I was referred to the Agile MBA™ program by a friend when he learned that I was between jobs after our move to Canada. The email subject simply read “Job Hackers Agile MBA Referral” so I honestly thought this was one of those Ten-Day or Thirty-Day MBA programs and almost dismissed it.

Luckily, I was not particularly in a hurry that day so I took a peek and saw the referrer. Since I trusted my friend, I clicked on the link to know more and, eventually, registered.

What is Agile MBA™?

According to their website, “Our Agile MBA™ prepares our participants to successfully navigate the complex, knowledge-based world. Many of our participants use this class to help them become certified as professional scrum masters. Best thing is the class is absolutely FREE to people in career transition.”

I’ve always been intrigued about the role of a SCRUM Master and have read a lot about it so attending a class about it was exciting for me. I also felt this additional knowledge would help me become a more effective tester or test manager in Agile teams.

However, the thought of a FREE class is not that appealing to me. That might sound weird but I’ve been in way too many FREE courses that end up as a way to market/sell their products. Then again, I had nothing else to do after sending out resumes so I went ahead anyway. What do I have to lose? I can just stop attending if it turns out to be a waste of time.

Why I decided to stay on?

Five weeks in and I’m still attending the class. Part of me is glad that I have not accepted any offer yet, so I can finish the course this week.

The classes are led by Larry Apke, and a bunch of volunteers. Larry finds a way to make each session entertaining and engaging with his deep insights and fun anecdotes. At the same time, the volunteers (Edward Gordon and Jim Schibler) are moderating the chat and answering our questions.

A pleasant surprise for me was that Larry was the author of Understanding the Agile Manifesto which was one of the books I was reading when I was trying to implement Agile practices.

The classes made me realize a lot of my mistakes, including how I misunderstood some of the ceremonies and was therefore doing them wrong. The biggest realization however was how we did not spend time in backlog refinement, and how this was the cause of a lot of our delays.

I would highly suggest that you take this course if you want to learn more about proper Agile practices.

Learn more about Agile MBA™

If you want to hear from others, check out these reviews from past participants over at SwitchUp.org.

If you like what you read, head on over to their Sign Up page.

This post is also published on the PinoyTesters Github page.