Applied Scrum for Agile Project Management

This is a great course to learn the technical aspects of Agile project management and John Johnson is a coherent and concise lecturer delivering high quality lessons. I took the verified track as I will be handling more projects in my role as a university learning developer.

The weekly quizzes were useful though I would have expected more short knowledge checks within the modules given their length and, at times, complexity.

Another issue I noted was the number of spelling mistakes and sentencing issues in the modules which suggests a lack of pre-launch beta testing. At times this detracted from the content (Scumban being used a few times in place of Scrumban). Some of these issues appeared in the final quiz questions too.

While the content was well delivered I missed a place to converse with fellow learners which for me is an important aspect of online learning. I found the final quiz for verified learners quite difficult as many questions were formulated in the double negative using very similar key words for correct and incorrect answers and at times just swapping one word out to make a false answer which can be challenging given you have to revise 4 weeks of content.

Having a practical assignment to implement the Agile theory in own organisations would have been beneficial as the course is very theoretical.

Overall, I learned a lot and am glad I took the course.

Thank you, Mr. John Johnson, for well prepared course on Applied Scrum for Agile Project Management.
I particularly like the clarity of your lessons and videos. The Summary Points for every lesson were particularly helpful in reinforcing new learning.
Although I am unable to do the Verified Course at this time, the Knowledge Check questions were useful to highlight the key points on each lesson. Additional references on each lesson would likewise be helpful to further deepen one’s understanding on the topic/s.

I am a PMP and have had extensive consulting experience in IT systems development, implementation and support covering both customized systems as well as software package implementation. My exposure has been mainly on what you called the Traditional Waterfall method and limited Iterative method. But, my experiences with these methods were not really exactly how you described the Traditional Waterfall method and what you described as its shortcomings. There were several features, concepts and techniques that you mentioned to be present in Agile that my projects then were actually performing like understanding the business requirements and stakeholders management, among others.

Hence, I tend to have reservations about your claim that the features, concepts and techniques you described about Agile that contributed to its popularity and success rates are somewhat exclusive to Agile (or, at least, the impression I got). And, modesty aside, I was fortunate to have good teams and supportive project stakeholders and sponsors that ensured the successful completion of our projects.

Your last lesson on Agile Pitfalls and Benefits actually were for the most part not much of a surprise to me. I would have expected that the relevant expertise, skills, experience and maturity of the project team members, Team leads and even Product owners as well as stakeholders and sponsors active (that is, both in terms of availability of time and funding for the project) support would be critical in the successful delivery of a project, regardless of which methods: be it waterfall, hybrid or agile.

Notwithstanding, I did learn the basics of Agile I was looking for that allowed me to revisit how the Waterfall method is currently viewed alongside Agile and all its variations in the project management field today. I was particularly interested in learning more about facilitation skills that I surmised to be a significant skill set in effectively applying the Scrum framework as well as controls and governance in Agile. Further, I was looking for discussion on the type of systems or applications, not just the size of the project, where Agile might be best suited or not likely to work.

Again, my sincere appreciation to you, Mr. Johnson, and to University of Maryland for the opportunity to make this course, Applied Scrum in Agile Project Management, available online on edX. Wishing you all more successes!

Thank you, Mr. John Johnson, for well prepared course on Applied Scrum for Agile Project Management.
I particularly like the clarity of your lessons and videos. The Summary Points for every lesson were particularly helpful in reinforcing new learning.
Although I am unable to do the Verified Course at this time, the Knowledge Check questions were useful to highlight the key points on each lesson. Additional references on each lesson would likewise be helpful to further deepen one’s understanding on the topic/s.

I am a PMP and have had extensive consulting experience in IT systems development, implementation and support covering both customized systems as well as software package implementation. My exposure has been mainly on what you called the Traditional Waterfall method and limited Iterative method. But, my experiences with these methods were not really exactly how you described the Traditional Waterfall method and what you described as its shortcomings. There were several features, concepts and techniques that you mentioned to be present in Agile that my projects then were actually performing like understanding the business requirements and stakeholders management, among others.

Hence, I tend to have reservations about your claim that the features, concepts and techniques you described about Agile that contributed to its popularity and success rates are somewhat exclusive to Agile (or, at least, the impression I got). And, modesty aside, I was fortunate to have good teams and supportive project stakeholders and sponsors that ensured the successful completion of our projects.

