With the high adoption of Agile methodology and frameworks across successful teams worldwide, now is the best time to expand your knowledge and explore the world of Agile. Scrum is gaining popularity in project management domains because it simplifies the management of complex projects, increases team accountability, and reduces costs.
If you're planning to jumpstart a career in agile to scrum, here's a list of the best free resources to help you get started.
1. Agile With Scrum - From Beginner to Advanced by Udemy
Scrum is the most popular Agile framework, and it has taken the business world by storm. If you're intrigued by scrum, and you'd like to master its basics to implement it, this course by Luke Angel is a good place to start. In this course, you'll learn about scrum roles, artifacts, ceremonies, and ways in which you can have scrum working for your organization and teams.
This is perfect for scrum masters, developers, project managers, product owners, and anyone who has an interest in the world of agile project management and its frameworks. The course content is divided into 6 sections with 19 lectures.
You can learn all about sprint planning, scrum reporting, sprint demos, create better road maps, run stand-up meetings, and so much more.
2. Scrum.org Resources & Open Assessments
With Scrum.org certification tests being globally recognized, it is important to mention that Scrum.org is very popular with the scrum world—scrum ninjas, masters, and beginners. While numerous resources on Scrum.org is essentially paid, their vast list of resources, available in the form of webcasts and blog posts, are available for no cost at all.
In fact, if you're someone who's learning about scrum, and you'd like to gauge your knowledge of scrum, Scrum.org open and free assessments can come in quite handy. Aimed to help you understand the structure of a scrum team, or the basics of scaling scrum, they provide a good opportunity to practice for professional certification tests.
3. Basics of Scrum, Agile, and Project Delivery by Udemy
This course is perfect for anyone interested in learning about scrum and the key concepts outlined in the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK) guide. With no formal prerequisite, this course is incredibly useful in giving a detailed glimpse into how scrum works to deliver successful projects.
Being divided into 5 sections, this course is made up of 13 lectures. It covers an Introductory Lesson on Scrum Body of Knowledge, Scrum Principles, Scrum Aspects, and Scrum Processes. You can master key concepts of scrum from video content that's easy-to-digest and understand.
Offered by SCRUMstudy, the global certification body for Scrum and Agile, this course is designed to help you implement scrum processes in your projects.
4. Agile Project Management by Google on Coursera
Offered by Google, this course is a part of a larger course, Google Project Management: Professional Certification, aimed at equipping potential project managers with in-demand skills. The Agile Project Management course touches upon agile project management approaches and principles while explaining core concepts of the scrum framework.
This course can take an average of 22 hours to complete. It equips you with value-driven strategies of agile, techniques to define a value roadmap, coach an agile team, and overcome challenges in project management and product delivery segments. In addition, this course also focuses on building and managing a product backlog, performing backlog refinement, and building 5 separate types of events for a scrum team.
With hands-on approaches and tools, this course also gives you the tools to approach agile and scrum job roles and ways to land those opportunities. It requires no prior experience and is suitable as a beginner course. If you complete all the six courses in Google Project Management: Professional Certification course, you'll get a shareable certificate that is globally recognized among agile masters.
5. The Agile Coach Blog by Atlassian
The Agile Coach blog is a powerhouse of important resources on agile methodology and scrum framework on the web. From Agile Manifesto and Values to Agile Retrospectives in Scrum to How to Become a Scrum Master, you'll find all crucial information you need to know about the methodology or the framework here.
What's more, you can also take a look at resumes and profile tips of scrum masters, recognized in the industry. You can also subscribe to their newsletter if you'd like a weekly dose of information. You can also get access to useful e-books curated by Atlassian like “8 Steps to Becoming a Scrum Master” and more. They are easy to download and have information that could come in handy for your scrum journey.
6. Agile with Atlassian Jira on Coursera
For teams that are built on incremental planning, Jira is a crucial part of their development project and processes. Being a project management tool that's made specifically for agile teams, you'll find all the relevant tools and roadmaps you need on Jira.
Knowing how to work your way around Jira is crucial for a project manager. Candidates with strong hands-on experience in Jira are preferred over others. This course can help you configure Jira projects effortlessly and match your team's custom agile methodology. The course is concise, and can be completed in twelve hours.
The course content is divided into 4 sections. Each section has videos, readings, and quizzes to help you understand the foundational basics of agile and the ways in which you can implement them.
These Resources Make You More Agile
With most of these resources and courses requiring no prior experience, you can learn agile fundamentals, principles, processes, and frameworks with a detailed precision that's second to none.
While the courses can help you prepare for certifications and professional assessments, the blogs and web resources can keep you up-to-date with industry practices, processes, and popular implementations. If you're planning to jumpstart a career in agile or scrum, these resources could serve as a great launchpad for your plans.