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Hours
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The LeSS Company B.V.
Training and Certification:
Certified LeSS Basics
Our Certified LeSS Basics (CLB) course is an insight-packed introduction to the highly regarded LeSS organisational system (which includes 2 frameworks and much more).
This course includes examples and first-hand stories from LeSS adoptions in Europe and Australia.
By the end of this course you will be able to describe with confidence how LeSS deals with some of the most common issues when scaling Agile development. This includes how to:
Course Information:
Our Certified LeSS Basics course outlines solutions to a wide range of the most commonly experience scaling challenges including:
- avoiding big releases with high release overhead,
- rigid quarterly planning and “water-Scrum-fall”,
- alignment that maximises value across all teams without capacity silos,
- dependencies between teams and other groups,
- bottlenecks around scarce skills/knowledge,
- day-to-day coordination,
- upholding internal quality,
- integration and release readiness,
- stalled improvement,
- local optimisation and
- difficulty seeing the big picture.
You will understand all the elements that make up LeSS, how the team structure and interactions contribute to an ability to maximise adaptability and customer value irrespective of the number of teams.
It is also about how LeSS is different from other approaches to scaling such as SAFe, the “Spotify Model”, Scrum@Scale, Nexus etc. Being informed about this allows you to provide advice about the choice of scaling approach for your product group.
Come away with the ability to explain how LeSS is different from other scaling approaches adoption tips from first-hand experience with LeSS and LeSS-like adoptions since 2008.
What pre-requisites are there?
None. Basic knowledge of Scrum and some experience in a project or ideally product development environment is beneficial.
Who should attend?
- Scrum Masters,
- Agile Coaches.
- Enterprise Agile Coaches,
- Transformation Leaders, and
- Middle and Senior Managers.
How do I earn CLB certification?
Earning a CLB involves 3 steps:
- 90 mins of self-paced learning prior to the training,
- Completing a short Scrum knowledge quiz prior to the training,and
- 1 days or 2 half days of highly interactive training.
What is included when I register?
All of the the following is included:
- 1 days or 2 half days of highly interactive training.
- Active CLB accreditation* with the LeSS Company.
- Access to members-only material from the LeSS website.
* for participants who meet the training participation requirements.
Course Information:
- Why LeSS?Understand how LeSS differs from other approaches in terms of what it is designed to solve and its organisational change approach to achieving this.
- LeSS Complete PictureBe aware of the breadth and depth of the large body of knowledge and guidance that comprises LeSS.
- Story of a LeSS SprintHear a first-hand account of what a LeSS looks like in practice through the flow of work and interactions.
- LeSS PrinciplesIncrease your awareness of the practical implications of following Agile and Lean principles at scale.
- Core LeSS GameDifferentiate between specific techniques that are core, complementary and in conflict with LeSS.
- Team StructuresUnderstand how component and feature teams differ in outcomes such as dependencies, avoiding waterfall and overall value maximisation.
- LeSS HugeBe aware of the additional elements involved in scaling beyond several teams and how an appropriate product definition makes this scenario more prevalent.
- Technical Excellence at ScaleAppreciate which technical practices will limit your agility and debunk myths about what they involve.
- Research Informing LeSSBe aware of how your beliefs compare with the bodies of knowledge informing LeSS spanning Lean, Systems Thinking, culture change, leadership, HR, teamwork and people management.
- Adoption RecommendationsGain several important recommendations on how to approach a LeSS style scaled Agile adoption including insights from a variety of LeSS and LeSS Huge experiences.
Next Upcoming Course:
Looking for corporate / private training?
Learning Facilitator:
Rowan Bunning
Biography:
In 2008, Rowan founded Adapt WithStyle (formerly Scrum WithStyle) to bring world-class Agile training and independent consulting to south-east Asia. As a Certified Scrum Trainer® (CST®) with not-for-profit Scrum Alliance, Rowan has delivered over 530 certification courses including the full three level Path to Certified Scrum Professional® (CSP®) for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches.
Rowan holds a WSQ Advanced Certificate in Learning and Performance (ACLP) from the Singapore Institute for Adult Learning (IAL).
Rowan has played project management roles in the U.K. and Australia. This includes taking a high-profile online business to launch, and safely introducing frequent change to critical infrastructure processing AUD $250 billion worth of financial transactions daily.
