\nJake is a coach\, trainer\, and coach-consultant working to help organizations meet the promise of agile by going beyond agile practices to address culture challenges and help teams and leaders reach and maintain high performance. He has unique expertise as an Organization & Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC)\, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)\, Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)\, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC)\, and as a trainer and coach for Agile Companies (helping non-software organizations use agile). Jake created the AgileSafari cartoon series to introduce humor into the more challenging issues we have to tackle. Jake uses ideas from various areas of thinking such as: Lean\, professional coaching\, neuroscience\, psychology\, facilitation\, brain-based training\, improvisation\, agile\, kanban\, and scrum. Jake regularly speaks at local and national conferences including Mile High Agile\, Scrum Gathering\, and Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. \n \n\n\nCancellations and Transfers\nPlease email us to request a transfer or to cancel. Refunds will be provided with 30 days notice of cancellation. One-time transfer to a future class will be provided with 14 days notice\, for free. Transfers requests with less than 14 days of notice or additional transfers (after the first transfer)\, will incur a $250 fee. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/certified-scrum-product-owner-cspo-training-3/ LOCATION:Live Virtual CATEGORIES:Certified Scrum Product Owner,Courses ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/5d0f33e2a64bdfd257843e7833b903b9-Ey1u48.tmp_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230208T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230208T110000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230110T173956Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230110T173956Z UID:10000130-1675850400-1675854000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:What Shape Is Your Backlog In? DESCRIPTION:A well-managed backlog is one of the keys to effective workflow. Backlogs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They are shaped by the beliefs and behaviors of the people maintaining them. Not all of these shapes\, however\, are beneficial. In this session\, we’ll explore some common backlog shapes along with their advantages and drawbacks. We will also look at how you can shift from where you are now to one that better fits your situation. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/what-shape-is-your-backlog-in/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/what_shape_is_your_backlog.jpg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85035232843 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230131T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230131T140000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221215T191431Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221215T191431Z UID:10000127-1675170000-1675173600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:The Quest for Value - Can Epics\, MMFs\, MRFs\, and MVPs Help? DESCRIPTION:Have you been on a quest to find a larger container of value beyond a user story? There can be value in grouping small slices of work (often user stories) into other “containers”. People do this to track work\, communicate progress\, see a big picture\, focus on the simplest possible value\, categories work\, etc.  The common terms we use (and hear) are epic\, feature\, minimum marketable feature (MMF)\, minimum releasable feature (MRF)\, minimum viable product (MVP)\, and maybe BFT.  These may add value or not – often it depends how they are being used.  We will review each of these terms\, define them\, and talk about common issues. We will also share what we prefer and how that approach connects to stories and story slicing! URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/the-quest-for-value-can-epics-mmfs-mrfs-and-mvps-help/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/AdobeStock_305143295-scaled.jpeg ORGANIZER;CN="Jake Calabrese":MAILTO:info@helpingimprove.com LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82919698190 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230124T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230124T110000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20230111T231512Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230112T193214Z UID:10000131-1674554400-1674558000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Tasks and Tribble-ations DESCRIPTION:There’s a bunch of stuff that takes up your time and energy in your work\, and it’s been growing. Unglamorous chores\, administrative tasks\, and bureaucratic activities… you may be feeling frustration and wishing you could say\, “this isn’t part of my job!” In this session\, we will review some of the other job roles that managers\, Product Owners\, and Scrum Masters commonly find themselves burdened with. We will walk through a structured reflection activity that you can use to evaluate your work activities. Gain insight into whether your tasks are adding value and decide how to prioritize them so your work is more sustainable. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/tasks-and-tribble-ations/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/AdobeStock_93636249-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82865183674 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230119T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230119T120000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221219T220745Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221219T220745Z UID:10000129-1674126000-1674129600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:How Managers Can Build Relationships While Only Talking About Work DESCRIPTION:Strong working relationships with their team members are valuable assets for managers. There is a misconception that to build these relationships\, you have to get deep into people’s personal lives. In this session\, we’ll bust that myth by looking at how you can build connection and trust even if you only talk with someone about their work – regardless of whether or not you’re their manager. