Certified LeSS for Executives

Principles, Organization, and Change

Learn with Craig Larman—the co-creator of LeSS—in this 3-day highly-participative course.

This is a course in ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN for large-scale product development, with the optimizing goal of ADAPTIVENESS. Learning and applying organizational design (policies of Finance/HR/Development, structure of sites/groups/teams, definition of jobs/paths, and much more) is the responsibility of senior management.

COVID-19 PROCEDURES FOR SAFE IN-PERSON COURSES? Watch this video for an idea of our goal in each city from one of our great partners.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The course runs until 17:30 on all 3 days, including day 3; for certification, full attendance required

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Craig Larman

Craig Larman

Partner - Organization Design Coach, Consultant, Trainer

Craig Larman is the co-creator of LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) with his friend and colleague Bas Vodde. He works as an organizational design consultant, introducing LeSS with executive teams for very large and multisite product development (often, HW-SW systems). He also works with product management for highly complex product definitions, and hands-on as an embedded-systems legacy-code C and C++ TDD coach with feature teams, to keep in touch with the real work and workers.

Learn with Craig Larman—the co-creator of LeSS—in this 3-day highly-participative course. Participants (senior managers, product managers, …) explore a deep understanding of large-scale organizational design, systems thinking, and LeSS, for adaptive development with many teams working together on one product. We explore adoption, new organizational design, systems optimization, the role of management, and more.

Critically, we explore the Big Idea of more with LeSS: simplifying & descaling over “scaling”, or… scaling product development by descaling the organization.

Perhaps most importantly and interestingly, this course runs mostly as a series of “at giant whiteboards” deep-thinking exercises involving systems modeling in small teams to explore why, so that people can own the ideas by discovering them for themselves, rather than “renting” the ideas. A focus on why and owning not renting are important elements of LeSS and how it’s learned, and Craig emphasizes this in the course learning experience.

Join Larman for a deep dive into more with LeSS, based on his long experience with LeSS adoptions.

Course Takeaways

In addition to course material, each participant will also receive 3 books on LeSS:

  • Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS
  • Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large, Multisite & Offshore Development with LeSS
  • Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrum

The delivery was outstanding and the supporting material vast and detailed.

Simone Zecchi

It was inspiring to discuss LeSS with Craig Larman. The content of the course was top-notch.

Steve Alexander

The best course I have ever been on. Totally blown away.

Simon Powers

Upcoming CLE Courses

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CLE Course Curriculum

Details :

After successful course completion (attending full-time, etc)…

All participants will be a Certified LeSS Executive and will get an account on less.works. Here you can find:

  • (free) digital versions of the first, second, and third LeSS books
  • more LeSS learning (videos, etc)
  • the course handout PDF and photos of everything created within the course that was on the walls
  • contacts of all course participants
  • a course certificate

LeSS Overview

  • descaling and simplifying over scaling: more with LeSS
  • LeSS principles, frameworks, guides, experiments
  • two LeSS frameworks: basic & LeSS Huge

    Local Optimization & System Optimization

    • local versus global systems optimization
    • local optimization in backlogs
    • local optimization in product definition
    • local optimization in planning
    • local optimization in in analysis & design
    • local optimization in programming

      Why LeSS?

      • shu-ha-ri and frameworks
      • empirical control
      • why “More with LeSS”?
      • systems optimization
      • occupational psychology

        LeSS Huge Framework

        • Requirement Areas
        • Area Product Owners
        • role of Overall Product Owner
        • Area Backlogs
        • adoption

          Adoption

          • pre-adoption: building interest
          • the adoption guides
          • 3 principles
          • getting started
          • scope of first adoption
          • stories of LeSS adoptions

            Product Definition

            • redefining the scope of product, and the impact on global optimization
            • portfolio management

              LeSS Sprint

              • coordination & integration: from communities to architecture
              • scaling Product Backlog Refinement, Sprint Review & Retrospective
              • multi-site development

                More on LeSS Roles

                • Managers in a LeSS organization
                • Scrum Masters at scale
                • Product Owner in LeSS

                Want to reserve your spot?

                We host Craig Larman twice a year in Austin or Houston. Join our waiting list, and we will reach out to you when the next course is scheduled.