Overcoming significant distraction in the form of everything else going on in my work life, I made the time to study for, and took, Scrum.org’s Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) exam. I passed! And learned some lessons along the way. 

For the most part, I enjoyed the journey. It was definitely illuminating, reading about agile scrum, and other agile methodologies. I started to understand how specific practices in agile scrum directly relate to or were straight out cribbed from other agile methodologies. I plan to create a flow chart or some kind of diagram detailing my thoughts on that… when I can find the time.

Lesson Learned: Or, really, re-learned: Studying/understanding concepts in the abstract takes more time than learning how to do a thing and then doing it.

The materials I used were found all across the internet, docs and YouTube videos, and included some paid courses. Collectively, the materials ranged from useless and factually wrong and self-contradictory to boot, to brilliant. I’ll definitely link to some of the brilliant ones. For the others, I’ve left some very specific reviews on the paid courses, but otherwise, decided to let it go.

Lesson Learned: Google broadly for reviews before plunking money down for Udemy courses, even when they’re only charging $8 and $9 per course.

Studying for the exam was painful in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I could clearly see where companies I worked at previously had erred in adhering to strict scrum practices. Though to be fair, sometimes those “errors” were in the form of applying not scrum, but scrum at scale for enterprises (SAFe). They just didn’t call it that.

And I came to see how wrong I had been in the past, in my usage of what I had called scrum. In my defense, this was the first comprehensive study of the subject that I’ve undertaken. Previously I’d learned “on the job” which is to say, incompletely, and with the filter of being taught only what the company wanted us to do. Having the context, the deep background, for the various activities (events, creating scrum artifacts) definitely clarified things for me.

Lesson Learned: As a student: Read the materials. If not provided in the course, find materials that are on-point, do the reading before the course(s).

As a trainer: Whenever possible, provide material for deep background before the course begins. Make it clear the material isn’t required reading/viewing, but additional information. Material will have different intended audiences; flag them appropriately.

As described on Scrum.org (the site), the PSM I certifies “a fundamental level of Scrum mastery.” Fundamental here means closer to superficial than in-depth. The PSM I does not certify proficiency in applying scrum principles, just an understanding of them. For the application part, a position on a scrum team is kind of required. I apply scrum to my daily activities, on the little “scrum team of 1” I have going on in my current position.

• work in time-boxed sprints, with defined, published goals
• execute on a roadmap that has the buy-in from my managers/key stakeholders
• hold sprint planning and sprint review with managers/key stakeholders
• maintain a scrum board that’s available to key stakeholders (transparency)
• gather feedback and adapt based on insights gathered (adaptation, inspection)
• no daily scrum – well, I don’t talk to myself about done/to-do/blockers for 15 minutes per day…  well. Not out loud

In conclusion: Working solo, agile scrum gives me, yes, a framework for organizing my work, communicating accomplishments with management and stakeholders, and reviewing and planning next steps. But really, agile scrum is about working with others as a cohesive unit. Acting as the entire Scrum Team (Dev, Scrum Master, and Product Owner), there’s a limit to how “pure scrum” I can be.

The $150 spent on the certification exam was an investment in the future, designed to help me secure my next position. The time and effort put into understanding agile scrum was the real gain.

Next Steps: The Professional Scrum Product Owner I (PSPO I) exam! I’m still studying, though.