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/how-managers-can-build-relationships-while-only-talking-about-work/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/talking-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85904970779 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230117T083000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230119T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20220817T214816Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230119T203629Z UID:10000118-1673944200-1674147600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Agile Leadership: Leading Amazing Teams [LAT] - Virtual DESCRIPTION:Gain critical professional coaching tools\, techniques\, skills\, and ideas that help leaders enable high performing teams.\n\n\nAgile Leadership — Leading Amazing Teams for Breakthrough Results\nLeaders today face shifting challenges when helping teams succeed in our complex world. With increasing speed\, change\, and unknowns\, leaders can’t rely on ‘knowing everything’ — there is too much happening. While many leaders realize this\, acting on it to create an environment where teams can thrive and deliver is not simple. Leaders need to bring new and deeper levels of skill and engagement to meet these challenges. \nHigh-performance is more than a catchphrase\, it is a state where teams are self-organizing to solve problems and deliver value to customers. Self-organizing and self-managing are not the same. The process of helping teams reach and maintain high-performance state varies from team to team and organization to organization\, however\, the foundational skills leaders need do not change. \nLeadership – leading to create real empowered high-performance teams. While we want teams to solve many of their own challenges\, leaders play a critical part in this process by helping teams continue to improve and develop. Great leaders engage with people and teams to address issues like conflict head-on\, helping teams find ways to gain from conflict and improve. They don’t have the luxury of telling teams “you are empowered” and walking away – they must do ‘just enough’ to help teams thrive. This requires leaders to have the awareness and protocols in place to know when they might be limiting the team. Agile Leadership — Leading Amazing Teams brings critical tools\, techniques\, skills\, and ideas from professional coaching\, brain-based training\, neuroscience\, leadership\, change management\, and much more to help leaders succeed. \nWhat to Expect\nWe take training and learning seriously and take your decision to spend time advancing your skills and improving yourself seriously. As such\, we use the latest training approaches and techniques\, and bring energy and fun\, to ensure you have the best possible experience and learn as much as possible. \n\n Brain-based training to dramatically increase learning and retention (both instructors are Certified Training From the Back of the Room Trainers)\n Expect to be challenged and look at ways you need to change to help others improve\n Opportunities throughout the course to focus on your real-world situations\n Advanced and cutting-edge skills and techniques to deal with the specific challenges you are facing\n In-depth engagement with your instructors and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture\, this class is NOT for you!\n Interactive\, fun\, and experiential learning — increase safety and retention – laughing helps learning\n Two Instructors — This course is co-taught as a partnership by two instructors (Tricia Broderick and Jake Calabrese)\, providing additional depth and insight\, varied experiences and learning opportunities\, and real-time lessons around co-leadership\n\nLearning Objectives\n\nUnderstand the connection between leadership and coaching to achieve high performance\nExplain the value of agile coaching and leading with coaching in today’s world\nExplore and practice using a coaching framework to find your leadership stance\nLearn to assess the level of coaching a team requires and when to ask for help\nDemonstrate how to kick off a new team and provide them with a foundation for success\nApply multiple coaching tools and techniques\, in various situations\, to help individuals and teams create and maintain a high performing team\nDispel common Agile Leadership Myths to address real team challenges\nLearn about and practice shifting your mindset to approach leadership challenges from new perspectives that empower teams\nExplore your ability and capacity as a coach and leader and determine what areas you need to improve\nExplore challenges with organizational agility and multiple teams — and opportunities to address the challenges\nExperience new ideas to help teams embrace healthy conflict as normal\nDemonstrate Training from the Back of the Room\, Brain-based training techniques that you can use as a leader\, manager\, or coach to help your teams continuously improve\nApply practices & skills from the field of Professional Coaching and learn how they are critical to your success as a leader\nEstablish and refine a leadership backlog to apply when you return to work\n\nWho Should Attend\n\nAnyone who is leading teams or groups in an organization\nLeaders involved with helping teams succeed\, including leadership teams\, delivery teams\, Scrum teams\, agile teams\, etc.