Scrum Coach

Is the waste of resources in your development team a thorn in your flesh? Are you looking for wasy to manage the growing complexity of multidisciplinary development projects? The daily hectic in projects demands a new approach. Full predictability of complicated development projects is a myth, and the waterfall approach must be renewed urgently. You have experienced that the adaptivity of your team is directly related to critical business requirements. Then the time is right to consider to move over to the Agile Scrum project management technique. The Scrum Coach of ImprovemenT is able to help you with a smooth introduction!

Are you considering to make the move to Agile Scrum project management, and asking yourself how to get your development team up and running with Scrum in a time- and cost-effective way? The Scrum Quick Start service bundles Scrum training and coaching in a pragmatic on-site service, aiming at a fast and no-nonsense introduction of the Scrum way of working in your team under supervision of a qualified Scrum coach.

Workshop Agile Scrum Foundation

You are faced with both the need for high-speed delivery and with business requirements that are rapidly changing as well. Hearing the success stories of the Agile approach, you may wonder whether a more Agile & Lean way of working would be also profitable in your situation. Perhaps you are convinced of the potential benefits of this new paradigm already, but you need to win over doubtful colleagues. Or your development team must grasp the essentials of the Agile body of thought in order to make an effective transition.

If you are looking for a pragmatic introduction to the fundamentals of the Agile approach and the benefits for your own organization, the in-house Workshop 'Agile Scrum Foundation' offered by ImprovemenT is the choice to consider.  In order to have a maximum output, this interactive, one-day workshop based on the first-hand experience of an industry expert, will give the answers you’re looking for.

After completion of the workshop, you:

• comprehend the fundamental principles of the Lean and Agile way of working;
• clearly understand all vital elements of the Scrum method for Agile project management;
• are able to make an underlined decision for a successful introduction of the Agile approach in your own working environment;
• are fully prepared for the Agile Foundation Examination offered by the Agile Consortium Benelux (for more info, see: www.agileconsortium.nl)

Workshop 'Get Going with Agile Scrum'

You’ve got an idea of what Scrum is and have read a few articles or books on the topic, but you really don’t know how to go about putting that theory into action. The rules and practices for managing complex projects with Scrum are few, straightforward, and easy to learn. But its simplicity and lack of prescription can be disarming but also misguiding, and new Agile practitioners often find themselves reverting to old project management habits and tools, yielding lesser results.

The interactive, two-day in-house 'Workshop 'Get Going with Agile Scrum' will teach you everything you need to know to manage a project using Scrum. Incorporation of relevant case history taken directly from your own domain will give you all the practical answers you’re looking for. This hands-on course will help you move beyond initial success to sustained agility.

This is your opportunity to learn about Scrum, in the real world, from an industry expert with 35 years of hands-on experience. Come prepared to challenge old beliefs and be open to new ways of thinking about how you approach work in the future. Learn how to make the switch from anticipatory to adaptive styles of running projects.

Masterclass Agile Architecting

The Masterclass Agile Architecting is a unique, powerful combination of a training in system and software architecture, transfer of the lean & agile mindset, official Agile Scrum Master certification, establishment of the agile development process in the participant’s organization, and on-site coaching sessions to improve on relevant professional hard & soft skills.

The goal of this highly interactive Masterclass is to provide architects with the knowledge and skills needed to establish a lean and agile product realization process, based on an agile enterprise architecture. Taking part in an intensive program of 8-10 months, participants will learn how to excel in delivery of customer value today and the realization adaptable and lucrative products tomorrow.

It is possible to organize a tailor-made, in-house edition of the Masterclass Agile Architecting, fully adapted to satisfy the needs of your organization, your customers and your workers.

Project Coaching

Dark clouds are gathering over your project, and you ask yourself whether there is enough knowledge and experience in the development team to manage the job. Since team members are under heavy time pressure, they will easily overlook pitfalls or tempted to take shortcuts. Who will safeguard the integrity of the system architecture, and takes care the product is compliant with the agreed-upon quality requirements? Or perhaps your team faces the challenge to find a feasible solution for burning legacy issues.

It is not an easy task to keep complicated and often multidisciplinary projects on course. With the project coach of ImprovemenT you will bring an ‘experienced hand’ on board, a combination of a pragmatic project leader, a skilled system architect, a certified Agile Scrum master/practitioner and a qualified coach. Utilizing a tailor made set of Tools for Optimimum Performance, the project coach will help your team to cope with the situation – now and in the future. 

Software Quality Workshop

As software plays an increasingly important role in many manufactured products, the need to ensure software quality has never been greater. Lacking software product quality is in many cases responsible for a considerable increase in the total cost of software-intensive systems. Latent defects and difficulty in maintaining or extending complex code can have a dramatic impact on business competitiveness.
The Agile way of working offers an unique oportunity to introduce quality driven software engineering, by incorporation of relevant quality attributes in the 'Definition of Done'.
How to get a grip on the vital business-related software quality attributes that need to be guaranteed in your development process? The Software Quality Workshop will show you the way.

