Most Scrum Master trainings don't focus on the right skills. There, I said it. They are just general training about Agile.

When you start as a Scrum Master, you are usually off your comfort zone. You can't rely on technical skills. You can't use hierarchical authority anymore. No matter where you from, you are probably disoriented. We've all been there. I feel for you.
This session is about how to get you, new Scrum Master, to a safe zone as soon as possible. It comes from my personal experience, those of fellow coaches I worked with, and the feedbacks of the Scrum Masters I've been coaching over the last years.
We will focus on the actual useful skills to start with :
- facilitation techniques ;
- working with agile artefacts ;
- most common mistakes to avoid.
I hope to share them in the most practical manner, step by step, since that's what is needed when we learn something new (the Shu phase).
You come with me ?

Estimating dozens of stories in half an hour, impossible ? Not anymore.

If you’re tired of the Poker Planning, find estimation a pain, there is another way. If you are from the #noEstimate trend, you probably will find it to your liking too.

Where does it comes from?
Several years ago, a pair of Agile coaches lost an argument with an experienced agile developer. The guy hated Poker Planning : too slow, hard, boring, biased. And the managers will turn bad Fibonacci numbers to hard commitment on unrealistic deadlines. The reasoning was hard to beat. Still, the team had 90 epics to estimate for this new project.
So they looked for a ligher estimate technique, integrating facilitators principles, good practices from J.Rothman to "Predict the unpredictable". 
The ended up cooking a whole new recipe. No more protocol, no more poker cards, clean slate.

When they tried it, the team estimated the 90 epics in 20 minutes, and trusted the results. They couldn't believe it. 
So the workshop was tried on other teams, same speed. Other Agile practioners started to pick the technique for their own context and liked it so much they gave it a nickname : the eXtreme Estimate.

Be skeptical, mate, join the workshop and see for yourself. You will never want to do Poker Planning afterward.

Ester Derby wrote that 60% of a project odds depends on its preparation. This preparation is usually called an Inception.
A.Buzzacarro, former CTO of France Television digital, put it this way : "Any time we cut corners on Inception, we paid 10 times the price later. Projects preparation is where the attention of a CTO should be, not into steering comitees."

Working with pairs consultants, I have been facilitating inceptions throughout the last 10 years of my career. The process I had learn originally was basic. Over time it has been improved by UX designers, software architects, coders, facilitators, agile coachs, delivery managers.
Different versions of this process were run through dozens of Agile Inceptions: projects big and small, in a hurry or a soft pace, on domains varying from banking to media. As to help teams starting their project on rails, we have been experimenting, adjusting, simplifying or enriching, again and again, rince and repeat.
Today it has become a stable process with consistent result to help team launch their project on the right rails :
- a sequence of 8 mandatory questions
- a few guidelines to understand which style so workshops is effective in your context

My ambition is to give you one big takeaway in one unique session : every steps and every tools used for Inception. We will cover the overall process with drawing and pictures, then just enough details to run the workshops by yourself (with homework).

Using dancing to learn through experience on the communication differences between leaders and followers. We will use the dance, tango to learn the different things we should look our for in communicating. 

Evasive definitions, hippie style advice, sometimes that’s all you got when you ask about coaching, and the agile community is no exception.

When I started coaching myself I was dubious about all this fuzziness. My clients had honored me with a very powerful role, and they deserved to get the best of it. So I went to “serious” coaches for guidance, who I found adamant about the topic. “Coaching is a job with a structured approach, its specific rules and practices”. “No, your agile coaching does not escape these rules”.

Everyday since, I thank them for the simple yet structuring tools they gave me. Today I feel like a duty to share them again with others.

All it takes to start a powerful coaching engagement is to

• set up your coaching frame properly and safely (for your client, for you)
• follow a few do and don’t
• be equipped with a few tools

The rest you’ll learn on the way, improving and developing your style, eventually joining a school or another. That’s another story. As for my session, I just want to help you start on the right way by giving you practical tools on how to start, and some guidance for following up.

Many of the examples I will use are of course Agile coaching examples (my major topic of coaching).

Bonus : come with your practical case, we'll work on it!

With over 5 years in the practice of tango, I would like to use tango techniques to explain the nuances in communication between product team and dev team. It's not often straight forward or easy. 

Tango is an extreme dance in coordination and non verbal communication where both dancers decide how fast or how slow they want to take it. It is also one of the few dances where pauses are encouraged and takes the form of regrouping. 

It will be an experiential learning experience. I will be using tango moves to explain communication techniques and considerations. 

(Note: It's not a session to learn tango, but a session to learn communication through tango.)

The session is ideal for 60mins but there is no option to choose the 60mins slot. 

New Scrum master coming from the technical world, this session is for you.
Regarding code, architecture, configuration, you're learning continuously. But there comes a role whose essence is absolutely not technical, and suddenly learning seems hard. And by the way, your teammates are counting on you, not to mention your boss. Feeling some pressure, dude ?

Based on the difficulties that new Scrum Masters usually faces, heres a few recommandation to get you a maximum confidence at start. Most are focussed on the retrospective facilitation, but the underlying principles can be applied to your whole action in the project.

At the beginning was the Book of Agile. From there people learnt and teach agile practices. Along the way a natural selection has come, brought by continuous improvement. Some practices were improved, some abandoned, some new one introduced.

As an agile coach I consider a personal duty to observe and contribute to this natural selection. What are the practices that works the most ? What are those that are hard to catch or don't bring much result ? Am I bringing teams the best for them ? 

Looking back at my years of practicing and coaching, something struck me : some of the best practices I've seen working are just dead simple, but little known. And most them are roughly universal, no chit-chat, no bickering, no learning curve, you pick them and they're useful in your context 95% of the time.

So as a way to push forward the natural selection of practices, I'd like to share my top 5, the easiest-to-get-but-most-powerful practices I’ve seen working. As an attender, I expect you to come with all your critical mind, we're here to raise natural selection, right ? So If you hear something that didn't work for you, raise your voice, I've saved 15' of Q/A just for that.

With over 5 years in the practice of tango, I would like to use tango techniques to explain the nuances in communication between product team and dev team. It’s not often straight forward or easy.

Tango is an extreme dance in coordination and non verbal communication. it is also not the kind of dance that can be guided by strict rhythm like salsa. Instead, it’s a decision between both dancers on how fast or how slow they want to take it. It is also one of the few dances where pauses are encouraged and takes the form of regrouping.

I’ll be using experiential learning to demonstrate techniques in communication. (Note: it’s not a tango lesson but a communication workshop using tango.)

With over 5 years in the practice of tango, I would like to use tango techniques to explain the nuances in communication between product team and dev team. It's not often straight forward or easy. 

Tango is an extreme dance in coordination and non verbal communication where both dancers decide how fast or how slow they want to take it. It is also one of the few dances where pauses are encouraged and takes the form of regrouping. 

It will be an experiential learning experience. I will be using tango moves to explain communication techniques and considerations. 

(Note: It's not a session to learn tango, but a session to learn communication through tango.)