\nDirectors\, VPs\, managers\, development managers\, agile coaches\, executives\, aspiring leaders (with team experience)\n\nDetails\nLength: 3-days + pre-reading assignments that we will use during class \nLocation: Virtual\, via Zoom with Miro for interactive exercises \nLevel: Intermediate to Advanced \nPrerequisites\n\nAnyone who is leading teams or groups in an organization\nLeaders involved with helping teams succeed\, including leadership teams\, delivery teams\, Scrum teams\, agile teams\, etc.\nDirectors\, VPs\, managers\, development managers\, agile coaches\, executives\, aspiring leaders (with team experience)\n\nCourse Credit & Certifications\n\n27 PMI PDUs\n27 Scrum Alliance SEUs\nICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC)\nScrum Alliance Certified Agile Leadership – Teams (CAL-T)\n\nCourse Facilitators \nLeading Amazing teams is co-trained by Jake Calabrese\, Helping Improve and Tricia Broderick\, Ignite Insight + Innovation. \nJake Calabrese\nJake is a coach\, trainer\, and coach-consultant working to help organizations meet the promise of agile by going beyond agile practices to address culture challenges and help teams and leaders reach and maintain high performance. He has unique expertise as an Organization & Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC)\, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)\, Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)\, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC)\, and as a trainer and coach for Agile Companies (helping non-software organizations use agile). Jake created the AgileSafari cartoon series to introduce humor into the more challenging issues we have to tackle. Jake uses ideas from various areas of thinking such as: Lean\, professional coaching\, neuroscience\, psychology\, facilitation\, brain-based training\, improvisation\, agile\, kanban\, and scrum. Jake regularly speaks at local and national conferences including Mile High Agile\, Scrum Gathering\, and Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. \n \nTricia Broderick\nTricia Broderick is a leadership and organizational advisor. Her transformational leadership at all levels of an organization\, ignites the growth of leaders and high performing teams to deliver quality outcomes. Tricia has more than twenty years of experience in the software development industry. She is a highly-rated trainer\, coach\, facilitator and motivational keynote speaker. Beyond her extensive knowledge and skills\, her biggest offering is inspiring people to believe anything is possible. Her aim is to create connections and environments that challenge and support people in an authentic\, vulnerable\, engaging and fun way. In 2020\, she founded Ignite Insight & Innovation. \n \n\n\nCancellations and Transfers\nPlease email us to request a transfer or to cancel. Refunds will be provided with 30 days notice of cancellation. One-time transfer to a future class will be provided with 14 days notice\, for free. Transfers requests with less than 14 days of notice or additional transfers (after the first transfer)\, will incur a $250 fee. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/agile-leadership-leading-amazing-teams-lat-virtual-5/ CATEGORIES:Courses,Leading Amazing Teams ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ad653b047f51432e806b75743e70d3b0-QFX4KD.tmp_.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230110T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230110T120000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221215T173203Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221215T182742Z UID:10000126-1673348400-1673352000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Can't Slice User Stories? Relax\, It's Easy and Fun! DESCRIPTION:Slicing user stories does not have to be painful. It can be a fun activity if you let it. Slicing stories can also be easy. Often not at first but using this simple slicing approach and pattern makes it easier over time. There are no stories that can’t be sliced\, so bring a story or two to this session. You can bring some that are not being completed in a sprint or ones that no one even wants to start given their “size”. You will have an opportunity to slice those stories! We will also cover some other confusing points about stories such as what “valuable” means and how stories are often a part of a small bundle of value. Note that if you don’t have stories or use some other type of product backlog items\, simply bring any piece of work that would add value to your organization but is too large to complete in a 2-week sprint. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/cant-slice-user-stories-relax-its-easy-and-fun/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Story-Slicing-Bread-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84643967115 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20230105T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20230105T110000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221215T173949Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221215T173949Z UID:10000125-1672912800-1672916400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Is Your Team Victim to a Legacy Codebase? DESCRIPTION:When the codebase is ugly and deadlines are tight\, most agile software teams don’t choose to address technical debt. Will this year be different for your organization? \nGetting serious about technical excellence requires support from technical and non-technical roles. Join this learning lab to explore how technical debt occurs and get tips on how to help your organization turn it around. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/is-your-team-victim-to-a-legacy-codebase/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/victim_of_code.