Professional Scrum Master

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Unleash the innovative power of your people with Scrum

Being a professional Scrum Master is much more than being a meeting facilitator or an Agile manager – it’s about engaging team members, enabling team self-organization, and delivering a better product with Scrum.  

Through instruction and exercises, we teach the reasons for Agile and the intended application of the Scrum framework.  The class will help you enable your team to create the most innovative product possible. 

In general, Scrum Masters face two significant challenges:

• The misinterpretation of the role of Scrum Master as an ‘Agile project manager’ or as a personal coach.

• The misinterpretation that Scrum is a delivery method mainly for IT people, teams, and departments.

Common myths debunked during class:

• ‘Doing math’ is a way to predict the future.
• A product cannot be released until the end of a Sprint.
• Velocity is a measure of team productivity.
• Scrum Master is an administrative assistant, team lead, Agile project manager, and individual coach.
• Sprint Review is a demo or where the business approves or rejects the work. 
• The main purpose of Agile is to deliver the same things as a traditional approach but faster and cheaper.
• When Scrum Masters become more effective, they should be given more teams.

The overall goal of this course is to equip the student to master Scrum. It is a deep and holistic survey of the Scrum framework: how the roles and rules interact and why.  The course provides the essential knowledge for anyone responsible for effective Scrum application.

Why Scrum.org?

All Scrum.org courses have consistency around the learning objectives, key objectives, and exercises.  The scrum guide and Ken Schwaber set the direction for our courses, and the learning objectives are our road map. Even with this consistency, each instructor has their own presentation style and background - trainers frequently add stories based on their experiences.  While you will be pleased with any Professional Scrum Trainer, make sure to research the instructor's background and see if they have the right fit for your needs.

Scrum.org courses are evolved through the input of several hundred Professional Scrum Trainers using a steward model.  This means that our courses are the culmination of many minds and diverse views, ensuring that the content is at the cutting edge.

Why Dr. Suscheck?

Dr Suscheck has over 30 years of experience in software development and education, starting his career as a developer and growing into an enterprise level agile coach.  He has taught Scrum.org classes to over 5,000 students and hundreds more in noncertified classes.  His classes range from advanced, highly technical programming classes to executive level organizational change classes.

In academics, he holds a Doctor of Computer Science from Colorado Technical University, a Master of Computer Information Systems from Cleveland State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Edinboro University.  He has worked as full-time faculty member at Colorado State University and currently serve as adjunct faculty at several universities.

Charles not only teaches but consults with a variety of large organizations.  He focuses on helping organizations realize the benefits of agile principles and practices through better business and IT alignment.

Learning Objectives

• Understand uncertainty and complexity in software environments.
• Understand how empiricism controls risk and provides predictability in complex environments.
• Understand agility and Scrum’s place in the Agile discussion.
• Understand how each part of the Scrum framework ties back to the principles and theory while exposing waste.
• Understand the meaning and importance of the Scrum values.
• Learn what Done means and why it is crucial to transparency.
• Know how to use the Product Backlog to plan with agility.
• Understand the importance of self-organizing teams, interpersonal skills needed, and the Scrum Master role.
• Clarify what servant leadership means in the context of the Scrum Master role.
• Learn the skills and traits, and behavior shifts required to be a Scrum Master.

Topics

The PSM course is a mix of lecture, case studies, and interactive exercises as you collaborate with other students:

• Scrum Theory & Empiricism
  • The foundational reasons for an empirical approach.
  • What situations are best suited for Agile.
  • Predictive and empirical approaches to problems.
  • Exploring the advantages of Agility.
  • Keys to a more effective application of an Agile mindset.
• The Scrum Framework
  • How Scrum roles, artifacts & events relate.
  • Empowerments and limits of the Product Owner.
  • Effective Sprint Planning.
  • Creating an effective Sprint Goal.
  • Leveraging better Daily Scrums.
  • The intent of Sprint Reviews.
  • Effective Retrospectives.
  • Strategies to grow Scrum effectiveness.
• Done and Undone
  • The importance of a done increment.
  • Defining what "potentially releasable" means and how to apply it in regulated environments.
  • How to grow your Definition of Done and improve quality.
• Product Delivery with Scrum
  • Techniques for Product Backlog ordering and valuation.
  • Techniques for estimating the size of Product Backlog Items.
  • Planning and forecasting.
  • Date driven, scope driven, and resource-driven approaches to product releases.
  • Monitoring and reporting progress. 
• People and Teams
  • Exploring the limits and possibilities of self-organization.
  • Employee engagement as a means for better innovation.
  • Cross-functional teams and how to achieve them.
  • Team members with partial allocation or highly specialized skills.
  • Influencing people and teams.
• The Scrum Master
  • Stances of a Scrum Master.
  • What is a servant leaderership?
  • Applying practices that will help others improve.
  • Responsibilities, skills, and traits of an effective Scrum Master.

Who should attend?

The course assumes basic familiarity with Scrum.  If you are new to Scrum, you should read the Scrum Guide (www.scrumguides.org).  This course is perfectly appropriate for non-IT professionals who are looking to apply Scrum in their context. 

Certification

After completing a Professional Scrum Master course, students receive credentials to take the Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) assessment and earn the industry-recognized PSM I Certification. Students take the assessment on their own after class.     

Earning your PSM I Certification will make you part of an elite community of 300,000+ PSM I certificate holders.

VIrtual via zoom.

For more information or to arrange group rates contact:  info@juniperhillassociates.com