Technical Skills For SMs, ACs and POs

Essential technical knowledge to thrive in your role

👋 Hello,

I’m Vibhor, and welcome to my weekly newsletter, the “Winning Strategy.” Every week I answer one question from you about agile, product, roles, processes, frameworks, career growth, working with humans and anything else that’s stressing you at your office. Send me your questions here, and in return, I’ll offer actionable, down-to-earth, and straightforward advice.

Vacation Notice: Hello friends, just wanted to let you know that I'll be taking a vacation next week to spend some quality time with my family. As a result, there won't be a newsletter next Sunday, May 21st, 2023. Thank you for your understanding!

Note: If you enjoy reading this post, would you mind showing your support by clicking the little gray heart below the title above? It would really mean a lot and help spread the word about this growing newsletter. 😍

On to this week’s question!

---

Q: Hello Vibhor. Thank you for the technical Scrum Master YouTube playlist. Those videos helped me transition from a non-technical to a technical team. I was wondering if you could make more such videos simplifying the technical terms. Also can you share some resources?

Absolutely! Thank you for the question.

The challenges faced by non-technical SMs, ACs, and POs when working with engineering and development teams are not uncommon.

Being technology-literate is not optional anymore. If you want to survive in these roles, you need to have some basic knowledge about how software is made.

Following are my top recommendations to acquire that basic knowledge.

---

1. Basics of Software Development and CI/CD

In this tutorial series, I have tried to simplify the software development process in very simple language.

You can access the full playlist here.

Video#1: Is Technical Knowledge A Must For Scrum Masters?

Video#2: Software Development And Deployment Process

Video#3: What is Continuous Integration?

Video#4: What Is Continuous Delivery?

All of the above videos are forever FREE.

---

2. Programming for Everybody

Python is the most popular programming language. It is also the easiest to learn.

This FREE Python course from the University of Michigan is extremely easy to grasp and learn with step-by-step instructions.

By the end of this course, you'll:

1. have a basic understanding of how code is written

2. have a better understanding of some common tech terms

You can access the tutorials here.

---

3. Basics of Data Structures

This FREE Udemy course will teach you the basics of Algorithms.

Data Structures might sound like a bunch of tech jargon, but it's really just a fancy term for how we organize and manage data in software development.

By the end of this course, you'll:

1. have a basic grasp of what data structuring is all about.

2. know a few more tech terms

You can access the tutorials here.

Duration: 5 hours

---

4. Basics of DevOps

DevOps might seem like it's all tech talk, but it's really just about getting your development team and operations team to work together smoothly.

These introductory DevOps articles from Codeacademy & TechTarget take all those intimidating concepts and make them easy to understand.

By the time you’re done reading these articles, you'll:

1. understand what DevOps is

2. know how DevOps is accomplished

3. know what problems it solves

4. know how to help your team adopt it

Access the Codeacademy article here.

Access the TechTarget article here.

---

5. Javascript Essentials

Javascript is a coding language that breathes life into static web pages, adding functionality and interactivity to make your browsing experience more enjoyable.

By the end of this course, you'll:

1. know the basic syntax that can apply to any language.

2. know what a programming language

3. understand what Javascript is in its truest form.

4. know the basic syntax of Javascript.

5. know some hidden quirks in Javascript.

You can access the course here.

Duration: 6 hours

---

6. Basics of HTML5 & CSS

HTML5 and CSS are the basic building blocks of web design and style.

By the end of this course, you'll:

1. know how web pages are written

2. know the basic concepts of HTML

3. know the basics of CSS

4. know web design and style terminology

You can access the course here.

Duration: Self-paced

---

7. Basics of Test Driven Development (TDD)

TDD is how developers practice Agility while writing code.

By the end of this course, you'll:

1. know what TDD is

2. how developers write code with minimum tech debt

3. know the basic terminology

You can access the course here.

Duration: 2 hours/ Self-paced

---

8. Basics of SQL

SQL is one of the most popular query languages in use today.

It lets users create tables, modify data, and retrieve information quickly and efficiently.

This FREE course from sqlbolt will get you up to speed with SQL terminology.

By the end of this course, you'll:

1. know what are relational databases

2. know how DBAs write SQL queries

3. know how DBAs filter and sort data

4. know how DBAs manipulate databases

You can access the course here.

Duration: 4 hours

---

9. Basics of Testing

Learn the very basics of software testing, including terms like Unit Testing, Integration Testing, Smoke Tests, Regression Tests etc.

This is an article that I find very useful to learn the testing terminology.

You can access it here.

---

10. Basics of AI

We are quickly entering the “Age of AI’.

It's important to keep ourselves updated with the advancements in AI to not miss out on future opportunities.

Learning the basics of AI is only the beginning.

You can learn the basics about AI here.

---

11. Further Reading

1. Speaking the IT Language

2. Design Patterns

3. Business Intelligence

4. 78 basic DevOps terms

---

This is it 🙏

If you have any questions (related to this topic), don’t forget to use the comments section to ask the community. I will try my best to get you an answer.

---

🙋🏻‍♂️ Your Questions!

If you want me to answer your questions in this newsletter, please send them my way using this link - Send me your questions.

If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, consider sharing it with friends or subscribing if you aren’t already.

---

Till next week!

Sincerely,

Vibhor 👋

P.S. Let me know what you think! Is this useful? What could be better? I promise you won’t hurt my feelings. This is an experiment, and I need feedback. You can reply to this email to send your message directly to my inbox.

---

“I share things I wish I knew in the starting years of my career in the corporate world"

Vibhor Chandel