Advanced Certified Product Owner (A-CSPO)

A-CSPO^® or Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner is the next step on your learning journey after you earned your CSPO certification. Through the course product owners and product managers will improve their skills in the areas of product ownership Core Competencies, agile practices, purpose and strategy, empathizing with customers and users, product assumption validation, techniques for working with the product backlog and much more. This course and experience also prepares you for your next step - the CSP-PO Certification.

These are the actual Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner certification courses. During this live-online course you do the course work asynchronously, submit the assignments and attend the live sessions. When you are all done, we will submit your A-CSPO certification.

As you will make your way through the Scrum Alliance educator-designed components of the course, which are based on real-life examples and situations, you will work on the assignments, which will validate your learning so there are no additional official tests to pass to earn your A-CSPO certification.

Yes, you have to have a CSPO on file to process the A-CSPO. Once the A-CSPO^® is processed we can then move forward with CSP-PO Certification. You have enough months of experience and you will also need to update your membership profile with Scrum Alliance including your work history AND – on your job entry there is a checkbox at the bottom that says PATH TO CSP – you need to check that box and enter your Scrum experience reflecting your continuous learning there in order for the certifications to process.

People who work diligently generally finish their  A-CSPO training in 4-6 weeks. It's self-paced, so it depends on how diligently you work. I have mentoring sessions weekly twice a week and a minimum of 4 are required to complete the course work.

This Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner training provides deep learning experience since there is no time constraint. This gives you time to master agile practices and put to use what you learned with your Scrum Team before trying to grasp another concept. This way helps you retain more of the learning you gain. Also, the training includes 8 hours of live virtual sessions with a qualified mentor where you can bring the problems and challenges you are having in your real world and get help. Also, it includes up to 8 hours of live virtual sessions with a qualified mentor where you can bring the problems and challenges you are having in your real world to get help.

Due to technical limitations, all courses listed on the SA website show as two-day course. However, this course is self paced and the live mentoring sessions are scheduled by you as best fits your schedule. So, you can start the coursework immediately and meet with your mentor as soon as you are ready.

During live mentoring sessions, the group builds the backlog of topics to discuss. While there is no formal pre- or post-course work, please come prepared with any questions, challenges, or situations you would like thought partnership and mentoring for.

Yes, there are mentoring sessions options that work for all timezones worldwide.

The learning objectives for the A-CSPO class fall into 5 broad categories as described below:

Product Owner Core Competencies

Examining the Product Owner Role

1.1. illustrate why Product Ownership is important for you.
1.2. reflect on the mindset and actions to be successful as a Product Owner.

Working with Stakeholders

1.3. demonstrate at least three techniques to interact with stakeholders over multiple Sprints.
1.4. describe two examples when the Product Owner should not act as the facilitator for the stakeholders.
1.5. demonstrate at least three facilitative listening techniques.
1.6. demonstrate the use of at least two alternatives to open discussion.
1.7. describe at least three ways to facilitate a final decision with stakeholders.

Working with the Scrum Team

1.8. explain why the Product Owner should be cautious about accumulating technical debt.
1.9. list at least three ways technical practices may help Scrum Team deliver a high-quality Product Increment and reduce technical debt each Sprint.
1.10. describe at least three examples and facilitation techniques that help the Product Owner collaborates with the Scrum Team to maximize the flow of value.

Product Ownership with Multiple Teams

1.11. recognize at least two approaches to scaling Scrum.
1.12. identify at least two techniques for visualizing, managing, or reducing dependencies.
1.13. describe at least three benefits and drawbacks of feature teams and component teams.

Advanced Purpose and Strategy

Developing Practical Product Strategies

2.1. discuss a real-world example of how product strategy is operationalized and evolves over time in an Agile organization.
2.2. practice at least two approaches to identify purpose or define strategy.

Advanced Product Planning and Forecasting

2.3. create a product plan or forecast with stakeholders.
2.4. practice at least one technique to visualize and communicate product strategy, product ideas, features, and/or assumptions.

Empathizing with Customers and Users

Customer Research and Product Discovery

3.1. use one technique to connect teams directly to customers and users.
3.2. practice at least two techniques of product discovery.

Advanced Product Assumption Validation

4.1. list two cognitive biases that may impact the Product Owner’s capability to effectively deliver business value.
4.2. appraise how effectively the Sprint Review is used to inspect and adapt based on the Product

Increment that was built in the Sprint.

4.3. compare at least two approaches to validating assumptions.
4.4. experiment with at least one approach to incorporate validating assumptions into the Scrum framework.
4.5. develop at least two hypotheses for a target customer.
4.6. create a plan to test at least one hypothesis.

Advanced Techniques for Working with the Product Backlog

Differentiating Outcome and Output

5.1. describe one benefit of maximizing outcomes and impact while minimizing output.

Defining Value

5.2. use at least two techniques to model value and at least two techniques to measure value.

Ordering Items

5.3. debate at least three techniques to order a Product Backlog.
5.4. apply at least two techniques to organize and filter a Product Backlog to link to product goals or strategy.

Advanced Product Backlog Refinement

5.5. illustrate how the Product Owner can ensure that enough Product Backlog items are “ready” for the upcoming Sprint.
5.6. integrate feedback from at least three sources to generate and order Product Backlog items.
5.7. assess the Product Backlog Refinement and identify at least three ways to improve.

This class does include some of the foundational agile understanding that you need as a Certified Agile Coach. These Certifications are competency, experience, and knowledge based. Thus, no program in isolation will contain everything you need to accomplish to meet these goals. The class will also provide you with requisite Scrum Alliance Scrum Educational Units (SEU) as well as Project Management Institute (PMI) Professional Development Units (PDU).

You must have at least one year of agile experience reflected on your Scrum Alliance Profile Work History. You must have an active CSPO^®. And of course, you must finish all coursework in your A-CSPO^® class.