Growing Scrum Masters

In 2001, a group of brilliant and deeply experienced software engineers came together to create the #agilemanifesto. A radical departure from rigid, process-driven rules into the realm of agility based on values and principles.

It is very actionable.   

The Advanced Certified Scrum Master (ACSM) course is designed to help you make the transition from apprentice Scrum Master to advanced Scrum Master by providing you with the insights, tools, techniques, and actionable practices required to practice successfully within a working environment.  

To become an Advanced Certified Scrum Master, you need to have a Certified Scrum Master credential and at least a years’ worth of working experience in the field.  

The working experience is essential because it provides a context for the conversations, practices, and simulations that you will be a part of in the ACSM course.  

You need to have experienced the challenges of being a scrum master in a working environment to fully grasp the concepts that are presented in the ACSM course and you need to have worked with teams to fully understand how the team dynamics, coaching, and facilitation elements work.  

As a Scrum Master, you will find that you have been incorporating elements of coaching and facilitation in your daily role but may not have the formal coaching and facilitation tools, techniques and practices to help you.  

The ACSM course focuses on helping you bridge the gap between Scrum Master and Agile coach by dedicating a full section to coaching and facilitation. A section where you will explore coaching and facilitation tools, techniques, theory, and practices that will actively help you become more effective as both a Scrum Master and a coach.  

The ACSM course attracts people with a wide variety of experience as Scrum Masters. Some may have a years’ worth of experience whilst others may have a decades’ experience practicing as a Scrum Master.  

In the conversations, simulations and group exercises, many of these delegates will raise questions around the challenges they face or will share experiences that helped them overcome those specific challenges in the field.  

These stories and questions are absolute gold for apprenticing Scrum Masters.  Your Certified Scrum Trainer is an expert in the field of Scrum Mastery and likely has over a decade of experience working in the trenches as a Scrum Master and Agile coach.  

They will be answering questions from the perspective of a master practitioner and will provide you with insights, theory and recommendations on how to actively overcome the challenges you face.  

These insights, recommendations and practices are immediately actionable.  

Many people come back to us after a day or two of attending the ACSM course to let us know that they have actioned much of the learning in the course and are starting to see positive results.

We also provide delegates with a recommended reading list of books and resources that are appropriate for an advanced Scrum Master. In those books and resources you will find knowledge, tools, techniques and resources that will actively help you in your journey.  

In applying everything that you have learned from the course, you will also start to learn what does and doesn’t work for you. Some elements may need a tweak here and there whilst in other situations, you may actively want to make them your own through trial and error.  

In short, you will find all of the content in the ACSM course is relevant and actionable.  

It is designed to help you become a more effective practitioner and to progress within your career as a professional Scrum Master.  

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level, visit our Advanced Certified Scrum Master course page on https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/scrum-master/advanced-certified-scrummaster/

Curious about how the ACSM course will impact your #scrum career journey? John McFadyen walks us through what you'll be able to do after attending the Advanced Certified Scrum Master (ACSM) course.  

In order to attend the course, you first need to be a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) with approximately a years' worth of experience working as a scrum master.  

The thinking is that the ACSM will build on your foundation knowledge and skillset with more advanced insights, tools, and techniques to help you make the next evolution in your career.  

So, in theory, you will be able to do everything that you were capable of doing before attending the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course and then you will also have a new, upgraded set of tools and techniques that you can begin to implement in your working environment.  

The Advanced Certified Scrum Master course also provides greater insight into Agile theory, helping you place the specific frameworks and concepts into the right context so you'll be better positioned to articulate why Agile is a great way of working for your organisation and in what specific applications the frameworks will yield the best results.  

As a Scrum Master, you will already be in the position of coaching others through Scrum events and artefacts but the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course contains a dedicated section for coaching and facilitation.  

You will find that you will have new coaching and facilitation tools, techniques and insights that will help you coach your team and new scrum masters. You will also find that you are better able to facilitate scrum events like retrospectives using your updated skills and techniques.  

The ACSM helps you to straddle the line between scrum master and agile coach within your organisation so you'll find that your coaching skills, both within your team as well as with individuals outside of your team will be greatly enhanced. You'll be able to help others discover the right answer and best solutions for the challenges they face.  

Ultimately, you'll be able to lead more effectively too.  

You'll be learning from the experience of others on the course and also picking up on what your Certified Scrum Trainer is addressing when it comes to overcoming challenges within a working environment.

Many people bring live, real-world challenges to the classroom and our role as a trainer is to provide them with actionable advice and tools that will help them solve those challenges. 

You will find that you are equipped with new tools, insights and creative approaches that will help you address some of the challenges that may be tripping you up in your practice as a Scrum Master.  

The ACSM course will give you the confidence to try new tools, techniques and approaches within your working environment and empower you to master more advanced practices within our industry.  

The time and effort you invest in applying the knowledge, tools and insights you gained on the ACSM is going to pay huge dividends in terms of your career progression and effectiveness as both a scrum master and agile coach.  

You will also be better positioned to coach and mentor new scrum masters. Coaching and mentoring is an important part of your career development so it's just as important that you have a coach and mentor to help you as it is for you to be actively coaching and mentoring junior Scrum Masters through their apprenticeship. 

The ACSM course will also validate your skills as an Advanced Scrum Master, giving you the confidence to attempt more complex problems and play a greater role in helping your team develop products and services that truly delight customers. 

The Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM) certification from the Scrum Alliance is fairly young compared to the Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master certifications.  

It was designed to be a bridge between the Certified Scrum Master course and the Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master course.  

After a year of experience as a scrum master in a working environment, you would be able to attend the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course and level up on your scrum master skills as well as learn new skills like coaching and facilitation.  

The thinking behind this credential is that it serves to empower scrum masters in their career as practitioners to progress to the next level and help teams thrive in complex environments. It also empowers them to work with new scrum masters and help them grow their skills in the industry.  

So, how well recognised and respected is the credential? It's pretty well respected by companies and recruitment agencies alike but it isn't as well known as the Certified Scrum Professional (CSM) certification.  

It is an internationally certified and recognised certification from the Scrum Alliance, so a short check or bit of research on the part of a recruiter or potential employer would inform them of the value and credibility of the certification.  

The Advanced Certified Scrum Master certification also acts as a validation of your skillset as an advanced Scrum Master.  

The Certified Scrum Master course has a very high pass rate, in the region of 98% per course, but the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course does often have to invite people back to the course once they have attained more experience in a working environment to validate their skills.  

It isn't simply a matter of attending the course and being automatically certified as an A-CSM.  As more people progress down the Scrum Alliance certification pathways to the more advanced certifications like ACSM and Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master, the certification gains wider recognition and appeal from recruiters and potential employers.  

If you want to invest in the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course, visit our https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/scrum-master/advanced-certified-scrummaster/ page.  Also visit our Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master course page on https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/scrum-master/certified-scrum-professional-scrum-master/.  

If you like the idea of a mentored and coach-driven approach to your skills development, visit our Agile Coach Academy on https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/agile-coach/agile-coach-academy/ 

If you like the idea of growing your coaching skills, visit our on-demand Introduction to Coaching course page on https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/scrum-agile-beginner-courses/on-demand-introduction-to-agile-scrum/ 

#agile #scrum #scrummaster #advancedscrummaster #csm #acsm #certifiedscrumprofessional #csp-sm #agilecoach #coaching #projectmanagement #agileprojectmanagement 

Visit https://www.agilecentre.com for more on Agile Centre and visit https://www.johnmcfadyen.com for more on John McFadyen.

What is John McFadyen's favourite #scrumcourse to teach? As a #CST or #certifiedscrumtrainer, John delivers a multitude of #scrumtraining with official certification from #scrumalliance. In this short video, John explains which of the courses are his favourite to teach.

Agile is built on values and principles, which can be tough to understand if you come from a traditional project management environment filled with rules and procedures.

Allow me to ask you an important question “Have you ever purchased a product solely because its documentation was immaculate, not caring about its functionality or value?

I bet you’re struggling to recall such an instance. I cannot imagine a single example in my many years of leading Scrum and Agile teams. If you can think of such an occasion, I’d love to hear it!

So, this brings me to ask a second question, ‘Have you ever been left scratching your head about the Agile Manifesto’s assertion for “Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation”? 🤔

It’s a phrase that I’ve been asked to explain countless times, and it’s a value that can sometimes feel counter-intuitive.

So, let’s take a moment to delve into it. 📚🖥️

What we’re talking about in working software over comprehensive documentation is certainly not getting rid of documentation. As such, it’s striking the balance of having enough documentation to run your product and your organisation responsibly.

In truth, “Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation” doesn’t mean discarding documentation altogether. It’s about achieving a balance 🧘‍♀️

It’s about having just enough documentation to operate your product and run your organisation responsibly.

But here’s the key insight 💡: Customers are not buying your product for its detailed documentation. They care about the outcome, the benefits, and the needs your product meets – the working software.

Now let’s look at the documentation from this perspective: It’s a tool that helps users achieve what they need from the product. But the documentation should never overshadow the primary goal – delivering a product that works, provides value, and meets user needs.

So let’s not lose sight of the core focus in our agile endeavours – delivering working, valuable software while using documentation as a supportive tool. Keep your product at the forefront, your user’s needs paramount, and let’s build software that speaks for itself!

If you’ve enjoyed my insights and want to dive deeper into Agile principles, look at some of the courses available to shape your Agile future!

Thank you for being part of our Agile journey! 💪💼💡

If you are interested in becoming an agile coach and value mentored, coach-driven skills development in your journey to mastery, visit our Growing Agile Coaches page.

If you are inspired by the idea of an online apprenticeship for a scrum master, visit https://www.agilesuccess.academy/courses/growing-scrum-masters-advanced

If you like the idea of becoming a scrum master and want to achieve internationally recognised and certified accreditation as a scrum master, visit our Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course page.

Breaking Down the Myths: Documentation in AgileA New Perspective: Documentation as an Aid, Not the Star

Agile is built on values and principles, which can be tough to understand if you come from a traditional project management environment filled with rules and procedures. In this short video, John McFadyen explains what the #agilemanifesto means by the #agilevalue of Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

Agile is built on values and principles, which can be tough to understand if you come from a traditional project management environment filled with rules and procedures. In this short video, John McFadyen explains what the #agilemanifesto means by the #agilevalue of Responding to change over following a plan.

The Advanced Certified Scrum Master or A-CSM course is an official certification for advanced scrum masters from Scrum Alliance. The course is intended to elevate your foundation scrum master skills to more advanced, professional scrum master levels.