Becoming a Passionate Product Owner, A Certified Scrum Product Owner Course
This course is for:
Product owners looking to learn the core practices and techniques to success with Scrum
Business analysts and user experience professionals wanting to contribute in a key role on the product ownership team
The product inventor who is passionate about creating great products and wants to learn how to work within a Scrum process framework
Scrum and agile coaches who seeks a variety of practices to use (and to teach others)
Product ownership is one of the most difficult and critical roles in Scrum
Are you a product owner struggling to find time to understand your role in a Scrum or agile process? Are you faced with competing demands from people both inside and outside of your team? Do you work with a hungry team eager for details on what’s in the next sprint? Does your team complain they never get enough of your time, while you work long hours trying to keep up?
While there are some real advantages to Scrum, product owners are often overwhelmed with the process and long for the days of their old process. If you’re struggling with any of these problems, this is the course for you.
This 2-day course is directed at helping you perform effectively as a Scrum product owner
In this information-packed course, expert agilista, and experienced product manager, Jeff Patton, will provide you with the core concepts and skills to work effectively as a Scrum product owner. Moving beyond just learning the Scrum role responsibilities, you’ll be exposed to proven practices for effectively fulfilling your responsibilities within a Scrum process framework.
Course Benefits and Practices
You’ll come away from this course learning how to work with your team and stakeholders to:
- Identify the business benefits to priorities
- Understand customers and users
- Build a product backlog
- Design the user interface
By leveraging the whole team, you’ll ease your workload, and help everyone else become active involved champions for a successful product – just like you are. You’ll learn:
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After this course you’ll be better at:
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You’ll learn about and practice a variety of techniques including:
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This course is different:
It’s about the product, not the process. Instead of focusing on filling process obligations, you’ll learn practices for identifying and steering the development of successful products. Scrum’s process obligations are relatively simple. Building confidence and clarity around product success simplifies meeting those obligations.
It’s about understanding product benefit, not just features. A product built on time with the required features doesn’t ensure success. You’ll see how to identify and steer product releases towards the desired benefit for your company, your customers, and your users.
It’s about customer experience. Product success is an outcome of a successful customer and user experience. You’ll learn practices for understanding and engaging your users and customers.
It’s about design thinking. You’ll see how great products don’t come from captured requirements, but from a deep understanding of the problems to be solved, and an effective approach to identifying and validating solutions. This is design thinking.
It’s about collaboration. The best products come from collaborative teams aligned around a common purpose. Effective collaboration doesn’t happen by accident. In this course, you’ll build the facilitation skills to get your entire team successfully collaborating with each other.
Course outline:
Day 1: Understanding the product you’re building
- Scrum and product owner essentials
- Identifying the benefit your product delivers
- Understanding your users
- Mapping your product backlog
Day 2: Guiding the product to successful delivery and beyond
- Planning valuable product releases
- Envisioning the customer experience
- Guiding products to success sprint by sprint
- Product ownership variations and scaling techniques
Reclaiming lost roles as valuable parts of the product ownership team
When adopting Scrum or agile processes, many traditional software development roles seem to fall through the cracks. If you’re a business analyst, user experience designer, or anyone focused on helping to determine what the right thing to build is, you might have found your role in Scrum uncertain in. Don’t despair. This course focuses on a team approach where a primary more strategic product owner is supported by a team of more tactical product owners that help carry the product from abstract vision to concrete detail. If you’re a BA or UX person, you fill this important tactical role and you’ll learn what you can do to make the product a success.
This class is for:
The stressed product owner: if you’re currently working as a product owner, or about to, this class will supply you with concepts and practice to help you confidently succeed.
The in-between team member: if you’re a business analyst or user experience person, your responsibilities may be a bit ambiguous. We’ll focus on your role as a product ownership team member handling day-to-day tactical product ownership.
The product inventor: if your passion is creating great products, then you’ll learn many valuable practices to help you do that inside a Scrum process framework.
The Scrum and agile coach: if you’re focused on helping product owners and teams succeed, you’ll learn a variety of practices to teach others, and use yourself.
This class is not for:
The portfolio manager: if you’re managing large portfolios of products, you’ll likely find this class a bit tactical for your tastes. While there’s useful information here, it won’t address your toughest problems.
The transient product owner: if you find yourself in a product owner role and trying to do a good job while waiting for a better opportunity, you may find the intense focus on product success and customer experience a bit tiring. This class is for the passionate product owner.
What to know before you come:
You should come with a basic understanding of Scrum and agile approaches. We won’t burn much time in the class getting participants up to speed here.
The new new product development game. In preparation for this course you’ll receive a pdf of the Harvard Business Review article that helped motivate the creation of Scrum. It’ll help you to identify the style of product invention we’re striving for in Scrum.
Don’t worry, you can study up in preparation
Before the class you’ll be sent valuable information, which will help you to prepare. Information includes a short reading list that will include the Scrum Guide — a short 14-page primer on Scrum. This will give you the vocabulary you’ll need to launch head-first into effective product ownership practice.
Dates & Venues
- August 11-12 U of U Conference Center, special trial-run price: $195
Sorry this course is Sold Out - Oct 15-16 U of U Conference Center, $1,195
Register on or before September 18 and pay only $995 Register Now
Discounts for larger groups are available. Please contact Jeff Patton for details.
Two free seats will be reserved in each class for employees of charitable organizations, and those currently unemployed. Please contact Jeff Patton for details.
University of Utah Conference Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
The University if Utah Conference Center & Guest House is modern facility housed on the University of Utah Campus next to the University of Utah Medical Center and historic Fort Douglas. It’s a short walk across the Eccles Legacy Footbridge to the Trax station. From there you can easily get to downtown Salt Lake City. You’re in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains and few minutes from a relaxing evening hike in the summer time, or fabulous skiing in winter.
- Modern conference facility & hotel
- Close to hiking, mountain biking, and winter skiing
- Close to public transportation
Room Rates: $89 nightly, includes continental breakfast and WiFi
Please contact the guest house directly to book rooms:
- toll free: 888.416.4075, direct: +1 801.587.1000
Refunds & Guarantees for Training Courses
A full refund will be provided if you cancel or transfer your registration to a different event no later than five business days prior to the start of the class. If you cancel or transfer within five business days you will be charged $250 for a two-day class and $150 for a one-day class.
We’re confident this course will set you on the right track to becoming both a passionate and productive product owner. If for any reason you’re dissatisfied, please contact us for a full refund of your course admission.
Why attend a public class?
Those in the product owner role seldom have colleagues within their own company whom they can collaborate with, and learn from. A public course offers you a unique opportunity to learn from others in your field working on the same problems you are. It’s an opportunity to learn from other’s unique experience and build friends within your profession.
Why organize a private class in your company?
For large groups from the same organization, you’ll save money by booking a class directly. You’ll also have the opportunity to work on specific software problems from your organization.
For more information, please get in touch
If you have questions on course content, pricing, venues, or anything else, please contact Jeff Patton for details.
- Jeff Patton
- jpatton@acm.org
- +1 801.910.7908
