Great software development using Scrum requires the seamless integration of requirements engineering, design, development testing, integration, and deployment within a single iteration. A well-functioning team, software development best practices, and ALM tools are key factors for success in such environments. Professional Scrum Developer is the only course available that teaches how this is done.
The Professional Scrum Developer course teaches students how to work in such an environment: In a Development Team, using modern software engineering practices and your specific technology platform to develop an increment of potentially releasable functionality. All of this is done as iterative incremental development within the Scrum framework. The course content bases on Professional Scrum Developer Objective Domain and the participants are invited to test their newly learned skills in the Professional Scrum Developer I assessment after the course.
Classes are exercise-driven, with students working in self-organizing and cross-functioning teams to develop “done” increments from a realistic product backlog.
As with all Scrum.org courses, the curriculum and materials are standardized and regularly enhanced through contributions from the Scrum.org network of Professional Scrum Trainers. Only the most qualified instructors–people with top-notch skills in the technologies for this course coupled with excellent knowledge of how to use them within the Scrum framework–are selected to deliver the Professional Scrum Developer course. Each instructor brings his or her individual experiences and areas of expertise to bear, but all students learn the same core course content. This improves students’ ability to pass the Professional Scrum Developer assessment and apply Scrum in their workplaces.
The Professional Scrum Developer course was developed in partnership with Microsoft® and is the official training solution for Microsoft Visual Studio.
Audience
The Professional Scrum Developer course is suitable for any member of a Development Team, including architects, programmers, database developers, testers, and others with some technical knowledge.
Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and other stakeholders are welcome to attend this class as long as they keep in mind that this is a technical course and involves programming in pairs.
PSD Syllabus
All Professional Scrum Developer courses cover three main topics:
- Scrum. The course simulates being part of a Scrum Development Team to expose students to the core Scrum concepts in action. Students learn how to work as part of a Development Team, which requires them to understand techniques for self-organization and cross-functionality. Through the course students develop skills in identifying and overcoming common Scrum Team dysfunctions.
- Best Practices. PSD courses cover all of the technical practices that team members need to successfully implement and ship functionality. These include coding practices like test-driven development, continuous integration, and refactoring; architecture practices such as emergent architecture and evolutionary database development; release management practices like planning, estimation, requirements definition, and shipment; and quality assurance practices from defining “done” to pair programming, version control and acceptance testing.
- Tools. PSD courses teach students how to leverage different development tools to employ Scrum practices. This course teaches in the context of Visual Studio 2012 using the latest Visual Studio Scrum template. Students learn how to map specific tool features and functions to the general Scrum practices they must use to be effective team members.
PSD Assessment and Certification
Unlike other Scrum certifications that require only class attendance, Scrum.org certification requires a minimum score on a rigorous assessment. The Professional Scrum Developer assessments measure knowledge of how to develop software using Scrum, and the practices and techniques that high-performing teams typically use. Assessment is currently based on the Professional Scrum Developer Objective Domain.
While the PSD I assessment is available to the public for purchase, if you complete the Professional Scrum Developer course you will receive a password to take the PSD I assessment one time within a 14-day period following the course. If you pass this assessment you will receive the industry-recognized “PSD I” certification.
Course Prerequisites and Expectations of Students
To achieve best result from attending a Professional Scrum Developer course you should have:
- Studied the Scrum Guide. If you are attending a 3 day version of the course, you should have a solid understanding of Scrum either through working on a Scrum Team, Scrum and Agile literature or through taking part in a Professional Scrum Foundations or similar course.
- Passed the Developer open assessment (and if you are attending a 3 day course you should pass the Scrum Open assessment too)
- Experience with the technologies listed below:
- Visual Studio 2012
- C#, .NET 4.5 & ASP.NET 4.0 experience (discuss exact technologies with instructor)
Other things to keep in mind:
- Professional Scrum Developer is a unique course in that it is technically‐focused, team‐based, and employs timeboxes. It demands that the members of the teams self‐organize and self‐manage their own work to collaboratively develop increments of software.
- This is a technical training class being delivered to teams of developers, not pairs, and not individuals. Ideally, your actual software development team will attend the training to ensure that all necessary skills are covered. However, if you wish to attend an open enrollment course alone or with a few colleagues, realize that you may be placed on a team with other attendees. The instructor will do his or her best to ensure that each team is cross-functional to tackle the case study, but there are no guarantees. You may be required to try a new role, learn a new skill, or pair with somebody unfamiliar to you. This is just one of many examples of how the PSD course simulates reality in the classroom.