Industrial Scrum Master Training (Spring 2025)

Abstract

In collaboration with industrial partners, students will apply Scrum in practice and reason about its application in a controlled yet realistic environment.

Description

The goal of this course is to learn how to apply agile methodologies in practice, particularly Scrum. This is accomplished through hands-on experience as a Scrum Master for a software development group executing a software project in collaboration with an industrial partner.

 Semester Layout. The course will be divided into four blocks. In the first block, weeks 1 and 2, you will be involved in the formation of the groups and the matchmaking with the industrial partners. During the second block, weeks 3 and 4, you will kick off the project with your Scrum team. Finally, in the third block, weeks 5 to 17, you will run six two-week sprints and participate in two feedback sessions. The course will conclude with a final week of submissions, demos, and celebrations before the exam session.

Synergy with other electives.  In the semester, you will be able to integrate the learnings by also taking the "Managing Digital Transformation" course, which provides you with a toolbox of theories and practical perspectives that can be helpful and applied in practise in the project in the "Industrial Scrum Master Training" course.

Formal prerequisites

• You have read an introductory course in software development / software engineering and – maybe as part of it – participated in a small team programming project of at least six team members.
• You are able to apply some programming language to construct fully functional software programs
• You know the basics of software engineering, e.g., different software process models and related activities
• You know the basics of agile methods, especially Scrum.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Apply Scrum in a large-scale software development project as Scrum master of a team in cooperation with an industrial partner and an agile coach
• Explore and compare different software engineering practices and tools to support the team throughout the project
• Identify, analyze, and propose solutions based on both practice and relevant research in software engineering to teamwork related issues
• Compare and discuss with other Scrum masters within the course the different experiences and learnings from the project
• Reflect on the project in terms of learnings you have gained as a Scrum master from a software engineering and teamwork perspective

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, Internal (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D22: Submission with following oral exam supplemented by the submission.