If your Scrum Team is in the wrong place, training from The Scrum Academy can help.
Think you know Scrum? Think again…
Complete Your Education with a Certification from The Scrum Academy
Most Scrum practitioners are self-taught or have learned Scrum on-the-job. Their knowledge of Scrum is based on how their employer interpreted Scrum. Which is fine…if you plan to stay at the same company for many years. But what happens if you don’t stay? What then?
Generally speaking, organizations that rely on on-the-job training to educate their employees about Scrum have omitted, or misinterpreted, multiple pieces of the framework. This means most self-taught practitioners have big gaps in their understanding of how Scrum works, which puts them at a disadvantage when they switch jobs.
Five Benefits of a Scrum Certification
If you want to do better Scrum (and get that next job), you need to fill in those gaps. Here are five reasons why further Scrum education will help you.
- Learn the complete Scrum framework. Certification fills in any gaps you might have and offers a thorough understanding of how all the pieces were designed to work together. Without a holistic view of the entire framework, you cannot properly lead a Scrum Team.
- Clear understanding of your accountabilities. Most organizations overload the Scrum Master or Product Owner with too many responsibilities. Training clears up the murkiness around who does what on a Scrum Team and reduces the need for micromanagement.
- Get answers to your questions. Scrum has been around for more than twenty years. There are countless books, blogs and videos on the topic and yet people are still unsure about its application. Training allows you to ask questions in real time about how Scrum works, how to apply it and whatever else you need to know to be successful.
- Greater confidence to lead. Many self-taught practitioners know that how their employer uses Scrum is not quite right, but they lack the vocabulary to describe this intuition. Training enables you to identify what’s not right and confidently explain to Developers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, stakeholders, customers, and even senior leaders, the need for change.
- Boost your resume. In a crowded job market, professionals need to differentiate themselves. Regardless of your job duties - Scrum Master, Product Owner or Developer - a certification helps employers recognize you meet the standards and qualifications they seek.
"The Certified Scrum Master certification is the ninth most requested certification by employers." indeed.com
"Product Owner is the number one emerging job of tomorrow." World Economic Forum
Why the Scrum Alliance?
The Scrum Alliance is the world’s oldest and largest, non-profit, member-driven community of Scrum practitioners. In the last twenty-five years, the Scrum Alliance has hosted more than 100 global events and their community of more than 270 Certified Scrum Trainers (CST) have trained over 1.5 million people on the use of Scrum and other Agile practices. In the job market, the Scrum Alliance has the strongest brand recognition.
Why The Scrum Academy? It’s a Leading Provider
At The Scrum Academy, we have a long history of working with the Scrum Alliance. Our relationship began in 2005, when Carlton became a member. We deepened our relationship when Carlton became a CST in 2012. Since then, we have trained over 5,000 people and served the global Scrum community in the following ways:
- Updated the Certified Scrum Master (CSM) exam.
- Modernized the learning objectives for the Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner courses.
- Developed the continuing education tracks for Scrum Masters and Product Owners.
- Presented talks at numerous Scrum Alliance conferences on a variety of topics. This includes sponsoring our own “Scrum Day” in San Diego, California, for several years.
Certifications are Superior to Certificates
Other organizations can issue a certificate that you attended a class (or you took an exam), but the Scrum Alliance is one of the few organizations that offers a Scrum certification. You might think this is a minor difference in vocabulary, but it’s not. The Institute for Credentialing Excellence explains how a certification differs from a certificate.
- Certificate: documents that a learner’s knowledge and skills have been assessed against a set of learning objectives. There are no renewal or continuing education requirements associated with a certificate.
- Certification: also documents that a learner’s knowledge and skills have been assessed, but requires that the learner demonstrates that they remain current with any updates or changes to the knowledge areas that were assessed.
Grow with Other Practitioners
By receiving a Scrum Alliance certification, you’re committing to a journey of continuing education that will improve your use of Scrum and Agile practices.
But you won’t be alone on this journey. You’ll be joining a global community of over one million practitioners who have put into practice the very first line of the Agile Manifesto: “We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.” (Emphasis added.)
Do Better Scrum Today
Enroll today in one of our courses and unlock the confidence you need to get better results for you, your team and your organization. Know that in our courses, we go beyond the mechanics and show you how to unlock the Spirit of Scrum. Below are the various certification courses we offer.
Certified Scrum Product Owner®
Product Owners are responsible for creating and executing on their vision for digital products and services. In this course, we show you how to successfully achieve this goal while collaborating with a Scrum Team, managing a Product Backlog and leading the customer discovery process. By the end of this course you will have discovered new techniques to engage, support and inspire customers, users and stakeholders as you develop new and innovative digital products and services.
Certified Scrum Master®
Scrum Masters have two responsibilities: improve the flow of value towards the customer and ensure the correct use of Scrum. In this course, we take a deep dive into the Scrum framework and the Spirit of Scrum to show how Scrum Masters lead through influence rather than positional authority. By the end of this course, you will know how to use Scrum to create a team that puts people first and supports continuous improvement at the organizational level.
Certified Scrum Developer®
In this hands-on course (with real code!), Developers will learn the core Scrum and Agile concepts required to fully participate in a Scrum Team. More importantly, we will share advanced technical best practices that will make it easier for you to write, maintain and test your code in an Agile environment. By the end of this course, you will have begun to put into practice the good habits necessary to write clean code, work as a team and communicate effectively with code.
Attend a Complimentary Coaching Session
If you have an urgent impediment that needs quick resolution, sign-up to attend a free Lean Coffee session with Carlton. In this one-hour session, Carlton, along with other Scrum and Agile practitioners, will discuss solutions to common impediments faced by Scrum Teams. So if you have an impediment you want to resolve (don’t we all?), bring it to the group and uncover new ways to smash it that you had not considered!
