In an Agile environment, the team depends on the facilitation skills of the Agile Team Facilitator to lead the team to higher levels of performance. One of the essential skills for the Agile Team Facilitator is helping teams identify and achieve common objectives. The ATF facilitates the team events to ensure they are productive and move the team forward. This starts with understanding the purpose and expected outcomes of the various team events.
People aren’t born with them; you can learn them with time and commitment. Understanding and identifying problems, deciding the best course of action, then following through on those decisions is the overall goal of the retrospective. The facilitator’s job is to ensure that the conversation is flowing and that the objectives are being reached. Fostering inclusive solutions is one of the main goals of the retrospective. The facilitator listens to everyone’s suggestions as best they can, and then these suggestions are discussed.
Heartbeat Retrospective
Participants are eligible for the ICP-ATF Certification upon completion of this course. In order to receive the certification participants must attend the full course (not missing more than 1 hour of class time) and complete the simulation exercises. Learn by doing
Facilitation cannot be taught in a traditional classroom setting alone.
The facilitator then captures what the team wants to change or experiment with moving forward and assigns the action items to the group. Each action item must be owned by a team member responsible for its completion. There should be documentation listing the action items, including who is accountable for those action items. It is crucial to have someone take responsibility for action items to increase accountability.
Course Outline & What you will learn in ICP-ATF Agile Team Facilitation Certification (Coach2Reach) :
This means that the course is designed to cover all the learning objectives required by ICAgile. We ask you to keep your camera on and have a good working microphone so you can actively participate in the many coaching and mentoring activities, breakout sessions, teach-back moments and presentations. Leading teams to higher levels of maturity requires the ability to plan and conduct effective team meetings to ensure the team is working collaboratively.
Find more information and register for our Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills™ course here. Unlock the full potential of your Agile teams with our comprehensive Team Facilitator training program. Gain the skills to guide and inspire your team towards success, foster collaboration, and drive continuous improvement.
In this class you will learn how to
As much of the work in agile teams occurs through face-to-face communication and involves collaboration in nearly all decisions, the ability to facilitate discussion is paramount to success. This Agile certification is perfect for Agile team leaders or aspiring leads with a desire to learn and practice Agile facilitation and Agile team coaching. Relevant roles include, but are not limited to Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, Product Owners and Product Managers. Attendees will have an opportunity to design and facilitate a team session based on scenarios from agile framework meetings.
This is an intermediate course for practitioners with at least 3 months of hands-on agile experience. Each line of circles and arrows represents one person’s line of thought as it develops during the discussion. The skills of a good facilitator include maintaining an open mind and not criticizing ideas and suggestions offered by group members. The responsibilities of a facilitator are to understand that conflict among group members is natural and, as long as it’s expressed politely, does not need to be suppressed. A facilitator should be skilled in asking questions that are open-ended and encourage discussion.
What is agile team facilitation?
A skilled facilitator consciously embodies self-awareness, self-management, and bias management, while conveying openness and enthusiasm. An ATF facilitates participation, collaboration, engagement, and team growth. Being a great facilitator goes beyond simply meeting these four responsibilities. There are many skills and tools a facilitator learns so they can design and execute excellent outcomes for meetings and events. The facilitator’s third responsibility is skillfully guiding the group through the process they have designed to reach the desired outcome (desired by your client/the meeting owner, not by you – more on this later).
This course is a fast-paced, deep dive into both the mindset and skills of facilitation in the context of agile practices. That is why it is important to set goals, outline boundaries (set rules), ensure accountability, and communicate with others. It’s crucial for agile facilitator to believe in team professionalism for the team to grow and mature. The only difference is the way the content is delivered, meaning that you can follow the online program from your home or office, instead of being present in a class room. We decided to stretch the program over 4 days, which actually gives you more time to practice in between sessions.
How can you master agile team facilitation?
To become a master of agile team facilitation, one must first understand the basics of agile and facilitation. There are many ways to learn the basics of agile and facilitation, such as reading books, blogs, podcasts, or taking online courses. Agile team facilitation is a key skill for anyone who works with agile teams, whether as a scrum master, a product owner, a coach, or a leader. Agile team facilitation involves helping teams collaborate effectively, deliver value, and improve continuously.
- But how can you master this skill and become a confident and competent agile team facilitator?
- The facilitators have been trained to run meetings effectively to produce better results in the very end.
- Other relevant roles include ScrumMasters, Iteration Managers, and Agile Project Managers.
- There will be divergent opinions, and the facilitator will have to adjust accordingly.
- A team facilitator should have the ability to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” to understand team members’ feelings.
- Below, we shall briefly understand what these roles and responsibilities are.
They must make sure that the event is organized to encourage collaboration. This includes the physical setup, meeting organization tools, and driving collaborative conversations. Becoming an Agile Team Facilitator requires a certain mindset to lead and serve the team. Learn the mindset required for the Agile Team Facilitator and gain an understanding of the paradigm shift that must occur to be successful in this collaborative environment. Understand how the Agile Team Facilitator is a role model for the team by exemplifying the Agile principles.
MEET YOUR COACHES
The Agile coach or facilitator plays an important role in managing the entire team of Agile consisting of an iteration manager, Scrum Master, Kanban coach, Scrum coach, and more. He/She aims to assist the whole Agile team in increasing the productivity of the team. However, the facilitator should possess the technical proficiency to guide the team in the right way. As the Agile Facilitator also participates in the discussion, the session becomes very detailed. The Agile Facilitator participation is crucial to make the team understand the Agile dynamics essential for the project.
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A flow must be created to achieve those goals and ensure participation. If this is your first class with an ICAgile Member Organization, you’ll receive an email with a link to create your ICAgile.com profile
within ten business days of completing your class. After you submit your survey,
we’ll issue and send your certification to your email address as a shareable PDF.
First, the Agile facilitator is referred to as ‘framework agnostic’ because it is not tied to a Scrum framework. Additionally, Agile team facilitators work with multiple teams, whereas Scrum masters work only with their specific team. Harness the programming languages for vr power of Agile facilitation and become a catalyst for team success. The role of agile facilitator is to plan and implement an appropriate process; the rest of the group is responsible for the content of the discussion by contributing expertise.
