ANZ Agile Training 2022

The ANZ agile enablement program has delivered 12 offerings supporting 220+ active participants in 2022. These programs were organised and delivered by?Peter McDonald?and?Steven Burrows?with the support of our wider APAC team for identifying interested candidates. This blog introduces the local programs delivered and the results obtained as we near the end of the 2022 calendar year.

Program Structure

Cognizant Learning & Development ANZ has local agile and training expertise to enable agile training programs in our region. Peter McDonald is certified as a SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) with Scaled Agile Incorporated and Steven Burrows is certified as a Professional Scrum Master (PSM) with Scrum.org and Certified Scrum Master (CSM) with Scrum Alliance. We see that these are amongst the most in-demand agile-related certifications, which puts us in a great position to enable the local region.

The programs we offer are summarised in the graphic above. First, we offer “Introduction to Agile Scrum” and “Getting Started with Agile Certification”, which each are one-hour webinars to give prospective candidates an understanding of agile and its certifications options. With this knowledge in mind, candidates are in a much better position to then choose the most suitable agile enablement pathway for their needs. The only option that is not offered locally is CSM, which has trainer requirements not held in-house in the local region. In this case, PSM becomes an excellent alternative since both are based on the Scrum Framework. Lastly with regards to SAFe, 6 options are available to choose from locally from the full set of 13, provided there are sufficient enrolments. All options are designed to support and lead to a certification outcome.

Professional Scrum Master 1 (PSM1)

The PSM1 certification pathway is a blend of instructor-led training and eLearning. The workshop covers the principles and (empirical) process theory underpinning the scrum framework, and the role of the scrum master in it. Participants joining this workshop gain an understanding of what is at the heart of the scrum and agile movement. This workshop is suitable training towards the Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) certification from Scrum.org. Since the workshop lasts for 4 hours, the training experience is complemented with additional eLearning via Udemy to deepen the learning.

The workshop is designed with a mixture of activities. In addition to the instructor content, there are pop quiz questions designed to challenge participants on the spot with their knowledge gained so far. The workshop also features practice activities with a corresponding workbook for participants to spend a few minutes on per activity and then come back to the group and share. In addition to all the scrum learning, the last section of the workshop includes instructions about how to complete the certification by explaining the additional self-paced learning activities to get ready over the following weeks.

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

The SAFe certification pathway is fully run as instructor-led training. Using Leading SAFe as our example, the training runs for 16 hours, and is spread across 2 or more days. At the conclusion of the training, the trainees are provided with revision materials and procedural information to take up the certification. Several other SAFe courses are available too, and they generally run for 2-3 days of full-time training or part-time equivalent.

The practical activities during the course include participants sharing experience with agile projects, interactive questions and answers, and simulated group activities. The course concludes with a review of practice exam questions and answers, exam study tips and exam strategy advice.

Participation

The first table below summarises the participation data for all 12 agile offerings in 2022 at time of writing. Attendance overall was high at 85%. We also had a high number of surveys returned with 93% returned. The rate of surveys returned is well above the 80% benchmark set by Learning & Development.

To explain the above results, we were able to achieve high attendance by engaging and vetting the nominations prior to the start of the training. We were also able to achieve a high number of surveys returned by asking participants to complete the feedback surveys during the training itself at the end. The high rate of feedback has also helped to inform the program performance as per the next sections.

Performance

The training performance was measured by the feedback surveys administered at the end of each program. The surveys measured the instructor, courseware, environment, learning support and overall sentiment on a five-point Likert scale, with 1 meaning “strongly disagree” up to 5 meaning “strongly agree”. We also measured the Net Promotor Score as a measure of “customer satisfaction” on a 1-10 scale.

The benchmark scores set by Learning & Development are 4.35/5 for the Likert questions and 40 for NPS. We are pleased to share that most ratings across the offerings met or exceeded the benchmarks. The most noteworthy scores to report are the overall score of 4.39/5 and an NPS of 73. We also point out that we achieved a high instructor score of 4.50/5.

Qualitative Feedback

We captured written feedback in addition to the quantitative metrics reported above. Below follows some descriptive comments for PSM regarding aspects that were most liked:

• “Excellent learning coach with clear information imparted. Interactive, exam path well-articulated.”
• “The training was well planned with a great knowledgeable trainer that helped me gain the agile knowledge and prepare for certification.”
• “The facilitator created an interest towards the topics right from the start of the program with super engaging activities. I was practically able to relate to our scrum meetings, hence thoroughly enjoyed the program.”

Also, here are some descriptive comments for SAFe also regarding aspects that were most liked:

• “Trainer had very good knowledge of the subject. Although the delivery was online, the trainer was able to provide a seamless training experience.”
• “Excellent examples to accompany each concept in the course and the ability to ask questions throughout the course and get real-time feedback to questions.”
• “We live in an IT era where scaled agile framework knowledge is extremely crucial in the development of any organisation and there is a look out for people/coaches who can efficiently steer the organisation in the right direction and this course gives us an opportunity to become one of those.”

Post-Training

The post-training pathway is different for the PSM and SAFe programs. In the case of PSM, the trainees are requested to complete a 6.5-hour Udemy course and a few other smaller learning activities to complete their preparation prior to certification. In the case of SAFe, the trainees have received all their instruction during the training itself, meaning they can advance directly to revision prior to certification. The amounts of post-training learning and certifications completed to date are summarised below. Attendance data repeated from above is given again for convenience.

For PSM, we have had 38 trainees complete their Udemy course and 27 trainees complete their certification so far. One interesting data point is Intake 3 where the number of certifications is higher than the number of Udemy course completions. This demonstrates the flexibility that the PSM certification provides. The Scrum.org vendor does not prescribe whether the trainees should plan for the certification by doing Scrum.org training, external training (such as at Cognizant), or take a pure self-learning approach. Scrum.org sets a high passing score of 85% and this benchmark makes sure that candidates possess the required knowledge regardless of their preparation option.

For SAFe, we have had 60 trainees complete their SAFe certifications following their training. We note that the reported SAFe conversion rate from training attendance to certification (57%) is much higher than that for PSM (23%). The main reason for this difference is that the SAFe data has been reported from the SAFe Community Platform whereas the PSM data is only available via our internal enterprise learning management system. The internal reporting requires our associates self-report their completed certifications as an extra step, which may not be done by everyone. To further illustrate the point, the number of SAFe certifications reported internally is 38 (36% conversion rate), meaning that there may be many more PSM completions than reported.

Conclusions

As mentioned at the start, the ANZ agile enablement program has delivered 12 offerings supporting 220+ active participants in 2022. The programs were regarded highly, with an overall rating of 4.39/5 and an NPS of 73, which both well exceeded our performance benchmarks. Many of these associates have also converted their learning into a certification outcome.

Peter and Steven thank our APAC Learning & Development colleagues who have supported us with some of the nominations received and for driving interest in our local region, with particular thanks to Gayathri Manian and Vinod Polachirackal. We look forward to providing additional agile training for the upcoming summer furlough period and more into 2023.