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University of Maryland, College Park

Sprint Planning for Faster Agile Team Delivery

University of Maryland, College Park via Coursera

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Overview

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Speed is by far the most sought-after benefit of Agile. First mover advantages, the economic cost of delays, and the enabling effect on innovation drive the search for speed. Agile offers the fastest means of attaining speed: managing scope. But beyond the hype over scope management, there are key principles of non-traditional task management that ensure the scope chosen is delivered as efficiently as possible. In this course, you'll learn how to drive speed into any project by selecting and limiting work-in-progress through agile planning and task management. There are two principle roles involved, the scrum master and the product owner. However, the entire scrum team needs to understand the principles behind backlog refinement, sprint planning, and execution throughout the sprint cycle. In this course we'll show you how to run effective sprint planning meetings that produce a sprint backlog ready to deliver on your sprint goals and release objectives. You'll learn the power of prioritizing backlog items, and why we agile planning and sprint planning isn't just a managed list you work top-down in priority order. Instead, scrum teams commit to achieving goals and work together to ensure the user stories that are highest priority get delivered in this sprint, so the upcoming sprint isn't delayed. This also means understanding your team capacity and how to ensure safe and on-time delivery of the highest items on the product backlog that actually matter to your customer. While this course will not make you an agile certified practitioner (PMI-ACP), or certified scrum master (CSM), it offers a more fundamental agile certification based on agile principles and how sprint planning enables hyper productivity in industry today. You'll finish this course more than ready to continue your agile journey, which we hope takes you to the next course in the series on “Agile Innovation and Problem Solving Skills.” Upon successful completion of this course, learners can earn 10 Professional Development Unit (PDU) credits, which are recognized by the Project Management Institute (PMI). PDU credits are essential to those looking to maintain certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP).

Syllabus

  • Week 1: Principles of Speed
    • In week one, we focus on Agile’s biggest advantage—speed—and how to clearly show its benefits over other project methods, especially when dealing with timing and market changes. We’ll also dive into why adjusting scope is key to moving fast, and how to use the Exponential Pareto Principle to make smarter, faster decisions.
  • Week 2: Priorities in Practice
    • The second week dives into second tier methods for achieving speed through sizing, simplicity, and sprints with real-world examples ranging from air and space craft to software.
  • Week 3: Trappings of Scheduling
    • The third week introduces Traditional Scheduling techniques, such as Integrated Master Scheduling (IMS) and Earned Value Management (EVM); and demonstrates why those techniques are prone to accumulating waste and delays.
  • Week 4: Driving Speed Into Daily Tasks
    • The last week teaches ground-level techniques to avoid delays, increase speed, and apply a full range of planning, execution, and control techniques that can double the performance of traditional projects.
  • Course Final
    • Now it’s time to put your new knowledge to the test!

Taught by

John Johnson

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Reviews

3.8 rating, based on 6 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Sprint Planning for Faster Agile Team Delivery

  • Anonymous
    The course was very good with very informative contents.

    My biggest grievance with the course is not being able to see if the feedbacks to my
    answers for the Final exam and end-of-Module tests. This applies to all of the courses
    and modules, but I would like to review my right or wrong answers afterwards. I can
    understand not showing the text feedbacks if our scores are below the passing grades
    (when we need to re-take the exam), but would it be possible to show the feedbacks
    once we attained the passing grades?
    Kind regards
  • Anonymous
    Good course, well explained, good material. The final assignement assesses that concepts are truly understood
  • Anonymous
    Good overview of Agile principles. I liked how some of the modules went more in-depth into topics that other courses that I've taken may have overlooked (scheduling myths, types of delays and task buffering). The list of books to read was also helpf…
  • Anonymous
    How am I supposed to learn when I can't see the errors I made on the quizzes???? I feel like the content is good and I have been able to incorporate some of this in my day to day work but I am left not knowing what I don't know because there is no feedback. FYI, there is math involved and you have to download the excel spreadsheets in the tests in order to answer them. The last question on the course exam is insane. It basically a 34 question test because of that question.
  • Anonymous
    This course gives a great overview of agile planning. The content is explained very thoroughly with real-world examples and gives suggestions to apply the knowledge to your company or team. I liked this course because, as a university student, I do not have the experience or knowledge to lead a team, and this course makes me feel more prepared to lead a team in the future. One thing that I think could be improved is the feedback in the exams. The longer ones do not say what your mistakes were so its hard to know where you had the mistake. I think it would be good to know just which questions we had wrong. And the shorter ones (from the modules) give no feedback on what we had wrong. There are also some typos in the modules.
  • Profile image for Mridula Singh
    Mridula Singh
    This course provides a comprehensive introduction to agile principles, with a focus on sprint planning and task management to enhance speed and efficiency. The detailed insights into backlog refinement, prioritization, and team capacity management are invaluable for driving project success. A must for professionals seeking to strengthen their foundational understanding of agile practices.
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