How can a new Agile Methodologies professional gain hands-on experience?

I think its a 3 step journey. 1. Know agile: its like watching Masterchef. Its amazing to see the creative dishes the participants make, the complex challenges they try to solve & a healthy competition to succeed. Likewise, initially you lean by OBSERVING. Witness a team who is doing & stay curious. Read, watch, attend meet-ups or do anything to grasp. 2. Do Agile: Its like making the same recipe in your home kitchen that you just found enticing in Masterchef episode. Here you apply the values, principles, practices in your day to day routines. You do not need to hang the banner of 'We are AGILE' to try agile based practices. 3. Be Agile: Its like, you decided to participate in Masterchef since you gained wisdom. Now, you cross-pollinate.

Joining an online community can really help you get a foot in the door. The agile community is a very collaborative group of people and you will often find a variety of online and in person meet-ups in major cities. Use apps like Meetup to look for groups in your area, this will allow you to build a network at the same time as you build your skills. This provides great opportunities to learn what others are doing and how you could apply agile principles yourself.

Joining an online community helps you to engage in discussions about real-life challenges faced by agile practitioners. This offers a space to understand how theory translates into practice. Online Communities are global and often run live events; this means that whenever you want to learn there is usually a live event somewhere for you to join! I am Uk based and late at night suits me best for learning so I join online communities based in west coast America and join their live events! I’ve (virtually) meet fantastic people I would never have normally meet and gained a different perspective from diversity on contacts.

Joining an online agile community is a great way to learn from and connect with other agile professionals. There are many different online communities available, so you can find one that is a good fit for your interests and experience level. Here are some of the benefits of joining an online agile community: Learn from the experiences of others. Ask questions and get help from other agile professionals. Network with other professionals in the agile community. Stay up-to-date on the latest agile trends and best practices. I encourage all new agile professionals to join an online agile community. It is a great way to learn, grow, and build your network. Some examples of online agile communities: Scrum.org Product School SAFe

Above all, remember that your intention in attending training should go beyond merely obtaining a certification. Your primary objective should be to engage in training that aligns with your learning journey. It's essential to surround yourself with individuals who share your mindset. Building a network of like-minded people provides a support system and helps maintain accountability. Furthermore, having a dedicated coach to guide you through the process is crucial. A coach can provide valuable guidance and support, ensuring you stay on?the?right?path.

Scrum is no rocket science; there is no need to pay for an online class to pass, for example, Scrum.org’s entry-level Scrum Master certification, the PSM I. You will find everything you need online and free of charge: the Scrum Guide, the Agile Manifesto, Open Assessments, and numerous blogs that excel in deep dives into all things “Agile.”

Online courses can be a great option, but it has its fair share of issues. The problem with online courses is that there are thousands and thousands of options. A new learner can get confused. Sticking to a limited number of materials, and completing them perfectly are the keys to getting the best benefit from online courses. Online courses can give you a clear understanding, which you will be implementing in real life projects.

My recommendation is normally for individuals to look at free resources, online training courses, or speak to other agile professionals and start to adopt some of the mind sets. If you immediately do a certified training course it can be challenging to gain the most value from the course as you don’t know which parts come naturally to you and which parts are challenging. I normally recommend: - Read free online material/ watch YouTube videos, and connect with some agile professionals to learn the basics - Gain some experience using agile methodologies, possibly through volunteering, a trial at work, or a personal project. - in person/remote training course, take advantage of the time you have with the trainer to ask questions.

Agile principles are a set of mindset that reflects on your projects. To understand the mindset, one can take an online course. These courses are a good starting point that can help you initialize a thought process and may enlighten you with the basics and ideas of the ceremonies. Of course, to step-up this learning, you can talk to people who work in an agile environment.

Start with free courses, expand your knowledge and stay grounded before making a full dive into paid courses. There are many courses and options out there; make sure you align your training to the skills you intend to develop.

Define your project goals. What do you want to achieve with your project? What are the success criteria? Break down your project into smaller tasks. This will make it easier to manage your project and to track your progress. Estimate the effort required for each task. This will help you to create a realistic timeline for your project. Prioritize the tasks. Which tasks are most important? Which tasks need to be completed first? Create a backlog of all tasks. This is a list of all the tasks that need to be completed in order to achieve your project goals. Plan the first sprint. A sprint is a short period of time, typically two weeks, during which you will focus on completing a set of tasks from the backlog

Navigating the Agile world is akin to mastering a dance. Each step, precise yet passionate. To truly grasp Agile, one must live it. Use your personal or professional projects as playgrounds to apply Agile principles. Like every dance has its unique rhythm, every project has its challenges. Embrace tools like user stories, retrospectives, boards/dashboards. Every task, every feedback loop, brings you closer to understanding Agile's essence. As you journey through your projects, let Agile be your guiding light, offering continuous learning and adaptation.

Small projects or even daily life can help you learn agility. I did this too when I moved to my new home. I set my goal and criteria, measured the capacity and velocity, and listed the tasks by priority, with a good teammate, we formed a simple agile team with a clear goal. We split the home moving project into small scopes based on agile principles and started any next stage based on the previous stage's lesson learned.

