Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Training
Notes taken for posterity during two days of Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) training recently provided by Juniper Hill Associates at The Ohio State University earlier this month. Much like my notes for Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) training 3 years ago which you can find here and here, these notes are not intended in any way to summarize the course, which covers material beyond what is outlined here.
Although the instructor informally kept track of a number of Scrum topics that he planned to address by use of a wall board, training was formally broken down into the following sections:
- Introductions
- Theory and First Principles
- The Scrum Framework
- People & Teams
- The Scrum Master
- Scrum At Large
- Closing
The instructor summarized this training by explaining that it is intended to (1) help teams understand the rules of Scrum, and (2) help remove impediments (a level of abstraction above what might be expected), since everyone naively applies agile the first time around. Unfortunately from my experience, agile can be naively applied over the long-term as well, a phenomenon which I will attempt to address either here or in a subsequent post.
The purpose of this training is to provide experience and insights so students understand how to best use Scrum to build complex products, as well as understand the theory and principles behind Scrum that guide decision making, and the Scrum Master role. While I originally debated whether I should attend this training, due to past training and experience, I eventually determined that it seemed to make sense to get a refresher, partially because of my current client project and partially because I was interested in this relatively newer certification path.
After initially learning about this certification, I did a little research. One of the better comparisons that I came across is in an informal Stack Overflow discussion here, which also contains a link to a more formal discussion entitled Scrum Master Certificate: Which One Should You Choose? The instructor for this course emphasized after my introduction (during which I noted my earlier CSM training) that Scrum Alliance training varies from instructor to instructor, whereas PSM training materials are consistent. And while formal instruction is not required for the PSM, it also requires passing an exam that is not trivial.
- While Scrum is sometimes described as a process, and the "Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)" a "tailored down process", Scrum is actually a process framework
- the instructor warned that process training can be misused
- Scrum started at Fidelity, and the Scrum Guide includes a thank you to Fidelity