Software Quality Audit

Software product quality is an increasingly important driver for the manufacturing of software-intensive systems. Increasing software product quality will thus yield a high return on investment. Many quality attributes are directly related to business goals, and should therefore be monitored and guaranteed in the development process.
The Software Quality Audit is a scan of your existing software product, using modern code analysis techniques and tooling. The result of this tailor-made assessment is a concise overview of the quality level of selected product features.

Recommendations

Workshop Agile Foundation:

“Een uitstekende training die bijdraagt aan een gemeenschappelijke begrips- en visievorming. Praktisch van opzet met voldoende gelegenheid voor het onderling bediscussiëren van de lesstof”
Daan Boekestein - Development Manager Keesing Games

More info:
http://www.foundationtraining.nl/nieuws/#Keesing%20Games%20kiest%20FT

27 september 2011

"About 30 participants have recently presented themself for an exam organized by the Agile Consortium, in order to achieve the formal Agile Foundation Certificate. The participants were prepared for their certification by Erik Philippus of ImprovemenT BV by means of two tailor-made Agile Scrum workshops under auspicien of FoundationTraining.nl. Participants were thus offered an excellent basis for the examination, resulting in a 100% pass percentage."
More info:
http://agileconsortium.nl/nl/nieuws/algemeen-nieuws/foundation-examen-succesvol-afgesloten.html

26 januari 2011

Masterclass Agile Architecting:

Den Haag – Imtech ICT investeert in de opleiding van Agile Architecten. Centraal staat daarin op welke wijze een architect vanuit zijn rol een onderscheidende bijdrage kan leveren aan technische, procesmatige en organisatorische aspecten, zodat de architectuuroplossing die hij of zij ontwerpt naadloos aansluit op de behoefte van de klant.

Klanten van Imtech ICT verwachten steeds vaker dat Imtech’s software- en systeemarchitecten in complexe, multidisciplinaire ontwikkelprojecten een leidende rol op zich nemen. In het realiseren van een nieuw product of softwaresysteem zijn zij het technisch geweten van het project en mengen ze zich in beslissende commerciële en organisatorische discussies.

Voor Imtech ICT was dit reden om te investeren in het opleidingstraject ‘Masterclass Agile Architecting’ van toparchitect Erik Philippus: “Centraal staat daarin dat een architect door de manier waarop hij omgaat met onduidelijkheid en voortschrijdend inzicht, een architectuuroplossing kan neerleggen die op technisch, procesmatig en organisatorisch vlak naadloos aansluit op de behoefte van de klant.” aldus Philippus.

Op verzoek van Imtech ICT is verder een bijzonder element aan deze masterclass toegevoegd: het verhogen van de software kwaliteit middels het concept van Quality Driven Systems Engineering. ”Imtech is een kwaliteitgedreven software-ontwikkelclub,” aldus Thijs Geurts, Manager Operations bij Imtech ICT Technical Systems.“Onze klanten kiezen voor onze dienstverlening, omdat wij hun problemen oplossen. De kwaliteitseisen die zij stellen aan hun product worden gewaarborgd in de software die wij voor dat product ontwikkelen”.

4 mei 2010

"Erik used a well defined three stage approach to coach us to use the SCRUM method. First we spoke widely about the possibilities, risk etc. with the Teams and the Management. After the formal GO we started with two pilot projects.  After their success we moved all teams to the SCRUM method. Third, a number of evaluations were done to learn and to ensure SCRUM was there to stay.

The overall coaching performance of Erik is very good! He can explain things very clearly without rushing into things. He also can listen very good to his audience.

Erik used a hands-on method. As soon as the background of SCRUM and the basics were shared, we started to work accordingly in the two pilot teams. He made all people very enthusiastic and we rolled into it with no big problems. He always made sure that the teams were doing the work, not him, so we could discover SCRUM ourselves.

In the preparation phase to introduced SCRUM to the entire organisation. Erik joined me in meetings with the CEO, the Sales Director and Department managers to support me to spread the belief that SCRUM would help us to build a better organisation. Erik also worked as referee when conflict arose while implementing this new way of working together in our R&D. And, ery important, he went head-to-head with the R&D Architect who had second thoughts about the SCRUM approach on the R&D department. A great facilitator!

In the first meetings Erik showed us how the SCRUM master should act in the team. This was very important since our Project Leaders were trained in the new role of SCRUM master. A role which has significant different aspects of teamleading. We learned a lot from Erik's example role.

Erik explained that the SCRUM approch might reveil weak points in the organisation. Well, it did! So when this happened he asked very direct questions which helped us to understand where the weakness was and how we could solve this. Not by giving solutions but by letting us thing and give the solutions to ourselves".

Paul Boekhout, R&D Manager JVH Gaming Products BV
20 april 2009

Agile Architecting

Last Update: 19-11-2011