ASSESSMENTS AND CONSULTING
Teams
Agile coaches that can directly work and integrate with teams can be extremely beneficial. Our coaches take the necessary steps to first learn team processes and dynamics and then instruct and facilitate at appropriate times during agile ceremonies. Coaches will also speak to individual team members off-line for additional development and learning.
UX
Most organizations have concluded that user experience (UX) practices are critical to product success. However, many struggle with integrating the UX design process with their adopted agile processes. The UX design effort must start before the development effort begins (the myth of “Agile means no upfront design” had been primary debunked, including UX) and equally as important, stay ahead of each development iteration. This sounds simple but to successfully execute this cadence requires first-hand experience in getting it right. Bearing Agile has a team of Agile UX experts that can coach and train your team to get over these difficult hurdles. Getting UX and Agile right also requires an honest look at company culture, together with looking at individuals and their UX skills sets. Also, how the UX team is organized across the enterprise and distributed into agile teams can make a critical difference.
Project Management
Most organizations today have a mature Project Management capability in place either through a PMO and/or a team of experienced project managers. However, as industries continue to incorporate agile methodologies into their processes and practices, it has become necessary for the role of the project manager to evolve with this agile adoption. The breadth or scope of the duties of project manager has typically remained the same, however with a new subset of agile practices, the lines can get blurred as to responsibilities covered with the members of the scrum team, especially the scrum master and the product owner. Also, traditional PM activities such as planning, estimation, costing, and resourcing can be difficult with new agile practices in place. Our experienced coaches can help project managers navigate agile terrain to maximize project success and enhance their existing skill set to thrive as agile methodologies continue to become more pervasive within organizations.
Business Analysis
Business Analysts are an important resource for any organization, especially given the growth of positions across all industries and the rapid maturity of the profession in recent years. We recognize the importance of Business Analysts in the enterprise as well as the significant contribution they make in development and agile teams. While the Business Analyst is not specifically called out as a member of an agile team, we believe they play a critical role, whether its writing user stories and test criteria to supporting the Product Owner in backlog prioritization and sprint planning. We have coaches and trainers that have business analysis experience in agile team that can coach and train your organization on how to best utilize your business analysts in an agile environment.
Scrum Master
There are a plethora of Scrum Master coaching and training options currently in the marketplace. Why choose us? First, in most cases we always make our coaching and training offerings based on your specific needs that are uncovered during our assessment. Our assessment will rank the maturity of your organization across many attributes, identifying which needs are most critical. Our Scrum Master Coaching and Training plan is based on your unique situation. Various conditions may include:
Individuals that are new to Agile/Scrum
Scrum Masters that work on multiple projects
Scrum Masters that also wear a project manager hat
Scrum Masters that deal with remote teams
Teams that are currentlyperforming the Scrum Master role by committee
Any other challenge that your organization faces with the Scrum Master role
We won’t just arrive with plain vanilla Scrum Master Training or supply coaches with certifications but with minimal to no experience.
Product Owner
It cannot be overstated how important the Product Owner is to product success. A company culture that allows the Product Owner to be successful by providing both a combination of being empowered to take the product in the right direction and creating an environment so that the right type of leaders get hired and can improve their skills. Likewise, our coaches can work with your organization to make sure that your culture is one where Product Owners can be successful and flourish. Its doesn’t stop with a good understanding of agile methodologies, lean approaches and a good understanding of user experience practices are also tremendously beneficial to the Product Owner. In addition, individual coaching can be extremely beneficial to improving the skills of your product owners, assisting with specific projects and/or sharpening their skills. For larger groups, Product Owner training is available.