Robust Scrum Product Owner

"I would like to thank you for your course. You have done an amazing job." - George-Liviu Neculita, Product Owner, Volvo

"I have been working as a PO for seven years. Your course is amazing." - David Pereira, Product Owner, limango GmbH

"Thank you so much for creating the robust Product Owner course. It is, for me, the exact approach I needed to wrap my head around the position and its responsibilities." - Hans Fernandez, Central Square

“Michael's passion and enthusiasm for Agile practices is evident both in the way that he presents his material and the subject matter itself.” - Jamie Phillips, Consulting Software Engineer, Picis

"I tend to be a fairly cynical and critical person. I have gone to a lot of seminars and often find myself leaving them feeling like it was not a good use of my time.

Yet, I am only on slide 1 of Module 2, and the amount of time I'm spending nodding my head up and down in agreement with your points is already noteworthy. Even a simple point you made about user stories, and how there is no universal right or wrong way to do it, is something I have NEVER heard expressed so well, even at Business Analyst focused seminars. I'm enjoying how you break this down and explain these concepts." - Brian Cargas, Product Owner, Cargill

Are you a Scrum Product Owner? Are you not sure how to run experiments to validate your backlog? Do you want to learn how to collaborate with your team and stakeholders? Do you want to make accurate prioritization decisions that maximize value? Then this course is for you.

This course is the fastest path you can take to 'level up' your Scrum Product Owner skills.

This course is for people who have taken a one to three day course on Scrum Product Ownership (or have equivalent experience) and want to ‘raise the bar’ on their skills. Introductory Product Owner courses tell you ‘what’ you need to do but not ‘how’ to do it. This course shows you, through detailed examples, exercises, and homework, ‘how’ to be a Scrum Product Owner.

In this course, you will learn:

• The mindset of successful Scrum Product Owners. You will learn how your mindset influences your actions and how to construct an effective mindset.

• How to interact with the Development Team and stakeholders. What practices can you put in place that will make you more successful?

• Hypothesis-driven development: How to make sure that the items in your backlog are valuable.

• EXACTLY what you are responsible for during the planning, refinement, and review meetings. And how to execute on those responsibilities effectively.

• How to visualize your work. You will learn what managers care about and how they think about product ownership.

• The characteristics of a Product Owner and how to increase your ability to work with the team.

You will get spreadsheets and recipes that take the STRESS out of being a Scrum Product Owner.

In addition to the course material, you will receive two one-on-one 25 minute coaching sessions with me. I will share with you what I’ve learned training and consulting at eBay, Carbonite, edX, Paypal, Symantec, Philips, Verizon, and a dozen other companies.  In addition, you’ll be able to ask questions at any time using the questions area of the course. This is like having a

Who am I? I am a Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC). There are about 100 of us in the world. I know that sounds a bit arrogant but I'm one of about 300 Scrum coaches and trainers who can submit people for the Certified Product Owner (CSPO) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certifications so I know the material in ways that other instructors do not.  I'm the co-author of two books, Why Agile Works and Professional Scrum with Team Foundation Server. Before becoming an agile coach I was VP of Corporate Strategy at Softricity (acquired by Microsoft) and founder of Inquira (acquired by Oracle). I have a PhD in Computer Science from MIT.

I am here to pump you up as you deepen your understanding of Scrum and improve your Scrum Product Owner skills.

The course is designed to be taken over nine weeks. If you follow this plan, you will spend approximately half an hour per day on the course. The first one or two days of every week will focus on videos and during the remainder of the week you will be doing assignments.

Warning: This course is HARD. I like to say, “Practice in proportion to your aspirations.” If you are ready to sweat blood to become a better Scrum Product Owner, I invite you to look at the many videos you can watch for free to see if this course is a good fit for you.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. I want you to be successful: more influential, confident, and visible.