How do the philosophies and principles of Agile coincide with project management? Instructor Allen Evitts will talk about what Agile is, Agile and Scrum, common terminology, transitioning to Agile, and more topics. This course is intended for project professionals who are either using Agile principles in their work or wish to include the principles, tools and techniques in the future.

Scrum is the most popular hybrid of Agile - it provides a framework that allows teams to address complex adaptive problems, while efficiently and creatively delivering products, services, or results of the highest possible value to their internal and external customers. Instructor Pete Matassa guides us through how the domains of Agile are related to Scrum. 

The Scrum framework improves project performance in three ways:

• Emphasis on communication between the team and stakeholders
• Timely feedback from stakeholders
• The safe and courageous environment within the team

• Customer's not really being sure of requirements
• The team possessing the necessary skill set, but the product, service or result has never been attempted by the team and the final product, service or result will need to be progressively elaborated
• Tenuous funding, and as such there needs to be a focus on a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or a Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF) This course integrates LEAN principles, where applicable, with AGILE/Scrum. Lean is a business methodology, initially used to improve throughput in manufacturing, that is used in Adaptive Project Life Cycles to achieve more predictable delivery, greater efficiency, and a customer-centric mindset

Extreme Programming (XP) is an Agile software development framework that facilitates the production of higher quality software, and higher quality of life for the development team. This course, taught by Pete Matassa, provides a basic understanding of these principles, tools and techniques used in implementing Agile/XP in a coordinated fashion to ensure successful project management outcomes.

Extreme Programming is successful because it stresses customer satisfaction, as opposed to delivering everything the customer could possibly want on some date far in the future. The emphasis is on delivering the software in increments that provide the most value to the customer first. Extreme Programming empowers developers to confidently respond to changing customer requirements, even late in the life cycle.

To provide the benefits of this approach, XP emphasizes teamwork. Managers, customers, and developers are all equal partners in a collaborative team. XP relies on a simple, yet effective environment that facilitates the formation of high performing teams. The team self-organizes around the problem to solve it as efficiently as possible.

XP improves a software project in four ways:

• Emphasis on communication between the team and stakeholders
• Simplicity of methodology
• Timely feedback from stakeholders
• Safe and courageous environment within the team

• The customer is not sure of requirements definition and as such, the requirements are dynamically changing
• Uncertainty due to new technology implementation increases the risks of timely completion of fixed time projects
• The team is small, with a co-located extended development team
• The team has access to technology for automated unit and functional tests

Instructor Jay Ferron will guide students on how to train towards the goal of obtaining the CSM® certification from the Scrum Alliance. A Scrum Master helps project teams properly use Scrum, increasing the likelihood of the project's overall success. Scrum Masters understand Scrum values, practices, and applications and provide a level of knowledge and expertise above and beyond that of typical project managers. Scrum Masters act as "servant leaders," helping the rest of the Scrum team work together and learn the Scrum framework.

Project team members and those on track to become project managers will want to take this course from Pete Matassa. Prepare for taking the Certified Associate in Project Management CAPM® (Project Management Professional) certification exam. The main course content coincides with the 6th edition PMBOK® (Project Management Body of Knowledge). The purpose of this program is to prepare students interested in project management or who are currently project team members to take the Certified Associate in Project Management CAPM® (Project Management Professional) certification examination. The emphasis is on explaining the PMI® (Project Management Institute) best practices for project management across the continuum from predictive through adaptive life cycles as proposed in the 6th edition PMBOK® (Project Management Body of Knowledge). The course provides the student with the information required to understand the concepts that will need to be applied in an analytical manner to answer examination situational questions. It is expected that the student will review these lessons and use practice questions and flashcards to finish preparation for the examination.

Timothy Guay, Six Sigma Sensei, will guide students through the journey of pursuing the Six Sigma Black Belt. Six Sigma has many principles, philosophies, tools, and techniques, and obtaining the Six Sigma Green Belt beforehand is recommended. Six Sigma is a data-driven improvement philosophy that views all activities within an organization as processes whose inputs can be controlled to effect significant improvements in process outputs. Six Sigma uses a rigorous and systematic methodology known as DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control) and a number of qualitative and quantitative tools for driving process, product, and service improvements aimed at reducing defects and variation. Companies across various industries are striving to become faster and more responsive to customers, achieve near perfect quality, and operate using world-class cost structures.

Learn the path to becoming a Green Six Sigma Belt in this course from instructor Timothy Guay, Six Sigma Sensei. In this course, learners will examine how to analyze process components and stakeholders in an organization. They will also learn about concepts and tools for collecting and analyzing customer information and feedback. The next step after the Green Belt will be the Six Sigma Black Belt.