Many people continue to ask me, “What does it take to become a CST (Certified Scrum Trainer)?”

I have been a CST for many years now and have had the incredible opportunity to travel the world, meet awesome new people, and help train (and mentor) new people in the possibilities of what Scrum can deliver for teams.

For the past few months, the Scrum Alliance has been looking for input on a new CST process. I have included input early on (both in person at some face-to-face meetings and via some of the discussion groups).

The decision of the new CST process will be completed by the Board of Directors of the Scrum Alliance, the non-profit organization that certifies people as Scrum Masters in a variety of programs — including the creation of new Certified Scrum Trainers.

The note below was sent to the various lists of people who have been coming up with many competing ideas for what the “new” CST process should look like.

This is no way reflects any point of view other than my own, and I wanted to put some transparency on this topic out to the Scrum community because there are some good observations we can all take and move forward with as our community continues to grow.

Comments are welcome, as usual. Please tweet about this and send it to your friends and enemies who may be interested in what is happening within this community.

I have no inside information about “what” will happen. I am not involved in the decision process.

I *will* support whatever decision comes from the Board of Directors at the Scrum Alliance.

Here is the e-mail I sent (it is a bit long!) to the current CSTs and some of the lists of teams that are creating competing processes….

========

Please note: I have cross posted this note to a few groups discussing
the new CST process… this is a long posting and I am mainly doing it
to get some thoughts out of my head. I am not asking you to agree or
disagree (smile)].

Hi all,

I’d like to just pipe in for a few moments to express some reasons for
me being relatively silent to the various “camps” coming up with new
ideas for a CST process. I’ll relate this (good or bad) using the
framework I and others teach about facilitating great retrospectives.

[tangent on]

I have the courage to state this because I think many others who have
been silent on this topic may feel the same way (based on feedback
over the years of being with this group).

Being an introvert (as many people are in this community [we found out
recently by meeting face-to-face in Orlando]), I work very hard — by
example — to try and show others how we must step out of our comfort
zones to get better (and in the case of Orlando, I thank Jean for
stepping in and help us all keep it a positive and successful event as
Jim had to bow out at the last minute for personal life reasons!). I
highly recommend someone else step out of their comfort zone and
facilitate the next meeting face-to-face.

[tangent off]

I am a current CST and have been for a while. As many people know, I
am extremely passionate about this topic and love teaching others the
possible benefits for them in their organizations. Over the years of
doing this (both coaching and training teams internationally), I have
personally mentored and been mentored by many of the people both
within and outside of the CST group. I am continually humbled by the
incredible experiences and passion of the people in this group and
amazed at how we *somehow* continually move forward.

When the stage was set for this new introduction of a CST process, I
understood the message from Tobias of the basic rules of this and we
were able to all have input, with a decision to be made by the Board
of Directors on March 28.

Then, I watched as we started gathering data. In this phase, I
observed that the various groups got into the serious phases of trying
to setup norms for the goal and then rapidly enter into the storming
phase.

When people are not involved in this storming phase face-to-face, our
non-verbal communications (90% +) are *lost* in just pure emails. The
groups continually went back to forming and into storming as new
people came into the different and various conversations. Some new
ideas came out of meeting face-to-face in both Orlando and other
places.

Many insights were being generated.

Then, various ideas and sub-teams split off so people could get out of
both the forming and storming phases into the norming phase. This is
now where a lot of the sub-teams are in today. Feedback within each
of these teams now has been much different as I watch from the outside
as an observer. There are at least four proposals for the Board of
Directors to decide upon.

We are coming soon to the point where the Board of Directors will have
to complete the next phase — deciding what to do. This is an
incredibly important decision for both current and future CSTs.

A decision WILL be made. It has to be done. It is part of the
process that must be DONE in order to move forward.

When the decision is made, we will close the decision process.

Then.

As a group, we will then go back to the forming stages and figure out
how to inspect and adapt this updated CST process.

It will change over time as we attempt to implement it. It will not
be perfect. It never is.

And this is OK.

As we scale the CST group even more, we will actually see this pattern
continue. I say this because this has been a problem facing CSTs
since the “early days” when we were a very small group. Now, all the
issues continue to be required to scale. And this will continue.

I have personally made the decision to stay [relatively] quiet
throughout this process because of a statement I interpreted early on
as being, “Shut up.”

So, I did.