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89422957560 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20221220T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20221220T120000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221115T045924Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221115T045924Z UID:10000123-1671534000-1671537600@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Bringing Out Quiet Voices in Retrospectives DESCRIPTION:Shy. Reserved. Introverted. You were hoping for passionate brainstorming and discussion of improvements\, but you’re faced with awkward silences or only hearing from a few team members instead. In this session\, we will review the parts of an effective retrospective and tips on how can you get the best from quiet team members during them. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/bringing-out-quiet-voices-in-retrospectives/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/quiet-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82556408987 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20221214T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20221214T140000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221114T042325Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221114T195527Z UID:10000070-1671022800-1671026400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Scrum Troubleshooting DESCRIPTION:This session will dig into any and all issues\, challenges\, or concerns you have with Scrum. Scrum events\, jobs within scrum\, the ‘new’ commitments\, artifacts\, or backlog refinement. We will have some common issues to get started\, if we need them\, however\, it would be ideal (and perhaps more useful) if you brought your issues and challenges. In addition to the challenges themselves\, we will focus on doing this using a few basic steps that you can use yourself. What kinds of issues do you have with Scrum? Work not getting completed in a sprint? No one cares about the daily scrum or retro? Something “more complicated”? Whatever it is\, bring it and we will work with you to sort out some next steps you can take! URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/scrum-troubleshooting/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AdobeStock_186653638-scaled.jpeg ORGANIZER;CN="Jake Calabrese":MAILTO:info@helpingimprove.com LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85361676522 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20221212T084500 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20221213T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20220817T215417Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221213T163428Z UID:10000120-1670834700-1670950800@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Certified ScrumMaster® [CSM] Training - Virtual DESCRIPTION:Learn the core elements of Scrum and the ScrumMaster role and how Scrum helps teams thrive so they can deliver for customers.\n\n\nCertified ScrumMaster® Training \nA ScrumMaster is someone who works to help the Scrum Team and the organization continuously improve. This work includes helping to remove organizational impediments that slow the team down\, or making the impediments transparent (everyone agrees they are okay going slower). They are not a project manager\, given they are not accountable for delivery of a project. Instead they are accountable to help everyone on the team improve and help create an environment and structure where they can thrive and deliver for customers. \nStudents will work on engaging exercises and a simulation (to keep things fun and interesting) throughout the class. These activities provide opportunities to think and experience Scrum concepts by working on them in small groups. Throughout the course\, we will dig into real life situations and tackle tough questions. Our approach is reality based\, and we expect students to push back and challenge concepts that don’t work in their organization. Expect to work in various groups and be engaged throughout the course. We never use slides – so if you planned for a nap\, this is the wrong class for you. \nWhat is Scrum?\nScrum is an agile framework used to get work done. Scrum works in a variety of situations\, but it thrives when either the work or the environment is complex and not as predicable as we would like. Scrum focuses on delivering incrementally in small chunks\, to allow us to learn more and adapt\, rather than just continuing to deliver things that are no longer needed or perhaps never were. \nScrum is based on the principles of inspection\, adaptation\, and transparency. These three principles are the foundation to being success in the face of complexity. Transparency allows people to see issues\, challenges\, and places that can be improved. Inspection and adaptation focus on continuous learning and improvement. Scrum consists of a number of events\, artifacts\, jobs to be done\, and practices. You can read more about Scrum in the Scrum Guide\, which is free to read or download. \nWho Should Attend\nThis course should be attended by anyone who wants a foundational knowledge of scrum and what scrum is in practice. \n\nScrumMasters\, Agile Coaches\, Product Owners\nScrum team members\, agile team members\nArchitects\, business analysts\, database administrators\, developers\, operations and support\, quality assurance testers\, usability specialists\, etc.\nManagers\, directors\, and others tasked with helping teams succeed with scrum and agile (very hard to do if you do not understand it)\nAnyone outside of software or IT: Our CSM class covers topics and examples that are applicable to those outside of software. We also offer training specifically geared to this group. See our Agile Beyond Software course for more information.\n\nWhat to Expect\nWe take training and learning seriously. We respect the investment of both time and money that you are making to advance your skills. As such\, we use the latest training approaches and techniques. We also bring energy and fun to ensure you have the best possible experience and learn as much as possible. In this course\, you can expect: \n\nBrain-friendly training to dramatically increase learning and retention (instructors are Certified Training from the Back of the Room Trainers).