Top Tier Engineering Program

 

Engineering Leadership Fundamentals (2 hours)

• What is leadership?
• What is Agile Engineering Leadership?
• Key leadership characteristics
• Influence without authority
• Overcoming engineering leadership challenges
• Getting support for new ideas
• Differences between leadership & management

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Leadership Communication
(2 hours)

• Forms of communication
• Becoming a better listener
• Engaging your audience
• Inspiring action
• Fulfilling diverse stakeholder needs
• Communication strategies

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Building Rapport, Trust & Respect (2 hours)

• Opportunities for building rapport
• The art of influence
• Building rapport with senior leaders
• Helping others to see your view
• Dealing with conflict
• 20 elements of trust & respect
• Maxwell’s 5 Levels of Leadership

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Leadership Assessment and Development Plan (2 hours)

• Balancing leadership and management development
• Core leadership assessment
• Dedication to leadership development
• Leadership competency goals
• Prioritized leadership objectives

Engineering Excellence Topics

Engineering Leadership Core Values (2 hours)

• Core values that always matter
• Engineering-specific values
• Determining the values you want to instill on your team
• Leading by example to reinforce organizational values
• Developing leaders aligned with core values

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Driving a Culture of Technical Excellence (2 hours)

• Foundational engineering principles
• Engineering best practices
• Setting quality of work standards
• Efficient knowledge transfer
• Developing problem-solving skills
• Supporting a balance of innovation and execution

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Building and Leading High-Performing Teams (2 hours)

• What is a high-performing team?
• Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions model
• Ideal team dynamics
• Leveraging agile methods to strengthen commitment & accountability
• Support needed for ongoing motivation and consistent results

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Facilitating Exceptional Communication (2 hours)

• Awareness of communication challenges
• Communication as a key part of your organizational culture
• Empowering teams for self-management and communication accountability
• Utilizing management tools for communication flow
• Project communication planning

Strategic Leadership Topics

Visionary and Strategic Engineering Leadership (2 hours)

• What it means to be a visionary leader
• Communicating a clear & achievable vision
• The need for organizational & strategic agility
• Strategic thinking & balancing short-term with long-term strategies
• Business acumen needed for success

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Adaptive and Situational Leadership (2 hours)

• The need for an adaptive leadership approach
• Situational context
• Adapting to individual team member and stakeholder needs
• Adapting without deviating from your core beliefs
• The importance of leadership timing
• Developing your situational leadership abilities

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Top-Tier Engineering Leadership (4 hours)

• What is Top-Tier Engineering Leadership?
• Balancing technical, communication, leadership, management and business abilities
• Balance depending on role
• Top-Tier Project Leaders
• Top-Tier Engineering Managers
• Top-Tier Engineering Executives
• Top-Tier Chief Technologists
• Assessment and action plan

 

Project Management Fundamentals (2 hours)

• Key project management concepts
• Best practices and why they matter
• Project lifecycle models
• Building your project management toolbox
• Adapting methods for different project situations

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Engineering Project Planning and Tools (2 hours)

• Project planning elements
• Planning methods & tools
• Risk identification & mitigation
• Project communication planning
• Facilitating Team & stakeholder alignment
• Work and requirements breakdown
• Project plan sizing
• Quick-start Project Planning Guide

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Project Estimation (2 hours)

• Overview of traditional and agile methods
• Top-down and bottom-up estimation
• Data-driven methods
• Opinion-based methods
• Collaborative estimation
• Best and worst case analysis

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Schedule Management and Risk Mitigation (2 hours)

• Scheduling methods & tools
• Critical path and slack time
• Managing major and minor dependencies
• Risk management methods & tools
• Proactive risk mitigation
• Master risk register

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Project Communication Methods and Tools (2 hours)

• Elements of communication planning
• Leveraging available tools for project communication
• Minimizing communication inefficiencies
• Project status communication approaches
• Facilitating stakeholder input and timely decisions

Managing Multiple Projects

Project Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (2 hours)

• Project metrics overview
• Metrics vs. KPIs
• Determining measures aligned with goals
• Project & team success categories
• Identifying major areas for continuous improvement

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Managing Multiple NPD Projects (2 hours)

• Multiple project management responsibilities and challenges
• Prioritization across multiple projects
• Multi-project management phases & flow
• Resource allocation methods
• Utilizing multiple lifecycle models
• Organizational structures and concerns

