Length:

Two days in-person or six 2-hour sessions online

Fee:

$975.00 USD

Who should attend?

This workshop is designed for information development managers and department leaders who

  • interact with other departments who have either already adopted or are adopting Agile methodology
  • are planning a move to Agile project management
  • are considering a move to Agile project management

Upcoming workshop:

This workshop is currently not scheduled. For information about scheduling this workshop, view our available course formats.

This workshop title is available both in-person and online.

Description

You have the vision to deliver projects that meet your customer’s needs on time and budget. But after meticulously taking two weeks to develop a detailed project plan, you find it becomes inaccurate and irrelevant in less than 48 hours. Real-life has kicked in and you feel inadequate and ineffective as a manager. In an industry known for being late and over budget to produce something that wasn’t quite what the customer needed in the first place, you are searching for a better way to manage projects. Enter Agile – is it the methodology you’ve been looking for or just another fad that only works for other departments or other companies?

In this workshop, you’ll gather the information you need to make an informed decision about adopting an Agile methodology and learn the key steps to beginning your Agile journey. You’ll learn to make the process work for you, rather than forcing your team to work for the process. You’ll learn to expect and accept project change at any time in a project and still provide crucial, usable information with each release.

The combination of Agile development’s high speed, limited planning documentation, and short delivery cycles creates a unique set of challenges for documentation groups. These challenges require a shift in thinking about resource management, task allocation, and completeness of information in technical publications groups.

This workshop focuses on the Scrum Agile methodology and how documentation departments can adjust to this high-speed development environment.

This workshop adapts the Agile manifesto and its principles specifically to information development. You will learn to value:

  • Individuals and interactions over tools and processes
  • Users who can get their tasks done over comprehensive documentation
  • User feedback and collaboration over regimented content outlines and style standards
  • Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, you’ll learn to value those on the left more.

Whether you are working with an Agile development team or simply looking to improve your own team’s performance, this hands-on workshop will help you uncover better ways of creating technical content and bring flexible structure to your constantly changing work. You’ll learn from the experiences of other leaders like yourself who have taken this journey ahead of you, and you’ll gain a solid understanding of the changes you’ll need to make to use this management strategy effectively in your own organization.

You will learn to

  • Differentiate between agile, waterfall, and ad hoc project management methods
  • Adapt the Agile manifesto and its principles to information product development
  • Build a business case for Agile
  • Define user stories using personas and action mapping
  • Estimate the work required
  • Prioritize and schedule work into sprints
  • Conduct a sprint
  • Manage a sprint backlog
  • Iterate content with each sprint
  • Create an Agile environment and culture

Online Course Required Materials / Background

  • Laptop / personal computer
  • Internet access
  • Course is delivered using a live, interactive virtual online classroom, providing an environment for optimal learning
  • 6 sessions, 2 per week over the course of 3 weeks
  • Homework assignments will be provided each week
  • Sessions are approximately 2 hours in length