Even in cooking, Agile principles find value. For instance, when preparing a holiday dinner, consider user stories as recipes with clear requirements. Backlog management involves listing ingredients and tasks. Sprints are time blocks for chopping, cooking, and setting the table. After the meal, retrospectives can help reflect on what dishes were successful and what could be improved. Feedback from family and guests refines your culinary skills over time. This agile approach ensures a delicious, continuously improving dining experience. Agile isn't limited to software; it enhances any project's efficiency, even in the kitchen.

You can use daily life can help you learn Agile and its applications. Watch YouTube courses, create personal projects, projects such as even taking courses to learn and get certified or simple ones like your daily activities and try to implement what you learn from your online courses, YouTube and tips from experienced Agile trainers and coaches, soon you will get the flow, understanding of how to apply them to bigger projects and your specific niche.

In the past I have recommended a few local organisations that provide volunteer scrum master opportunities, which give individuals an opportunity to learn hands on when they don’t have this opportunity in their own work place. You often find that the individuals running these are very enthusiastic, and really enjoy teaching and coaching so this is a great way to gain experience.

I have seen quite few volunteer remote scrum master positions pop up in the job board of LinkedIn. I view those as a great opportunity to be of service and also gain experience. Like others have mentioned, you can utilize agile principles in your everyday life and in your current position at work.

To work agile, You need to think agile! Best practice of applying Agile at your workplace in your projects is to retrospect and try to tune your project deliverables in an iterative manner.

I have worked on projects for non-profits and seen the opportunities for utilizing agile in this space. While transforming manual operations for an INGO, we have defined the scope and prepared the user stories. Here, the most significant part is covering the user stories as granular as possible to cover up most cases. It helps you to set clear goals, prioritize the stories, and deliver a working prototype that can be tested then and there. Generally for social impact projects, these smaller sprints work like a small dose to habituate the users for a big transformation through a technology. So, yes, working on these sort of projects is a very good way to practice implementing agile.

Finding a peer or colleague who is an experienced Agile practitioner is a great way to gain hands-on experience. Joining Agile teams, attending their ceremonies, and observing how they apply Agile in their daily work can provide valuable insights into real-world Agile practices. Engaging with individuals or teams allows for practical learning and the opportunity to see how Agile can benefit various projects and work environments.

Agile individuals are proactive about coaching and mentoring, and may people find individuals within their local agile community to be a mentor. In addition there are a number of LinkedIn groups and communities that individuals can join, and I frequently see posts where individuals are looking for a mentor, a normally a healthy number of responses.

Finding a 'coach' or 'mentor' is not always easy. I would rather try to pick up from experiences of peers, colleagues, seniors and people around you. Of course, these individuals may be referred to as mentors/coaches as well. But you may not want to have such a long list. What helps when you are "open" to a wider group is you get diverse perspectives and this helps in building your own views and refining your existing knowledge and more.

Happy to offer mentorship for anyone interested to learn more about Agile in everyday life or applying it to your daily work scope. It is important to learn more about the challenges and experiences from a mentor and also the various avenues of how you can gain hands on experiences in the world of Agile.

Getting a great mentor spell the start to success. To start with Agile, you need to first develop an Agile mindset, come out of the rigid project management structure and think flexible, make yourself ready for embracing change. A good mentor can help you achieve this by putting in practical examples, citing past experiences, giving you a proper roadmap etc. Before you do any certifications or get into a real time project, its always better to get advice from a mentor as it make the path easier. Being Agile doesn't make a project success, it is how you practice and implement it.

Stop right now if you are referring to using agile as agile methodologies. Methodology is the study of methods and a method is a prescriptive way of doing something, which agile is not. If you want to succeed with agile, don't exhibit yourself as a learner by using an incorrect term. Agile is based around values and principles or what some people call a mindset (and which Simon Powers described as being three beliefs). None of these are a methodology. A value statement from a library is "we value reading books" or "we value children being able to read". These, like agile, are value statements and broadly most people could agree with them which is why the agile manifesto took off. They are not describing what to do, so are not methods!

I am stumped to not find this in any of the answers. Go to LinkedIn and connect with people - online. Go to Meetup and connect with people - offline. Many Agile Communities meet in person as well. There cannot be a better forum to learn and improve your Agile knowledge. People are amazing!

To get hands on experience on Agile methodologies, apply the learning in your own day to day tasks 1. Pick any of your planned activity Ask- Do you know why you need to do it? Who will benefit from it? Ask- Do you know how would you claim that it is done? Ask- Do you know if the task can be divided into sub tasks , so that you see progress at end of each sub task? 2. While you are executing the task Ask- Who can give me feedback on the sub tasks early and get feedback and don’t wait till the whole task is completed 3. When the task is completed Ask- How can I do it better? Identify them and improve it next time Start inculcating the above thought process, you will be able to apply Agile mindset elsewhere irrespective of any framework

Apart from the things mentioned here, here are some quick tips for those who are starting to engage in agile project management: - Always remember the agile principles rather than focusing more on the framework (scrum/kanban) - Always keep yourself reminded of the agile mindset to stay on track, and visualize the principles in your head. - In real-life situations, not every project/product might not be managed/developed in full-fledged agile ways, there will always be free mixing with traditional practices. But making sure to think in an agile way is the most important factor here.

A new agile methodologies professional can gain hands-on experience by: 1. Joining agile teams. 2. Getting certified. 3. Practicing agile principles. 4. Seeking mentorship. 5. Contributing to open-source projects. 6. Attending workshops and conferences. 7. Reflecting and learning from experiences.