That should really read, new year, new blog post. Domain shenanigans were mostly sorted out back in September, not long after I resolved (Note: tie-in to New Year’s! And we’ve got a theme. Sort of) to get my PSM1 certification.

Not long after that, still in September, a friend made a similar resolution. She received her cert not too long after that, along with her PSPO1 cert! The key differences between our respective paths to certification seem to be classes and employer support (her employer paid for her to take classes). Scrum certifications are not germane to what I’m currently doing for my day job, making employer support in the form of $$ for classes unlikely.

Fortunately, Udemy.com has several Scrum classes available. I’ve purchased a few using the year-end discounts. My current course list looks like this:

Pursuing the course content above is, of course, in addition to making my way through the recommended reading from Scrum.org. My professional monthly resolutions at this point are

1. To complete the course prep stuff by the end of February, and
2. To have the 1st cert (at least) by the end of March/end of 1Q2019.

The January 1, 2019 episode of Write-Minded, a weekly podcast for writers, discusses different approaches to making resolutions, which was quite timely of them. I particularly like one of the concepts, setting monthly goals, as opposed to one giant resolution that impacts the entire year. The desired result is to have attainable effort, with less of a loss if the goal isn’t met in the timeframe. Don’t finish reviewing the prep material by Feb 28, 2019? That’s fine, it rolls to March, and works with the goal of sitting for the cert successfully (try saying that a few times, fast).

Even more apropos for me, my 12 monthly resolutions, personal and professional, effectively become a roadmap for the year. That makes my little Product Manager’s heart pitterpatter with delight.