Rowan is passionate about developing leaders skilled at developing teams and simplifying their organisations to compete at scale on the basis of agility, innovation and highest customer value.
Accreditations:
Frequently Asked Questions:
Isn’t LeSS too simple to scale Agile in our complicated organisation?
The point of LeSS is to simplify your complicated organisation in order to achieve agility across a broad customer centric product. This is called “descaling”.
Numerous case studies are existence proofs that this works – even in big banks, insurance companies and telecom companies.
LeSS generally covers the organisational needs that are commonly addressed by multi-month planning, project coordination, dependency management and complicated tooling with much simpler, streamlined solutions. We explore these solutions during our CLB course.
In what ways is LeSS different from SAFe?
LeSS and SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) are very different in terms of the capabilities that they are designed to provide, their starting assumptions and the sort of organisation that they result in.
LeSS is designed to optimise a customer centric development group for agility in order to discover and deliver the highest customer value. LeSS adoptions can typically change direction onto previously unidentified top priorities every two weeks.
In a SAFe adoption, not only is running a PI planning every fortnight unrealistic, there are usually multi-Sprint features in-progress what may need to be suspended or abandoned. As such, SAFe is not optimised for agility at scale (the word optimised here is key).
A starting assumption of LeSS is that structure is a first-order lever on culture and (as per well established organisational design principles) must be aligned with changes in order to be effective. Also that structure can be changed when there is sufficient understanding and will by those with the authority over this.
SAFe assumes that the core of the organisational structure is too difficult to change. Existing team, program, portfolio etc. layers are therefore retained, narrowly specialised groups and coordination roles retained with new labels. Much of SAFe (including Agile Release Trains and PI planning) are process mechanisms to manage the systemic mismatch between the shape of value creating work and the structure.
LeSS based organisation will have a much simpler structure than a SAFe organisation. In a LeSS adoption, everyone focused on the whole customer-facing product, rather than optimising their team’s piece and sub-optimising the whole with skills and knowledge constraints limiting the ability to work on the highest value items. LeSS organisation also feature less bureaucratic control mechanisms and more market facing and team control. You can also expect a higher degree of cross-boundary collaboration and learning.
Is it useful to take this CLB course if my organisation is not using LeSS?
You can expect that this CLB course will be very useful if your organisation is evaluating options to scale-up an Agile way of working, or assessing ways to improve on the current multi-team approach.
Even if you have only single team products and solutions, then you can expect that what you learn on this course can help you to improve your Scrum. LeSS provides considerably more guidance on enacting core good Scrum practices than The Scrum Guide and many other sources. This includes practical guidance on matter including the following.
- What to focus on to tune your Scrum to achieve higher agility and value.
- How to progressively split large Product Backlog Items just in time.
- How to avoid the Product Backlog getting too large and difficult to understand.
- How to increase the team’s understanding of users/customers.
- Many techniques for coordinating with people outside the team.
- How to conduct engaging and highly interactive Sprint Reviews with large groups.
- How to engage managers in studying impediments and actively improving the organisation.
Is LeSS only for large scale with lots of teams?
No. Don’t be fooled by the word “Large” in the “Large Scale Scrum”. LeSS can be used with 2 small teams and upwards working on a single product offering.
What industries is LeSS used in?
LeSS is not only for tech. product companies. There are currently publicly available case studies in the following industries: banking, insurance, telecom, logistics, healthcare, security, defence, electronic hardware and software technology companies. See LeSS Case Studies.
An even wider range of industries is represented in experience reports at LeSS conferences and other events. If a product is being developed by more than 12 people, chances are that it can benefit from LeSS.
Can we use LeSS if we have a small number of teams?
Yes. The LeSS framework can be used with two teams and upward. For 8+ teams, the LeSS Huge framework is recommended.
Because there is no difference in the number of roles and management overheads introduced between 1 Scrum team and several teams, LeSS has no “fixed costs overheads” that require many teams to make economic sense.
Will this CLB course earn me a certification?
Yes. Upon successful completion of this CLB course, you will be awarded the Certified LeSS Basics certification from the LeSS company. This is at the discretion of our accredited trainer.
Whilst there is no formal exam or test after the training, there is a test to evaluate your understanding of Scrum that is to be taken prior to the training. Our CLB course involves many quizzes and practical exercises from which the learning facilitator will be validating your learning.