BCS FOUNDATION CERTIFICATE IN AGILE

What You’ll Learn 

• Why Agile? 

• The Agile Manifesto 

• The Agile Mindset 

• Roles in Agile Teams 

• Common Agile Teams 

• The Practical Application of Agile. 

Course Requirements 

There are no formal requirements or admission criteria, although candidates should have decent written English skills. 

Course Features 

• 19 hours study time 

• 1 hour assessment examination 

• Physical classes.  

• BCS Study materials. 

Examination Format 

60 minutes supervised examination, with 40 multiple-choice questions.

The pass mark is 65% (26/40) 

Course Syllabus 

1. Introduction 
2. Why Agile? 

• • Linear Development approaches. 

• • Why linear development approaches are not suitable in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) environment. 

• • Agile Origins 

• • Agile Manifesto and its Principles 

• • How Pillers of scrum underpin Agile thinking. 

3. Individuals and their interactions over processes and tools 

• • • Ways Processes and tools can undermine Agile team performance 
    • The Connection between team motivation and self-organising autonomous teams. 
    • How Agile teams interact. 

4. Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation 

• • • How working software means more than just code 
    • How Agile can be applied to non-software products 
    • How the seven Wastes of Lean (Software Development) relates to comprehensive documentation. 

5. Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation. 

• • • Agile team’s relationship with its customers. 
    • How Agile teams use time boxes and iterations to decide what work to commit 
    • The Product Owner role and their responsibilities. 

6. Responding to Change Over Following a Plan 

• • • How regular feedback helps Agile teams respond to change. 
    • How Agile teams recognise when change is underway. 
    • The different levels of planning that Agile teams use. 
    • The risks of detailed, upfront planning. 

7. The Agile Mindset 

• • • Servant Leadership 
    • How Agile teams are cross-functional and self-organising. 
    • How the Pillars of Scrum enable continuous improvement. 
    • How Agile teams demonstrate transparency 
    • The importance of maximising the amount of work not done. 
    • How Agile teams maintain sustainable pace. 
    • The critical factors in creating motivated teams. 
    • The importance of psychological safety for high performing teams. 
    • Incremental and iterative delivery. 

8. Roles in Agile teams 

• • • The three Scrum roles. 
    • Commonly used non-Scrum Agile roles. 

9. Common Agile Practices 

• • • The practices of Team Leadership and Organisation in Agile 
    • The use of requirements. 
    • The practise of estimation. 
    • Common software development practices. 

10. Agile in Practice 

• • • Agile Approaches (Scrum, Kanban) 
    • How the following practices can remove the need to adopt a scaling method 
    • Why the following metrics are indicators of healthy Agile teams.