\nOpportunities throughout the course to focus on your real-world situations.\nIn-depth engagement with your instructors and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture (we use zero slides)\, this class is NOT for you!\nInteractive\, fun\, and experiential learning — increasing safety and retention — laughing helps learning.\nChallenging work with others that focuses on your real organizational issues.\n\nLearning Objectives\n\nWhat is agile and why does it matter: Learn how to discuss agile and scrum with others in your organization and explain why agile is useful and in what contexts.\nDiscuss how complexity and empiricism impact our business decisions and impact our success.\nAnalyze agile principles and values as well as lean principles to understand which are most valuable to you and consider how you could apply them in real life.\nLearn the differences between doing agile practices and being an agile organization.\nPractice using scrum with a simulation where you work as a small team (3-6 people) to create a product.\nLearn the ins-and-outs of scrum events (sprint\, sprint planning\, daily scrum\, sprint review\, sprint retrospective).\nLearn how scrum artifacts and supporting practices help you be successful as well as tips and tricks for doing them well (product backlog\, sprint backlog\, sprint goal\, product goal\, definition of done\, definition of ready\, product increment\, etc.).\nUnderstand what each of the three jobs (not titles) in scrum are\, how they work together\, what they are accountable for\, and what to avoid.\nExplore why scrum values mean little without focusing on the behaviors that support them.\nTrue leadership and servant leadership – what does it mean to lead?\nReality – we expect you to ask the tough questions. We expect you to bring up situations where scrum did not work for you.\nUncover the role of the ScrumMaster regarding impediments and how to first ask the team to solve issues then make the costs transparent!\nReview additional approaches such as facilitation and professional coaching to understand new ways to engage people and teams.\nDiscuss reality: We don’t tell you to “trust us” or include “agile is cool” as a reason to use agile. We EXPECT you to ask hard questions\, as long as you are open to digging into the answers. Scrum is NOT a silver-bullet\, nor is agile. They still require hard work.\n\nWho Should Attend\nThis course should be attended by anyone who wants a foundational knowledge of scrum and what scrum is in practice. \n\nScrumMasters\, Agile Coaches\, Product Owners\nScrum team members\, agile team members\nArchitects\, business analysts\, database administrators\, developers\, operations and support\, quality assurance testers\, usability specialists\, etc.\nManagers\, directors\, and others tasked with helping teams succeed with scrum and agile (very hard to do if you do not understand it)\nAnyone outside of software or IT: Our CSM class covers topics and examples that are applicable to those outside of software. We also offer training specifically geared to this group. See our Agile Beyond Software course for more information.\n\nDetails\nCourse Length: 4 1/2 day sessions (2 full days total) 2-days + pre-work \nLevel: Introductory to Intermediate (ask about more in-depth versions) \nPrerequisites\n\nAn interest in learning and discovering new ideas\nFor the CSM Certification\, see the Certification Requirements section\n\nCourse Credit\n\n16 PMI PDUs\n16 Scrum Alliance SEUs\nQualified to take the CSM Exam (exam fee is included in the course fee)\n\nCertification Requirements\nThe course meets the learning objectives for the Scrum Alliance Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) Certification Training. This class is one of the requirements to receive the CSM certification from Scrum Alliance. To qualify\, you must: \n\nComplete the class prework.\nAttend and participate in the entire CSM class.\nComplete and pass the CSM exam after completing the class. We will submit your name to Scrum Alliance® after completing the class and you can create a profile and take the exam at that time. We cover everything you need to pass the exam in the course.\n\nCourse Facilitator\nJake Calabrese\nJake is a coach\, trainer\, and coach-consultant working to help organizations meet the promise of agile by going beyond agile practices to address culture challenges and help teams and leaders reach and maintain high performance. He has unique expertise as an Organization & Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC)\, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)\, Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)\, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC)\, and as a trainer and coach for Agile Companies (helping non-software organizations use agile). Jake created the AgileSafari cartoon series to introduce humor into the more challenging issues we have to tackle. Jake uses ideas from various areas of thinking such as: Lean\, professional coaching\, neuroscience\, psychology\, facilitation\, brain-based training\, improvisation\, agile\, kanban\, and scrum. Jake regularly speaks at local and national conferences including Mile High Agile\, Scrum Gathering\, and Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. \n\n\nCancellations and Transfers\nPlease email us to request a transfer or to cancel. Refunds will be provided with 30 days notice of cancellation. One-time transfer to a future class will be provided with 14 days notice\, for free. Transfers requests with less than 14 days of notice or additional transfers (after the first transfer)\, will incur a $250 fee. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/certified-scrummaster-csm-training-virtual-4/ CATEGORIES:Certified ScrumMaster,Courses ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2a14561e4b58f1b948ea7af9c226d12f-3GX7sb.tmp_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20221207T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20221207T120000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221018T180249Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221114T233759Z UID:10000068-1670410800-1670414400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Scrum vs. Kanban: What Does Your Doctor Recommend? DESCRIPTION:This session is going to focus on the ongoing and persistent nonsense surrounding kanban and scrum (this IS the softer version). We will start by defining a few core aspects of kanban and scrum to clarify where these ideas are from. We then begin dismantling all the confusing\, incorrect\, sad\, frustrating\, and impediment-creating comparison charts surrounding scrum vs kanban. We will use one from a blog (which is laced with problems to boot) and show you an ACTUAL Scrum vs Kanban comparison that does not make me sad. PLEASE have images ready of any comparisons you have seen or used. If you don’t like them or like them – have the images to paste into Miro. We will work through as many as we can. What we hope is that (1) you will have a much clearer idea of the differences and similarities\, (2) you will see some of the patterns people use to make these comparisons worse so you can see them faster\, and (3)\, YOU can point out areas that are wrong or need adjustments with the new comparison I’ll show you (so I can improve it). URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/scrum-vs-kanban-what-does-your-docter-recommend/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AdobeStock_285381772-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89446815307 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20221205T083000 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20221206T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20220817T215416Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221206T152504Z UID:10000119-1670229000-1670346000@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Agile Facilitation - Advanced CSM Training [A-CSM] DESCRIPTION:Looking for an interactive\, fun\, interesting course focused not just on answers but on how to engage others and tap into their knowledge?\n\n\nAgile Facilitation Training (with A-CSM) \nWe often hear the question\, “How do we help our teams improve?” when working in organizations. Facilitation skills play a crucial role in this process. They help in more subtle and lasting ways than using positional power to tell people what to do. One of the critical challenges is learning how to help bring people together to deliver value without taking ownership. Bringing people together goes beyond getting consensus. Getting to collaboration means tapping into the knowledge and wisdom of the entire team. \nAgile Facilitation (with A-CSM) helps ScrumMasters and other Agile leaders with the real day-to-day challenges of helping teams and organizations grow and improve. Throughout the course\, you will use hands-on\, engaging exercises to learn and expand your knowledge of how to: \n\nFacilitate better dialogue between the Product Owner\, team members\, customers\, stakeholders\, and executives.\nRespond confidently when encountering resistance to change\, lack of engagement\, low motivation\, and people’s unavailability.\nIncrease engagement to encourage greater accountability\, commitment\, and buy-in.\nHave valuable agile scaling conversations.\n\nThroughout this course\, you will work through exercises based on common agile and organizational challenges. You will have the opportunity to design and facilitate sessions\, assess and explore conflict models\, assess areas for your own personal development (which is critical for leaders)\, and experience a live professional coaching session to begin to understand the power of professional coaching for leaders and ScrumMasters. \n\n\nThis course is designed for anyone who\n\nWants to explore new approaches and concepts that help them improve as a leader\nIs interested in learning how to use facilitation techniques to increase team engagement\nUnderstands the basics of scrum and wants to look at root cause issues behind surface level challenges\nHas an interest in improving themselves so they are not – inadvertently – the impediment to progress\n\n\n\nLearning Objectives\n\nUnderstand how facilitation helps leaders achieve high-performance teams\nExplain the value of facilitation and all aspects involved in great facilitation\nExamine common facilitation challenges to improve your results\nDispel common servant leadership myths to avoid common leadership errors\nIdentify what drives you as a team leader\nDiscover what drives your team towards shared ownership\nDefine what it means to be a high-performance team\nPractice designing\, facilitating\, and evaluating several events using multiple facilitation tools and techniques\nExplore key scrum challenges and gain techniques to deal with topics such as conflict\, listening\, collaboration\, and decision making\nRecognize various scaling approaches and discuss when to scale\nObserve and evaluate the differences between coaching and other approaches\nEvaluate how engineering principles and practices can help teams collaborate and deliver value\n\n\n\nWhat to Expect\nWe take training and learning seriously and take your decision to spend time advancing your skills and improving yourself seriously. As such\, we use the latest training approaches and techniques\, and bring energy and fun\, to ensure you have the best possible experience and learn as much as possible. \n\nBrain-based training to dramatically increase learning and retention (all instructors are Certified in Training From the Back of the Room training)\nExpect to be challenged and look at ways you need to change to help others improve\nOpportunities throughout the course to focus on your real-world situations\nAdvanced and cutting-edge skills and techniques to deal with the specific challenges you are facing\nIn-depth engagement with your instructors and fellow attendees. If you are looking for a dry lecture\, this class is NOT for you!