There are many challenges we face when developing products, over the years I collected tools and techniques that work in practice. In my workshops, I share my experience and help you build your own toolbox of tools that will help you succeed.

Each workshop is crafted for the participants. We use a student-driven content selection approach. There are many modules to cover, and we craft the content of the workshop together, balancing your challenges and what I have experienced can have an impact.

The focus is on concrete, actionable tools and practices that help you apply the knowledge you collect in the workshop. Our goal: remove the delay between learning and applying the knowledge.

Practical and proven tools, practices and methods. That’s what the workshops are about.

Questions? Email me at Vasco.Duarte@oikosofy.com

#NoEstimates
Workshop

Deliveries on time.
Without the guesswork!

Managing value for the digital age.

tell me when and where is the next workshop

Andy Deighton, Scrum Master, Bright Interactive

"The debate surrounding the need, or not, to provide detailed estimates to clients is one that courts contention, argument and confusion. Undoubtedly these emotions will continue to prevail, but Vasco Duarte clearly and concisely reveals the virtues of an alternative approach to estimation."

Product Owner Success Toolkit Workshop

Product Owner proven tools and practices that help you and your focus on delivery value, not reports.

Delivering value in the digital age.

tell me when and where is the next workshop

Jimmy Carroll, Friendly Agile Coach at @absolunet

"Just letting you know that I love your “coach your PO” video series. It really give actionable tips and it challenges typical way we could respond to some types of PO. "

Feedback on the online version of the workshop

#NoEstimates workshop

Tapio Järvenpää, Beer Executive Officer, Hops United OÜ

“Finally! The most meaningful text book about project management and governance! This piece of project fiction will become the real “don’t panic” guide to project management!”

Feedback on the book and video interview series published with the book

Agreements may be hard to reach, but when a project goes wrong, they are very easy to break.

Never lose your stakeholder or customer’s trust. Ensure you keep your agreements.

This Workshop is for you if...

You need to deliver projects on time. The market defines the right time, and you need to deliver: My first projects were all about schedule. "Christmas doesn't wait for you" I was told over and over again. Without #NoEstimates I would not have been able to succeed at my primary mission: delivery on time, always.
You have invested in planning, even had Sprint ZERO, but scope creep keeps messing with your schedules: You’ve heard, maybe even from a fried, that Sprint ZERO helps teams plan better and keep their schedules. But when you tried it, it did not help you meet your schedule. There were still lots of surprises and you missed the deadline. You want to deliver on time, but need to learn to manage scope creep effectively.
You need to meet a deadline even when you don’t know at the start what needs to be done: Sometimes you just need to get started. Your competition is pushing hard, your boss wants to release a new version of the product, but we don’t yet have the whole plan together. What do do? We need to be able to release on time, even when we start the project before we know everything that should be included.
You have experienced the “almost done” syndrome: a long time waiting for the “almost” part: You’ve heard it already for a few weeks: “we’re almost done”. But the features aren’t ready yet and you are starting to panic. The “almost done” syndrome is a serious transparency and progress follow-up issue. You need to get rid of the “almost done” progress reporting and know exactly where you are in the delivery timeline.
You have experienced the “almost done” syndrome: a long time waiting for the “almost” part: You’ve heard it already for a few weeks: “we’re almost done”. But the features aren’t ready yet and you are starting to panic. The “almost done” syndrome is a serious transparency and progress follow-up issue. You need to get rid of the “almost done” progress reporting and know exactly where you are in the delivery timeline.
You want to cut scope, but are afraid of leaving something critical out: Sometimes, reducing the scope to deliver on time is an option. How do you make sure that you remove the right features from the scope? We need an approach that helps us assess the value of the items in the backlog, and make sure we are not leaving out something critical.
You want to reduce risks in your projects: #NoEstimates takes the Agile ideas of early and often delivery, as well as technical practices and pushes those all the way up to 11. It's an approach designed to remove risks, not just manage them.

tell me when and where is the next workshop

Questions? Email me at Vasco.Duarte@oikosofy.com

What You Will Learn In #NoEstimates Workshop

How To Predict Project Completion Schedules With 90% Accuracy

Project completion schedules are the bane of the technology industry. But they don't have to be. Armed with #NoEstimates principles, you will be able to effectively predict the completion schedule of any projects, knowing ahead of time when your project will be ready for deployment. PS: the 90% is just because I know you wouldn't believe 100%, but it is possible! I've done it, repeatedly.

How To Deliver MORE Value To Your Company Or Clients In Less Time

#NoEstimates isn't just about estimating project timelines and setting deadlines more intelligently. It's also about streamlining and improving the entire project management process, so you get more done in less time. Dramatically improve productivity with the best project management processes I've come across in more than 10 years.

The Key to Maximizing Value While Minimizing Unrealistic Expectations

How to simultaneously deliver the maximum value while ensuring that everybody on the team knows what the true goal is. Develop a laser-like focus on attaining realistic goals and cut out time wasted on unrealistic goals in the process.