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Project Portfolio and Pipeline Management Overview (2 hours)

• Traditional and agile portfolio prioritization
• Key roles and responsibilities
• Portfolio scoring methods
• Traditional vs. agile resource allocation
• Team commitment based resource allocation
• Symptoms of project portfolio management issues

Engineering Functional Management

Transitioning from Engineer to Manager (2 hours)

• Key differences and challenges
• Management styles
• Developing key leadership & management abilities
• Balancing technical, management and leadership effort
• Responsibilities as part of your management team
• Tailoring your approach to the team’s way-of-working

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Effective Management of Agile Teams (2 hours)

• What’s different about agile vs. traditional management
• The role of the agile engineering manager
• Getting full benefit from an agile way-of-working
• Key support needed beyond engineering management
• Agile resource allocation

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Balancing Management Skills with Leadership Ability (2 hours)

• Differences between leadership and management
• Essential engineering management responsibilities
• Key leadership traits and how to develop them
• Balancing leadership, management and technical contribution
• Facilitated development plan

 

Agile Product Development Overview (2 hours)

• Agile principles and frameworks
• Agile NPD situations, goals and challenges
• Differences between software and physical product agile development
• Key elements needed for complex cross-disciplined projects
• Agile organizational structures
• Agile portfolio and resource management
• Overview of key roles and tools

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Building a Culture for Agile Success (2 hours)

• What is agile success?
• Typical challenges to overcome
• Identifying issues & prioritizing effort
• Leadership roles & responsibilities for supporting success
• Agile management approaches for shaping your agile culture
• Rapid agile transformation in a large enterprise
• Tracking continuous improvement

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Agile and Modified Agile for Hardware Development (MAHD) Overview (2 hours)

• Agile principles relevant to physical, manufactured products
• Overview of agile frameworks and typical modifications needed
• Modified Agile for Hardware Development (MAHD) framework
• Sequential frameworks and shortcomings
• Key framework elements needed for an effective hybrid approach
• MAHD framework elements
• MAHD project example

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Agile Roles, Responsibilities and Transitioning (2 hours)

• Key agile roles & core teams
• Software roles vs. physical product development roles
• Misconceptions about roles and agile activities
• Autonomous teams – what that means for leaders and team members
• Mapping traditional roles & responsibilities to agile teams
• Common team organization models – pros and cons of each

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Agile Product Owner Fundamentals (2 hours)

• Product Owner responsibilities
• Levels of product ownership
• Typical challenges to overcome
• Agile mindset and product vs. project mindset
• Cone of Uncertainty concept
• User story prioritization
• Agile requirements management
• Product Owner and Project Leader collaboration

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Agile Project Leadership Fundamentals (2 hours)

• Project Leader, Product Owner & Functional Leader agile roles
• Agile Project Leader key responsibilities & challenges
• Cross-functional agile planning & execution
• Up-front agile planning elements
• Iteration planning approaches
• Agile leadership of sub-team details
• Project Leader and Product Owner collaboration

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Cross-Functional Agile Planning (2 hours)

• Cross-functional planning roles
• Approaches for agile requirements development
• Initial prioritization and focus
• Agile planning to an overall schedule
• Facilitating cross-functional agile planning & alignment
• Initial backlog and estimates
• Hands-on iteration planning

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Cross-Functional Agile Execution (2 hours)

• Iteration goals and key metrics
• Acceptance Criteria & Definition of Done
• Agile forecasting methods
• Ongoing iteration plan refinement
• Iteration planning tools
• Progress visibility and stakeholder feedback
• Overcoming challenges – tips for consistent success

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Agile Estimation and Work Breakdown (2 hours)

• Agile estimation methods
• Estimation refinement
• Use of epics, user stories, tasks and subtasks
• Establishing velocity for agile forecasting
• Work item ownership
• Using versions or releases for tracking iteration progress

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Sprint Planning and Execution Success (2 hours)

• Approaches to teams and sprints
• Roles, responsibilities and team self-management
• Overcoming typical challenges
• Tips for quick & efficient planning
• Agile and Scrum misconceptions
• Leveraging tools for team communication
• Aligning to cross-functional plans and goals
• What does “success” mean? – key measures of success