The Agile Facilitation Workshop is an Instructor Led Live Online training program that is offered in 10 sessions. Each session is one and half hour in duration. Collaboration and self-organization are central to Agile teams. Moreover, Agile emphasizes an empirical approach of inspection, adaptation, and transparency. As a result, work in an Agile team is characterized by frequent group interaction – for planning, coordination, review, reflection, and even for pure team building and alignment of purpose. This all adds up to the fact that one of the first and most essential skills for an Agile Coach is the ability to effectively facilitate group interactions – of all kinds. This hands on, interactive workshop teaches you from the ground up what it takes to be a successful Agile Team Facilitator, and gives you plenty of practice in doing so. It would dramatically increase participants’ facilitation skills in general, especially as applied to Agile ceremonies, collaborative events and other team “moments of truth.” The workshop will focus on professional facilitation skills and techniques as applied specifically within the Agile context.

It covers:

• The mindset and core behaviors required for successful facilitation
• Basic facilitation methods for handling group interactions and decision making, including challenging behaviors and how to address them
• Diagnosing and handling dysfunctional teams
• How to specifically facilitate the common practices of Agile Teams: Release and Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Reviews, and Retrospectives, as well as Project Chartering

From this course, you will walk away with a full tool kit of facilitation principles, techniques and practices, along with hands-on experience in their application.

While mastering facilitation skills in the Agile context will require both time and practice, our class will enable you to:

• Gain an in-depth and practical understanding of a wide array of techniques practiced by professional facilitators.
• Understand and practice the art of collaborative meeting design, including the importance of smart preparation that will reduce overall cost and increase the effectiveness of your meetings.
• Practice techniques for skillfully facilitating core Agile meetings and ceremonies with playfulness and a collaborative spirit, while still focused on key deliverable.
• Gain rich, well-delivered feedback on your growing facilitation skills
• Gives you different ideas for designing meetings in which the team interacts with the team so they can do the heavy-lifting.
• Understand how to address some of the dysfunctional behaviors you see preventing your team from achieving maximum success.
• Learn how to define, discuss, and achieve consensus with the team for faster and better decision making.
• Come away with your own facilitator self-development plan.

1. Knowledge of Agile Manifesto and Agile Methods (Scrum, Kanban, XP) would be very helpful.
2. Interested to work in team environment with team members.
3. Willingness to learn and apply softskills to teams.
4. Curious, eager, patient, and calm.

This course is designed for:

• Project, Program, and Portfolio Professionals who aspire to take up the role of an Agile Coach.
• Scrum Masters, BAs, QAs, Agile Project/Program Managers or Iteration Managers who want a more comprehensive understanding of the complete range of business and Agile facilitation skills.
• Agile coaches who want to enhance and improve their professional skills as Agile Facilitator and professional coaches.
• Coaches who wish to increase the ability to break through seemingly insurmountable problems with their teams and associated dysfunctions.
• Agile managers, Product Owners and others wishing to access a broader range of skills in working with teams.
• Skilled coaches who wish to polish their skillsets and learn a few new tricks and techniques.
• Functional managers or Scrum Masters with some experience as an Agile coach, but when Agile seems like it is not working for your teams.
• Someone coaching or mentoring Agile teams that get caught in a rut or just going through the motions and not making progress.