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 by appropriately leveraging Scrum.  

Through a combination of instruction and exercises, we teach the reasons and basis for agile, the intention of the Scrum framework, and ways to enable your Scrum team to make the most innovative product they can. 

In general, Scrum Masters face 2 major challenges:

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

• 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, individual coach.
• Sprint Review is a demo or approve/ reject meeting. 
• 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 to equip the student to master Scrum. It is a deep and holistic introduction of the Scrum framework, how its roles and rules interact and why – essential knowledge for anyone responsible for effective Scrum implementation.

Why Scrum.org?

All Scrum.org courses have a certain consistency from session to session, trainer to trainer. The consistency is around the learning objectives, some of the key objectives, and much of the insights.  The scrum guide and Ken Schwaber point the direction for our courses and the learning objectives are our road map. 

While curated by course stewards, Scrum.org courses are evolved through the input of several hundred Professional Scrum Trainers – experts in the field from across the globe.  This means that our courses are the culmination of many minds and diverse views, ensuring that the content is at the cutting edge.

While Scrum.org classes are the same class from instructor to instructor, the differentiator is presentation style and background. Trainers are free to 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 background for your needs.

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.

Certification

After completing a Professional Scrum Master course, you’ll receive credentials to take the Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) assessment and earn the industry-recognized PSM I Certification. The assessment is taken outside of class at the student’s convenience.     

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

Free 2^nd Attempt at PSM Certification

When you attend a Scrum.org training class with us you will learn the importance of inspection, adaptation, and fast feedback cycles. To reinforce those concepts, if you attend the Scrum.org class and attempt the certification assessment within 14 days – and do not achieve a score of at least 85% you will be given a 2nd attempt at no cost.

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

• Scrum Theory & Empiricism
  • The base reasons for an empirical approach.
  • What situations necessitate 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 "potentially releasable" and application to 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 leader?
  • Applying practices that will help others improve.
  • Responsibilities, skills, and traits of an effective Scrum Master.

Have read one of the Scrum books.

1. Have studied the Scrum Guide at http://www.scrumguides.org
2. Understand the basics of project management
3. Understand requirements and requirements decomposition.
4. Have been on or closely involved with a project that builds or enhances a product.
5. Want to know more about how Scrum works, how to use it, and how to implement it in an organization.

The course assumes experience in product delivery (product management or Product Ownership).  It also assumes familiarity with Scrum. 

This course is for non-IT professionals as well.