\nInteractive\, fun\, and experiential learning – increasing safety and retention – laughing helps learning\nAccess to an online community of course alumni to support your continued learning\n\n\n\nWho Should Attend\nThis course welcomes anyone who wants to level up their facilitation skills and techniques or is interested in bringing new approaches to their leadership style\, including: \n\nScrumMasters\, agile coaches\, product owners\, product managers\nFacilitators\, agile team members\nLeaders and others in the organization who are looking for ways to tap into more of their peoples’ knowledge\n\n\n\nA-CSM Certification Requirements\nThe course meets the learning objectives for the Scrum Alliance Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (A-CSM) Certification Training. This class is one of the requirements to receive the A-CSM certification. To qualify\, you must: \n\nHave an active Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) certification with the Scrum Alliance.\nComplete the class prework.\nAttend and participate in the entire A-CSM class.\nDocument at least 12 months of experience as a ScrumMaster on your Scrum Alliance Profile. Note: If you do not meet this requirement\, you can take the class and document the experience as you get it. You will not receive the certification until the documentation is complete.\n\nThe A-CSM is an advanced course on the path to certification as a Certified Scrum Professional. Read more about the A-CSM and Scrum Alliance Certification process or read all of the A-CSM Learning Objectives. \n\n\n\n\nDetails\nCourse Length: 2-days + pre-reading assignments \nLevel: Intermediate \nPre-Requisites to Qualify for A-CSM via Scrum Alliance\n\nHave an active CSM with the Scrum Alliance\n12 months experience as a ScrumMaster (or similar role)\n\nNote: Anyone may attend\, but you need the above items to receive the A-CSM. \nCourse Credit\n\n16 PMI PDUs\n16 Scrum Alliance SEUs\nQualified for to apply for the Scrum Alliance – Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (A-CSM) *see Pre-Requisites.\n\nCertifications\n\nScrum Alliance \n\n\n\nCourse Facilitators \n\n\n\nJake Calabrese\nJake is a coach\, trainer\, and coach-consultant working to help organizations meet the promise of agile by going beyond agile practices to address culture challenges and help teams and leaders reach and maintain high performance. He has unique expertise as an Organization & Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC)\, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)\, Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)\, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC)\, and as a trainer and coach for Agile Companies (helping non-software organizations use agile). Jake created the AgileSafari cartoon series to introduce humor into the more challenging issues we have to tackle. Jake uses ideas from various areas of thinking such as: Lean\, professional coaching\, neuroscience\, psychology\, facilitation\, brain-based training\, improvisation\, agile\, kanban\, and scrum. Jake regularly speaks at local and national conferences including Mile High Agile\, Scrum Gathering\, and Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. \n \n\n\nCancellations and Transfers\nPlease email us to request a transfer or to cancel. Refunds will be provided with 30 days notice of cancellation. One-time transfer to a future class will be provided with 14 days notice\, for free. Transfers requests with less than 14 days of notice or additional transfers (after the first transfer)\, will incur a $250 fee. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/agile-facilitation-advanced-csm-training-a-csm-3/ CATEGORIES:Agile Facilitation Training with A-CSM,Courses ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/840542fb4fa25bf7244caa345aeb1cee-oxZiDL.tmp_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20221129T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20221129T130000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221114T233108Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221115T050436Z UID:10000072-1669723200-1669726800@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Planning and Preparing for Tough Conversations DESCRIPTION:Making plans is often useful when we need to have a challenging conversation. And\, as Mike Tyson famously remarked\, “Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time.” In this session\, we’ll explore how to plan for navigating a challenging dialogue. We’ll also look at the emotional preparation you’ll need when you get hit (metaphorically). URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/plan-and-prep/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/are_you_ready-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88142660156 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20221122T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20221122T170000 DTSTAMP:20260425T224802 CREATED:20221114T230001Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221115T050319Z UID:10000071-1669129200-1669136400@helpingimprove.com SUMMARY:Special Session: Practicing Gratitude DESCRIPTION:Gratitude is a powerful habit\, even when it seems like there isn’t much to be grateful for. In this combination Learning Lab/Happy Hour\, we’ll explore tools for appreciating and harnessing what has gone well in the last year. This freeform session is two hours long\, and you can drop in and out whenever works for you. URL:https://helpingimprove.com/event/special-session-practicing-gratitude/ CATEGORIES:Learning Lab ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://helpingimprove.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/gratitude-scaled.jpeg LOCATION:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83825601415 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR