Why a former veteran is now offering Professional Scrum Master training

Greg Gomel is an Agile consultant and a veteran of the Coast Guard Reserve. So when he and fellow Agile consultant Ravi Verma were brainstorming earlier this year about what they could do to help military veterans it wasn’t surprising their minds turned to Agile software development.

So they decided to offer two days of intensive Scrum Master training, followed by two one week practice sprints and ending with presentations in front of actual hiring managers. Gomel reached out to another Dallas area veteran’s opportunity group, Allies in Service, and had them actually “vet” the veterans for the Scrum Master training program. Honorably discharged veterans with some kind of IT experience in their background were approached and in the end around 55 sat through a one-day orientation. Sixteen veterans went through the professional Scrum Master training and 10 received their certificates and went on to the two one-week sprints and presentation time in front of actual hiring managers.