Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills

Bring high Transparency in what is most Valuable to your Customers and Users

The Product Backlog is an emergent, ordered list of what is needed to improve the product. It is the single source of work undertaken by the Scrum Team. It changes constantly and requires a Product Owner and the entire team to consider many options when adding to, deleting from, updating, and ordering it.

Our Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills™ is a highly interactive one-day course designed to help Scrum practitioners improve their ability to manage all aspects of the Product Backlog and stakeholder communication.

A key tenet of Scrum is to put problem-solving and decision-making in the hands of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Framework creates venues for this to happen and the Scrum Values help create an environment in which each Scrum Team member’s voice can be heard. However, it is not always easy to have a transparent Product Backlog. Sometimes team members lose sight of goals, don’t fully engage and/or can’t reach agreement. Effective product backlog management guides the team toward their desired outcomes.

• Module 1: Understanding Your Stakeholders
• Module 2: Defining Your Product Backlog
• Module 3: Refining Your Product Backlog
• Module 4: Creating Transparency

The course also includes a free attempt at the globally recognized Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills (PSPBMS) certification exam.

What you will learn

In this one-day skills-building course, you will learn techniques and methods to effectively manage a Product Backlog that clearly expresses the future vision of the product and brings transparency to what is most valuable for the Scrum Team to work on to delight stakeholders and customers. You will get hands-on experience with refinement techniques such as decomposing and slicing Product Backlog items, while learning how simplicity can cure complicated and complex Product Backlogs.

You will be able to connect the Product Goals you are investing in to the work being done to ensure that you are delivering value as well as how to understand and manage your relationships with the stakeholders involved.

The course uses a combination of instructor-led and activity-based learning where you will work together with other participants in teams. As a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST), I bring my own facilitator experiences and stories to the class and use my skills as a professional trainer to deliver the material using my own unique delivery style. The result is an engaging, enjoyable learning experience where you gain a solid understanding of product backlog management principles, learn a good number of techniques, and how the Product Backlog brings transparency supporting the Scrum Teams’ effectiveness.

Over this one day, you will see why product backlog management is crucial for growing effective Scrum Teams.

Course Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to define the Product Goals you’re investing in, and the Product Backlog Items that will achieve the value you’re seeking.
• Students can apply practical techniques to create, refine, and order your Product Backlog
• Students are able to identify and effectively communicate with stakeholders
• Students capture your stakeholder’s needs on a Product Backlog
• Students find better ways to make your Product Backlog more transparent
• Students can use empiricism as a competitive advantage

Who should attend

The Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills course is appropriate for team members who are currently working as a Product Owner or Product Manager, or are supporting these, and are looking for practical ways to manage their Stakeholders and Product Backlog. The course caters to a range of roles involved in agile development and product management.

The Product Backlog Management course is particularly beneficial for

• Professionals interested in learning essential Product Owner practices,
• Product Owners looking to better understand their customers and stakeholders
• Scrum Masters wishing to be an effective coach to Product Owners will also find valuable insights in this course
• Product Managers and Business Analysts looking to improve their Product Backlog management skills

As collaboration is a key factor in the success of any initiative, and as every single individual can step in when needed, it is important that any Scrum Team member, including the Scrum Master and the Developers, understand how to manage a Product Backlog, and have a number of techniques and practices at hand to support the Product Owner.

Format

You will work in small teams. You learn through team assignments, discussions and hands-on exercises.
Be ready to challenge and be challenged.
This course will be taught in English.

Prerequisites

Although not blocking factors, you will make the most of the class if you:

• Have studied the Scrum Guide – available at https://scrumguides.org/.
• Took the Scrum Open assessment.
• Have already an understanding of Scrum either through working on a Scrum Team, or through taking part in an Applying Professional Scrum course, or similar.
• Have been on or are closely involved in solving complex problems, such as (but not limited to), building or enhancing a product or service.

PS. During the course there is no time to explain basic Scrum concepts such as the Scrum Events, Artifacts or Accountabilities. This is considered to be known.

Assessment and Certification

• All participants completing the Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills course will receive a password to attempt the Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills (PSPBMS) assessment. The industry-recognized PSPBMS certification requires a minimum passing score of 85%. PSPBMS class participants who attempt the PSPBMS assessment within 14 days of receiving their free password and do not score at least 85% will be granted a 2nd attempt at no additional cost.
• Students are able to claim Project Management Institute (PMI) PDU credits: 7 PDUs after attending a one-day Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills (PSPBMS) course.
• Please note that PMI PDUs are earned for course attendance and not for passing a PSPBMS assessment. Students can claim PDUs under PMI’s “Education courses provided by other third-party providers” category.

Steven, Your Trainer

I live to energise, encourage and inspire individuals and teams so they successfully overcome the challenges on their path, making them more complete humans.

Facilitating Scrum training allows me to do just that.

Want to know more? Check out 

• my Scrum.org profile
• my LinkedIn profile

Why collaborate with Scrum.org

Scrum.org training provides a hands-on, activity-based learning experience using a consistent set of learning objectives around the world. Each course explores real-world challenges to help students apply what they learn in their roles once back at work.

On our path to becoming a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST), we had to prove an important number of years of Scrum experience. Once we applied, we went through an extensive process including: interviews, validation of knowledge, training approach, peer reviews and more.

The above combined, Scrum.org provides, according to us, the highest quality Scrum training and certified Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs) to teach them.

We, as Professional Scrum Trainers, bring our own style, experience, and stories to the courses, using the same  learning objectives as our basis so that all students are learning from the same solid basis. 

We are a proud member of the Scrum.org Professional Training Network™(PTN). As PTN member we align with the Scrum Values and are committed to improving the profession of product delivery in part by providing Scrum.org training.

Need more info?

For additional information about this and our other Professional Scrum training modules you can contact Steven Deneir at steven@boostyourscrum.com or via 0032 477 26 93 18.
Visit our website at www.boostyourscrum.com.

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