ARLINGTON, Va., April 29, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- In light of the coronavirus pandemic, NextUp Solutions, the Washington, D.C., area's go-to company for Agile training, has transitioned all of its in-person training courses to virtual classes for the first time ever.
The addition of online, interactive instruction is meant to help teams perform better and become more productive as their employees continue to work remotely. To quickly clear a path for the online courses, NextUp Solutions officials petitioned for permission to teach their Agile material virtually through the major certifying bodies associated with the practice, such as Scrum Alliance, Lean Kanban University, and Scaled Agile.
NextUp also is now one of the few Agile companies whose transition from in-person to live online training has been accredited and approved by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
"We have not missed a beat in our transition to provisional online classes," said Richard Cheng, NextUp Solutions' vice president of Agile training. "Our students already are raving about how our virtual training has been just as effective and engaging as our premium, in-person courses."
Given the current uncertainty of the economy, the online training courses, which transitioned to fully virtual classes on April 1, provide new opportunities for individuals to use their extra time at home to work on professional development or boost their resumes with a valuable certification. The programs also provide platforms for like-minded professionals to connect with one another at a time when in-person networking events are essentially nonexistent.
For managers faced with the challenge of leading a physically distributed workforce, virtual Agile training provides new team-building opportunities, allowing employees to continue interacting and getting to know each other better, building trust in the process.
"It's that very separation that makes for the perfect team-building exercise," Cheng stated. "The remote students naturally learn to collaborate better as they work on developing new skills."
Scrum principles and events, such as the daily scrum and retrospectives, ensure that teams are in regular communication regardless of the participants' physical locations. These Agile-related principles are particularly critical for distributed teams trying to adjust to full-time remote work arrangements.
"The Agile methodology itself teaches teams how to adjust to change in a productive manner – it's known for increasing overall team output and also for enhancing quality of life," Cheng explained. "Agile's emphasis on employee well-being is now more essential than ever, as workers struggle to separate business and personal time at home."
The virtual setting also has other advantages, Cheng continued. "It encourages people to come out of their shell – they're much more likely to express themselves from that distance. So a rich virtual training experience packed with small group interactions can be the best chance to set a group of strangers on the path to becoming an amazing and connected team."
NextUp's courses are taught by some of the world's most-elite Agile trainers, who are specially certified by the Scrum Alliance to teach these classes. Even in its early stages, the virtual Agile training led by these experts has proven just as effective as NextUp's legendary in-person classes.
"I loved doing the course online," wrote Luciana, a recent participant. "We still had a lot of interaction with the other attendees, and we were able to learn from each other. It was super interactive. (The instructor) kept the course interesting at all times."
NextUp traditionally offers both public training classes and private instruction accommodating teams of practically any size. Its website features a full catalog of private courses that can be tailored to a company's specific needs. The courses have been transitioned to live online professional development opportunities for distributed teams.
The introduction of online Agile courses has opened up enrollment possibilities for people around the world. There are no restrictions for residents participating from outside the United States, Cheng noted. "This is a new opportunity to network with the global community of Agile users," he said. "We also encourage students to stay connected after the course via LinkedIn – they can contribute to a constructive support system of Agile experts."
NextUp's virtual training courses will continue at least through June 10, Cheng says.
For any of NextUp's public training classes, special financial considerations are available for individuals who currently may be out of work or paying for a course on their own dime. For more information about available classes, visit https://nextupsolutions.com/training.
About NextUp Solutions Inc.
At NextUp Solutions, Agile is more than a methodology – it's a mindset. When it comes to problems with technology, Agile enables project management and software development professionals, teams and organizations to solve the unsolvable and make people's lives easier. Since pioneering one of the world's most-successful campus-based technology development centers, NextUp has remained committed to expanding Agile practices through the application of progressive and disruptive tactics.
Real-world Agile expertise informs NextUp's training programs. The company teaches Agile and Scrum concepts in a business context because it believes there should be a clear link between what you learn and how you use that knowledge every day. Participants emerge from NextUp's classes transformed, with new skills that are meaningful to both themselves and their teams.
NextUp's offices are located in Arlington, Virginia, and Blacksburg, Virginia. As the Washington area's leading Agile training organization, hundreds of companies have turned to NextUp and its team of Agile experts for training across a variety of frameworks, including Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, and Large-Scale Scrum. Over the past 15 years, the NextUp team of instructors has introduced Agile practices to myriad organizations through training, coaching and assessments.
NextUp's mentor-based internship program, Exelaration, was recently ranked No. 3 on the Vault.com list of the "Best Tech & Engineering Internships" for 2020, as well as No. 6 for "Best Internships for Employment Prospects" and No. 11 among the "100 Best Internships."
SOURCE NextUp Solutions
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