At Shaping Agility, we're obsessive about product strategy and unlocking every individual's potential to make a difference.  Our program is an immersive, applied learning journey for Product Owners.  Starting with mindset and advancing to toolset, we comprehensively address all aspects of their role across the lifecycle.  

The program introduces concepts in manageable segments, practices them in real-world scenarios, and creates opportunities for students to apply these skills in their daily work.  Our approach rests on three core concepts:

• Applied team-driven learning: Each product owner cohort learns and practices together in a weekly cycle.  They learn from each other, not just the facilitator.
• Practice, not just theory: Extended exercises enable students to practice applying the new techniques to their own products in a supportive environment
• On-the-job consolidation: Weekly assignments encourage students to apply their new knowledge in their work, supported by facilitated 'office-hours' sessions

Every session is personally facilitated by Mark Richards

• The Program runs over an eight-week period for cohorts of up to twenty students.
• Each week begins with a two-hour facilitated workshop, which introduces the next set of concepts and brings them to life through exercises and group discussions.
• Each workshop concludes with an 'on-the-job' assignment for students to put their new ideas to work. 
• Two 'office-hours' sessions are held each week, during which interested students can bring the results from their assignment work to receive feedback and guidance on the challenges they are encountering when applying new techniques.

• Week 1 - The Product Owner Role: Understand the role that could be, the key collaborations that make it work, and the impact it will have as you evolve from where you are
• Week 2 - Product Strategy: Explore the critical elements of product strategy, your role in contributing to it, and how it impacts your decisions
• Week 3 - Customers and Design Thinking: Increase your chance of 'building the right' thing by leveraging design thinking tools at every stage of the product lifecycle
• Week 4 - Strategic Epics and Features: Epics and features are the vehicles of product strategy. Identify the important information to acquire and learn new tools for articulating and validating it
• Week 5 - 'PI Ready' Features: Find the right balance of detail as your features move from discovery to delivery. Improve your 'detail ideation' using BDD techniques
• Week 6 - Great User Stories: Leverage Story Maps to break down your features through the eyes of the customer and understand their role in feedback generation
• Week 7 - Right-Sized Stories: Understand the technical and customer motivations behind splitting stories and add new techniques to your repertoire
• Week 8 - Iterations and Execution: Learn the secret of 'just in time' story detail, gather actionable feedback while iterating, and learn from the way customers use your product

This Program is predominantly for practicing Product Owners. UX Practitioners and Business Analysts who closely support the Product Owners in existing agile teams will also benefit. We also recommend that Product Managers join their Product Owners on the course for the shared learning and opportunities to understand role synergies, and we have had a number of Architects find value.

Note that if you are not a practicing Product Owner or in an adjacent role on an existing agile team this is not the program for you.  We do not teach the traditional generic agile basics, our focus is product.