And Much, Much More

I've gone the mile to pack the maximum possible information into the #NoEstimates workshop. Each module of the workshop contains nuggets of project management wisdom that you won't find anywhere else.

tell me when and where is the next workshop

Roles That Benefit The Most From The #NoEstimates Workshop

Project Managers
Capacity Managers
Product Owners
Scrum Masters
Agile Coaches

What People Are Saying About #NoEstimates

Tapio Järvenpää, Beer Executive Officer, Hops United OÜ

“Finally! The most meaningful text book about project management and governance! This piece of project fiction will become the real “don’t panic” guide to project management!”

Emiliano Sutil, PRoject Manager at Xeridia S.L.

"Anyone interested in deliver their projects on time should read this book. It´ll make you forget the idea that you can predict the future with a crystal ball . Instead of that you´ll learn to use your data and be more effective. Take the red pill!"

Bruce Scharlau, Senior Teaching Fellow, University of Aberdeen

“You’re doing it wrong. Estimates that is, and #NoEstimates tells you why. Most importantly, however, the book tells you what you should be doing instead. The compelling mix of theory with story means you’ll quickly learn the lessons and start benefiting from the book. Read, think and apply #NoEstimates today."

Henrik Berglund, Agile Organizational Coach, Cedur AB

“Trying to be more predictable by working with estimates is a seductively simple idea. After decades of widespread use of this idea, actual results are now very clear. Estimation has instead caused reduced predictability, lowered quality and unhappy customers. Read this book to start exploring some more successful strategies!”

Andy Deighton, Scrum Master, Bright Interactive

Enric Jaen, Senior Programmer, SM2 Tecnologías de la Información

"This is a must read book to software managers. It is call to responsability to managers to not estimate but give actual data to clients. Following the #noestimates principle will make the life of people around software industry happier."

tell me when and where is the next workshop

Product Owner Success Toolkit Workshop

Varun Maheswari, Agile Coach

"I have taken Coaching Product Owner course from Vasco Duarte and I have no words to explain how brilliant it is.
Highly recommended for any agile practitioner. Thanks Vasco for putting up such a great course."

Feedback on the online version of the workshop

Product Owners can make or break your product development process.

Help them, and those who help them learn what works.

20 years experience collected in a 1-day workshop.

This Workshop is for you if...

You have tried to involve stakeholders, but they don’t agree on what value is: You ask one stakeholder, and then another and finally realise that the definition of “value” is not the same for them. Perhaps not even clear. How do we get multiple stakeholders to collaborate and define value for our product? We need an approach to explore and define value, so that we can easily prioritize and reduce scope when needed.
You have talked to customers, and found out how hard it is to understand their real problems: Talking to customers should be a practice in all product teams. But how do you make those conversations productive and learn what is their real problem instead of getting a list of features that they want but don’t use?
You want to measure value concretely, but don’t know how: Even if stakeholders agree on what value is, often they can’t come up with a way to quantify it. Value is only useful if we can measure it concretely as part of our product development and feedback process. Inspect and adapt does not work unless we can measure value concretely.
You want to inspire your team to try new things, and become more innovative: The teams are more productive when they feel ownership over the products they work on. You need to inspire your teams to innovate, and feel they own the success of the product.
You are a Product Owner who wants to focus on collaborating better with the team: Throughout the workshop we focus on actionable techniques and concrete tools that help PO's and Teams collaborate. Focusing on customer value, and constant validation of business hypothesis
You are an Agile Coach or Scrum Master who wants to coach a Product Owner: The Product Owner role is one of the critical roles in Scrum. Success in that role requires support from the coaches and Scrum Masters. We walk through critical artifacts, practices and a method for coaching Product Owners.
You want to help a Product Owner grow the product impact in the market: Ultimately, Agile is about delivering value, and growing your business. With the practices we share in this workshop you'll be ready to focus on product growth and market impact.

tell me when and where is the next workshop

Questions? Email me at Vasco.Duarte@oikosofy.com

What You Will Learn In the Product Owner Success Toolkit Workshop

Define what is the most valuable work for their products and their teams

One of the most difficult jobs for Product Owners is to define what is value together with stakeholders, and help the team focus on value delivery. We review and discuss models for value definition. The start of the journey from product-centric, to customer-centric Product Ownership.

Measure product success in a manner that facilitates decision making

The role of metrics in Product development is undisputed. But which metrics matter? Which metrics are problematic? And which metrics are down-right wrongheaded? In this workshop we review types of metrics, and define the decision-critical metrics for Product Owners.

Use specific tools to discover and manage product scope

Scope is said to "creep in". In fact, this phenomena is so common we have a word for it, and project management practices to prevent it from derailing our projects. However "scope creep" is not bad, it's called "value discovery!" In this workshop we learn how to take advantage of "scope creep" instead of suffering from it.

Apply a self-assessment tool that fosters personal growth

Product Owners need to continuously develop their skills in multiple areas. In the workshop we review a self-assessment tool that will help PO's and their peers to focus on the areas that have the most impact on the product success. Self-assessment is the core of continuous improvement.

And Much, Much More

Product Ownership is one of the critical aspects of product development. In the workshop we review tools, practices and a coaching approach to help Product Owners grow and learn to focus their effort, and their team's efforts on the success of the product in the market.

tell me when and where is the next workshop

Workshops to help you succeed at Product Development

Practical and proven tools, practices and methods. That’s what the workshops are about.