Certified Scrum Master

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to take the Certified Scrum Master training. This training is offered by the Scrum Alliance (www.scrumalliance.org). To become a Certified Scrum Master, you need to do two things; become familiar with Scrum Basics/attend a Scrum Master course and pass the evaluation at the end of the course.

I'm sure some of you are asking "what the heck is Scrum?" From Wikipedia: "Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development method for managing software projects and product or application development." It can make development practices efficient so you can improve upon them while providing framework for complex products to be developed.

So what is a Scrum Master? A Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring the Scrum Team adheres to Scrum values, practices and rules. He/she helps the team self-organize and helps the team when an organization may not be optimized for complex product development (ie removes the impediments). The Scrum Master is not a Project Manager. With Scrum, the traditional role of a "Project Manager" is removed, ie the PM does not get involved in the daily business of the team, the PM deals with more of the outside "high level" issues (budget for example) - whereas decisions on "who will do what" (the day to day stuff) is then determined by the team.

As I mentioned above, to become a Certified Scrum Master, you have to attend a course offered by the Scrum Alliance and pass a 35 question evaluation at the end of the course. You can't self study and take the test. You have to attend the course in order to take the test.

So why did I decide to take the class? Well for three reasons. One, my company offered it and I like free training. Second, the project I'm currently on uses Scrum as a basis, so I wanted to learn more about Scrum. Finally, and for me the most important (and I may piss off a few people here so apologies in advance) there really isn't much more in the way of technical certifications I want to get. I feel as if I've plateaued for technical certifications. Plus for me, my next step career wise is to migrate to more of a Project Manager/Manager/Team Lead role (I'm already the Senior Windows Admin on our team). Compared to some people I'm not the most technical person out there. So for me to make the next step (career wise) I have to look at the management side of things. Which I fully embrace.

Since Project Management certifications really isn't discussed here, I did want to bring up the Certified Scrum Master role. I'm sorry if the descriptions weren't really clear. This is my first experience with Scrum (again I have more of a technical background) so a lot of the concepts and ideas are new to me. There is more reading I am going to have to do on my own regarding Scrum, to help further develop and strengthen myself.

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Webmaster

rwmidl wrote: »

Finally, and for me the most important (and I may piss off a few people here so apologies in advance) there really isn't much more in the way of technical certifications I want to get. I feel as if I've plateaued for technical certifications. Plus for me, my next step career wise is to migrate to more of a Project Manager/Manager/Team Lead role.

I don't think anyone will be pissed of by you advancing to a PM role

It's not that uncommon for techies either to move to a (project) management role at some point.

And congrats passing the CSM exam! I know Scrum mostly from the iOS dev jobs I browse through occasionally and often wondered how much of it is actually applied to not only meetings and project management aspects but also to the developers day-to-day work.

rwmidl

Thanks. I didn't want to offend anyone by saying I didn't want to do (right now at least) any more technical exams. For me, as I said I feel as if I've hit a level where for tech certs, there is not much ROI. I'll probably try to re-up one of my SANS certs when it expires in 2 years (if I can get my company to pay for it).

I like the idea of Scrum where it lets the people doing the work (ie the "pigs") be responsible and figure out the best way to make things happen.

Xcluziv

rwmidl wrote: »

I like the idea of Scrum where it lets the people doing the work (ie the "pigs") be responsible and figure out the best way to make things happen.

good ole chicken and pigs.....SCRUMTASTIC!!!!

Congrats on passing the exam!!!!

N2IT

Great write up!

Scrummatt

Congratz on clearing the CSM Exam. I personally feel that todays market pay's more emphasis on certification that on actual implementation know how. Now be it a Scrum Master or Agile Expert or whatever. Now dont get me wrong, i do understand the certifications are also an indicator of knowledge and know how, all i mean to say is it is an indicator and not an absolute one at that. Companies need to identify the key aspects in the skill set that are needed in a person for a particular role, certification or no certification - take the best candidate

Scrummatt

Also just came across this new link Free Agile and Scrum Certification Resources lot of free resources for scrum compiled from various websites. You can access the same

Jennibella

Scrum is a hugely beneficial approach to managing software development projects; however, for the team to be successful it must adhere to the core values and principles enshrined in the Agile Manifesto.You can use the following link for more details:
http://scrumstudy.com/blog/?p=152

fivestars

You have the same idea as me when it comes to technical certs. I have 17 years into UNIX/Linux administration and I've picked up some basic Windows administration along the way. I've also managed SANs and HPC clustering. So I feel that another technical cert won't really help me much at this stage in my career.

I think anything you can do to show that you are more aware of management methodology is extremely valuable. I personally want to use the PMP as a way to demonstrate my readiness to manage more members on my team. I already have a couple of guys reporting to me and I'd like to have more. I feel, however, that I need something to validate my abilities. My immediate manager likes the idea, so I think it can work out well for me.

At the end of this process, I'll also have a very strong resume, which is a big motivator to me. I'm not really looking to change companies, but it's always nice to be ready.

josetijam

Thanks for the link @Scrummatt! Plenty of useful information here for those that are interested in SCRUM.

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