Preparing for the Scrum Master certification exam requires studying for many months. You will also need Scrum Master certification courses. As well as a lot of money. This is the traditional preparation for the Certified Scrum Master title.
Read more: Scrum Master certification exam preparation with sample questions and answers
Here is my idea for a strategy to build Lean thinking in the organization. I will focus mainly on the idea that every employee of the organization (in this case I will use a software company with about 20-30 employees) has the feeling that the company he works for is not just a job that brings him a monthly income, but a place where he feels really good and walks willingly to this place.
Read more: How to develop Lean thinking in your organization
More and more teams want to incorporate the Scrum or Kanban way of working. I am very happy when I notice that the teams of an organization have reached this decision. I will try to explain to you the similarities and differences between Scrum and Kanban.
Read more: What are Scrum and Kanban and the similarities and differences between them?
Teams are an integral part of modern management. In a long period of management development, the emphasis has been on establishing a sustainable environment, traditional roles, and routine operations. Intense market penetration in all sectors of the economy, globalization, and the development of media communicate the business challenge of change related to growing consumer demands, shorter product life cycles, technological innovations, political and economic instability.
In the business world, the emphasis is increasingly on the need to work in a team on a consulting basis.
Conflict forecasting as a theory and its accelerated implementation in the functioning and development of macro and micro social systems and businesses today has become a priority in the modern world, which has steered relentlessly along the path of globalization.
Management and leadership are two separate business organizational disciplines.
The manager is the one who ensures the job is well done by managing the team. The leader is the one who inspires employees to do their job well without a supervisor.
I often get calls from Human Resources Managers who don't know how to deal with difficult bosses. However, one such conversation left a lasting mark in my mind. It's about calling a human resources director from a large company that was in a real crisis situation.
The topic of Agile and business value is more popular today than Scrum and project management practices themselves. The delivery of business value in the main activity of the Product Owner is the Kanban and Scrum teams. Today, however, every product and project manager must be aware of this need of stakeholders.
Read more: Agile project management and business value for products
Our Marta Cooper Project Scrum Product Owner answers frequently asked questions about the Product Owner role in the Scrum team.
In this short report, we share the main differences between Waterfall project management practices and Agile product development methods.
We post the introduction of our product manager who was just hired on the project. Marta Cooper has a strong track record as a Product Owner and is currently taking over some of the project management functions.
Scrum Master role responsibilities
The Scrum Master role ensures that there is a balance between the development team and the Product owner as well as protecting the team from themselves sometimes. One of the main goals of the Scrum Master role is to support the team and monitor the work processes. Accordingly, he should try to improve the team if needed. The Scrum Master role should also work directly with the Product owner. Together they should strive for a better product on the one hand, but at the same time, the team should be constantly motivated to be able to work fully on the other.
I make proposals for the roles of Project Director, Program Manager, Project Sponsor, Steering committee and Project manager.
The discussion covers defining project roles and is based on the publication Project manager vs Program manager vs Project sponsor: Differences and responsibilities on the EduWiki.me educational website
Our Scrum Master Amanda Jefferson answers questions about the Development Team responsibilities, work, and processes in terms of the Scrum Master role.
The following material presents the ability to execute multiple projects within the framework of a program that aims to plan, control, and produce a new technology product, including hardware components, software, and many modern popular technologies. Project management students can use this material as an additional educational training resource for their BVOP project management certification examination or implement it into a real project professional environment.
Each project is described with a separate section and its sequence, dependencies and project team are indicated.
- Project analysis and product requirements
- A project to create the vision and design of the product
- Project for the technical phase of product creation
- A project for creating and configuring hardware components
- Machine parts manufacturing project
- A project to assemble parts and create a prototype
- Operating System Integration Project
- Project for the development of unique software tools
- General Laundry Testing Project
- Project for eventual processing
- Product Approval Project
- Spare Parts Creation Project.