Your last lesson on Agile Pitfalls and Benefits actually were for the most part not much of a surprise to me. I would have expected that the relevant expertise, skills, experience and maturity of the project team members, Team leads and even Product owners as well as stakeholders and sponsors active (that is, both in terms of availability of time and funding for the project) support would be critical in the successful delivery of a project, regardless of which methods: be it waterfall, hybrid or agile.

Notwithstanding, I did learn the basics of Agile I was looking for that allowed me to revisit how the Waterfall method is currently viewed alongside Agile and all its variations in the project management field today. I was particularly interested in learning more about facilitation skills that I surmised to be a significant skill set in effectively applying the Scrum framework as well as controls and governance in Agile. Further, I was looking for discussion on the type of systems or applications, not just the size of the project, where Agile might be best suited or not likely to work.

Again, my sincere appreciation to you, Mr. Johnson, and to University of Maryland for the opportunity to make this course, Applied Scrum in Agile Project Management, available online on edX. Wishing you all more successes!

The course videos and slides were explained in an easy way. The instructor did a really good job. Also the course requires no knowledge about agile. Homework was easy and the final exam also is moderate but not difficult.

However, i found the course is a good introduction to agile, but not more. The course explains all the basic terms, roles, and framework within agile; but the course lack detailed case studies (examples) which can show real detailed agile projects. I have never worked in an agile project, so I needed the detailed examples and visualization.

The instructor did present however, two case studies in the first week, to be honest, but not detailed enough.

Some recommendation for improvement:
- while the instructor spoke a lot about daily standup and typical mistakes in the standup, I still didn't visualize it completely, there are live simulation videos on youtube, which the instructor can refer to.
- the instructor can to take on one video at least one Epic idea and breaks it into sprints and tasks to show the product backlog, spring planning, development,..etc.
- the instructor has to revise the content for week 4; for me, this was a lot of theoretical compressed information about different framework (Less, SAFe,..etc) which I didn't learn a lot from it.

Dear Professor

I recently completed your course "Applied Scrum for Agile Project Management" and I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for the invaluable knowledge and experience you shared. Your approach to explaining the Agile methodology and Scrum framework was insightful, engaging and easy to understand.

The course content was well-structured, with clear explanations and practical examples that allowed me to apply the concepts in real-world situations. Your emphasis on the importance of teamwork, continuous improvement, and adapting to change was particularly impactful and has changed the way I approach project management.

Overall, I found the course to be highly informative, inspiring, and beneficial to my professional development. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of Agile and Scrum and their applications in project management.

Thank you again for your contributions to the field and for delivering an outstanding course.

Best regards,
Sashank

This covers some of the technical or team architecture behind scrum but it is definitely not 'Applied'. It is also effectively presented as a sales pitch for scrum without going into any depth on reasons why it can be successful with little or no mention of the disadvantages, especially when there are still a huge number of companies and teams NOT using it.

The course itself in parts does not follow a logical progression of ideas in how it is presented. The videos are presented woodenly, in many cases just reading off the slides and with many edits in the videos that disrupt the flow. Slides are also frequently constructed in ways that are not compatible with the presentation format used and constructed in ways that have been warned against for over a very long time.

You would get better knowledge and understanding reading a good book on the subject.

Parts of the course are good, specifically, the section of the course on how a Scrum Sprint works, and the section on scaling Scrum to larger organizational structures. Other parts of the course had less content than I wanted. The course would have benefited from an actual in-depth case study of scrum when applied to a real problem, with specific examples of user stories from an actual sprint.
Concepts are often described using buzzwords that are not defined. The materials contain spelling and grammatical errors that hinder learning and show a disappointing lack of effort on the part of the team that put the class materials together. Some of the quiz and test questions feel like they are intentionally misleading in how the question is asked or how the answers are phrased.

It's a great course, I learnt a lot! but I think that lacked more illustrative forms into Sprint planning, development, review and retro. I mean that the videos could have more images of frameworks, what is it into some process. An example of this is SAFe, the four types of them, it could have been more complete, to take a look at all of them to understand how it works is.
Some points of view that I have, it's the references from Wikipedia is a little credible and something not less important is the synchronization of the subtitles in two classes. I'm not a native of English, and that it's difficult.

Despite all of this, I learnt so much, and my next pass is to apply to the next courses for the professional certificate, I really appreciate this opportunity for my career and development personally.