A timeout for a little self-promotion as I am proud to announce I am now a Certified ScrumMaster® or CSM. Last week I took a 2-day course and over the weekend I passed the exam from the Scrum Alliance to become a CSM.

What is a CSM?

A CSM is a practitioner of the Scrum. With its origins in software development, Scrum is “framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.” The Scrum Master facilitates the Scrum and is one of 3 roles on a Scrum team. The team delivers software, or whatever the work product is, in an iterative approach over periods of time called sprints, where a sprint can last a few weeks to a month.

There is much more to Scrum, and I will be writing more about it in the future. A good guide to Scrum is called simply The Scrum Guide by the co-creators of Scrum, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, and you can read it at ScrumGuides.org. The definition of Scrum quoted above comes from The Scrum Guide. Among the myriad of books out there on Scrum is Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Sutherland that I previously read and wrote takeaways about.

Now what?

One thing that was clear to me from the course is that Scrum is a framework you must actively participate in to gain your expertise. I will be taking a two-prong approach to this. For my job, I will be discussing Scrum with leadership. As well, I will be using Scrum in my personal life to manage my multiple activities and projects.

Just the Beginning

I am excited for this certification. The course and test were a tremendous learning opportunity, and I look forward to continued learning to maintain the certification. Of course more importantly is applying what I learned and honing my skills in Scrum. Special thanks to my instructor Mike Stuedemann and my classmates Ibrahim, Nelia, Nicole and Rod for a fun and engaging learning experience.

Certified ScrumMaster® is a certification mark of Scrum Alliance, Inc. Any unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Announcements • Agile / Scrum • Thrive • Web Development • (0) Comments • Permalink

Imagine a workplace where not only you can work without impediments to your progress, but one where you have a say in what and how you do it? And to top of it you’re much more productive and successful and so is your ultimate business customer.

So what’s the catch? You simply have to drop the current way you work and adopt something called Scrum.

What is Scrum? The origins of the word come from the sport rugby, where a tight formation of players move and work together to get the ball forward. The term Scrum here has its origins on software development, where a small team of people work closely together to build software. The difference is in how they build it – using an iterative cycle of a few usable features at a time rather than defining everything upfront, then months (or years) later receiving software with all of the features.

The later process I described above is commonly referred to as “waterfall.” As one giant cycle produces all software (or the falling water) and the remaining project time is used to fix bugs and make changes in the business process (or the water flowing from the waterfall). It is far from a perfect system, especially as it doesn’t take into consideration business changes, let alone end users not always knowing what they want, both upfront or a year from now!

The former process I described above is Scrum, and was created in the 1990’s by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber. This book, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, is written by Sutherland, and presented in a format to introduce Scrum to the wider world outside of software.

As someone who has built software all of my professional career and then some and has used scrum formally in some of my past roles, I was interested to read this book, not only because it is written by one of the co-founders of Scrum, but to learn more how it can be used in other aspects of business and life.

Among my many thoughts from reading Scrum, I have the following takeaways:

• Building software – or anything really – is a journey – It’s hard to be perfect and know upfront everything you will possibly need in software you will use. Rather, admit it is a journey, build it over time, and get it closer to your needs while getting functioning features along the way.
• You have to be committed to Scrum to reap its true potential – Dipping your toes in the Scrum swimming pool will not give you the benefits of it. You have to fully commit to it. If you are hesitant to commit, read the book.
• If you don’t do it someone else will – Scrum as a framework is always gaining in popularity, and the number of people becoming certified in Scrum as well. If you or your organization is resistant to it, realize more organizations are always adopting it.
• I want to be Scrum Certified more now than before – after reading the book and hearing Sutherland’s stories of Scrum’s successes in business and beyond, I really want to take formal Scrum training and become certified more than I did before reading the book.

Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time is a great read, for those who work in business or any organization. I wish I had this book years ago when I was starting my Web consulting business – not just for building the Web software but for the overall running of my business. It is packed with stories of its successful use in various industries. Though it is very supportive of Scrum, it is not a “fluffy” and rah-rah story – it gets straight to the point and reinforces all that is stated. The book concludes with a step-by-step plan for deploying Scrum.

This is the part of my book takeaways where I disclose why I read a book. As I said, when I heard of it, I needed to get it and bought it myself, and for 2 reasons. The first and most important is that I wanted to read the story. The second and anecdotal reason is that I once worked at the same company as Jeff Sutherland, and we once had a brief work-related phone call. As I read Scrum, I could hear his no-nonsense style, which added to the reading.

As I conclude this post, I have not decided whom to give the book to, as it is something I do after I read one. If you are interested let me know. If you have read the book, or based on this are interested to, I welcome your thoughts in the comments to this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Book Take-Aways • Build • Business • Agile / Scrum • Strategize • Technology • Thrive • (2) Comments • Permalink