- Project analysis and product requirements
The material is approved by a project management supervisor assigned by PM.MBA - Masters Project Management
Defining and meeting the legal requirements for the product and basic safety expectations in general. Analyzing markets and consumers. Analyzing the risk of the product in operation, determining the time range for creating and operating the product, setting the budget, including already defined product features, identifying other important resources.
Requirements are analyzed during meetings and interviews with clients' managers and specialists, and the duration of this step may vary from several days to several weeks, depending on the complexity of the tasks and the scale of execution.
Defining and describing the requirements (methodological and technical) are the steps that largely determine the success of the whole project, as they affect all other stages. Practice shows that underdevelopment of requirements is often manifested only when the project is almost completed and a considerable part of the funds allocated for its implementation has already been spent. Unfortunately, debugging at the design stage is much more expensive than careful analysis at the analysis stage.
A project to create the vision and design of the product
A team of 2D and 3D designers who create the model in full detail. It starts before the rest of the projects, however, after detailed and validated product requirements.
It can be done by an outside company as the work should be one-off and we do not need the support of the designers in the future.
Project technical phase of product creation
Create accurate and clear specifications that are sent to hardware startups.
The project can only start after the completion of the second project
A project to assemble parts and create a prototype
Once we have all the parts manufactured, a prototype is assembled.
A prototype is needed as the virtual model of the device goes into the physical world and becomes real and tangible.
However, this transition necessarily creates problems that cannot be identified in the design phase. But they must be identified before the process of preparing the product for mass production begins.
The project can only start after the completion of Project 3.
It can be performed by our technical teams or outsourced
A project to integrate an operating system into a washing machine
Includes:
Choosing the right operating system for the product. Recommended latest model popular operating system
Integration of the operating system into the product
Programming drivers as needed.
Testing all drivers and successfully integrating the operating system with the product hardware.
The project can only be completed after the completion of Project 4
It is executed by our in-house teams of developers specializing in low-level programming.
A project to create unique software tools
It includes the development of our software that is embedded in the operating system (graphical interface, the ability to install additional applications from the App Store, the ability to manage remotely - for additional extras we need to provide servers or use cloud technologies)
Basic functional units of the washing machine can define which will give us a clear idea of all the interconnections inside and outside the product.
Run by another team of developers.
The project is being implemented in parallel and simultaneously with Project 5 to save time, which would be wasted if the same team of programmers was to develop this project who had programmed the drivers from Project 5.
Project - General Product Testing
Why include testers, analysts, and other participants?
Because in the general testing of a product, many defects are usually found that are corrected before they reach production. In a broader sense, testing is one of the quality control techniques that include Test Management, Test Design, Test Execution, and Test Analysis.
It is performed by testers and analyzers. If there are no such specialists in a company, it can be given to test an outside company. It can be executed after a product prototype is ready with all systems embedded.
Project for eventual processing of errors detected during testing and control
Reconstruction includes all subsequent efforts such as dismantling, repair, replacement, reassembly, etc.
When processing is required, the manufacturer/supplier receives a document outlining instructions for performing the task. This will include sorting, processing, etc. The document will list the tools needed for the processing and the process - with photos showing what to look for in the affected parts. After re-testing, re-testing is performed. This cycle is repeated until errors are detected and the product is approved.
Product approval
When our product goes through a successful testing phase, an analysis must be made. The analysis must be impartial and competent and meet the general requirements in accordance with ISO / IEC 17025 or be accredited by an analysis laboratory. Then a license must be issued.
Spare part creation project
Spare parts must be guaranteed for a period of ten years after the product has been discontinued.
At the planning stage, production of the spare parts should be foreseen and in accordance with the estimated capacity, they should be worked out together with the main parts.
Strategic management should not be equated with strategic planning, although it may include it. Strategic planning is related to an activity that is substantially similar to strategic management. It is periodic and includes medium terms. At the same time, strategic management focuses on delivering continuous solutions in the long term. It includes activities related to certain relationships between the organization and its environment.