Why?

I understood that the process I described above would eventually
unfold. It was a personal decision on my part, and I applaud all the
people who have been involved on the various proposals. Thank you all
for doing that.

And.

As of March 28th, a decision will be made.

I have personally decided to work with and embrace any changes that
will be required as we move forward — even if I do not agree with it
100% (as with the many contracts I have had to sign with the Scrum
Alliance in the past as a CST). I know it will not be something that
I reject 100% (and if for some reason it is, I will decide to leave
and do something else — remember, we all have a choice to do this or
go and do something else).

As a group, we need to move forward and perform on our ideas.

It will not be easy.

I hope others will join me, and encourage you to do this. If you
decide not to embrace the continual changes, leave. Really. Maybe
start something competitive (as we have seen some key founders of the
Scrum Alliance do in the past). It is OK!

This is the only way we will be able to move forward and inspect and adapt.

Let’s see what happens. Let’s also keep doing what we have committed
to do as CSTs — keep doing the best we can as the professionals we
are.

And.

Keep learning with the people who are willing to do this with us. We
all have a choice to do this.

I hope this expresses some of the reasons I have been [relatively]
silent during this process, and some of the observations I have made
[correctly or incorrectly, I accept that responsibility].

It is not that I do not care.

I am extremely passionate about what I do and will continue to learn
how to get better with each new person I work with around the world.

Thanks for reading this long thought process.

- mike vizdos

I started using “Solo Scrum” again. This means that I am playing the three roles all by myself.

What are the three roles?

1) Product Owner
2) Team Member
3) ScrumMaster.

After only one day (Thursday) of using this again, some big things jumped out at me as lessons learned.

Take a look at the video and please provide comments to what you see so far.

Is this kind of thing useful to you? Do you see similar mistakes?

I’ll see if I can make some improvements on Friday and share them with you.

Have an awesome weekend (or welcome to Monday!).

Thank you!

- mike vizdos
www.implementingscrum.com
www.michaelvizdos.com

Today is our first try at a new format (in addition to the cartoons) at www.implementingscrum.com.

It is called, “ImplementingScrum – UnScripted” and will feature audio and/or video in different formats along the way.  By the time this goes out, it should be out on youtube and here is a link to the “.mov” format (uses quicktime and is just under 17MB — for some reason this is MUCH clearer — any recommendations???).

Using FeedBurner, it should also find it’s way out to iTunes as a podcast… let’s see together how it all works and continue to inspect and adapt.

Fair? (smile)

This first version of this is with a guy “Down Under” who had some spectacular patience with me this morning (in addition to the fifteen hour time difference!).

His name is James Brett and he maintains a site at www.scrummaster.com.au and recently (with a LOT of help with the people there!) published a survey, where you can see the results at www.scrummaster.com.au/Article.mvc/Detail/43 or download the PDF file from www.scrummaster.com.au/Content/download/ScrumSurveyResultsJan09.pdf.

The video of this is about eight minutes long and goes into the survey a bit and introduces the topic.  It is not meant to be exhaustive — right now it is a test of the technology convergence(s) and as usual we want to keep these things short and to the point.

A few other references made in the video included a retrospective formats article and retrospective why.

You can also check out a few cartoons about retropectives on this site (there is a three part series here:

www.implementingscrum.com/2007/09/04/scary-team-retrospectives-part-one/

www.implementingscrum.com/2007/09/10/retrospectives-not-just-reading-a-book-part-two/

www.implementingscrum.com/2007/09/17/walk-into-the-light-retrospectives-part-3-of-3/

As usual, any errors anywhere on the video or my site — I accept that responsibility.

Take a look at the video and the links above for the survey and other stuff and PLEASE comment about it below.

Inspect and Adapt.

Let’s see where we go.

As usual!

Thank you.

- mike vizdos

www.implementingscrum.com
www.michaelvizdos.com

Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.

Remember about a month ago our ScrumMaster got “whacked” and disappeared for a while. Last week he reappeared in the hospital.

Today, he is back at work.

And.

He did not die.

Assuming positive intent, he really wanted to just help the guy in the SUV with directions.

He never got there, as we can see. And is seems like the guy in the SUV made a run for it, not liking what he saw on the ground (what would you do if you saw a fashion forward guy wearing a blue thingee on the ground; wait…. hold that thought…. we also use talking pigs and chickens in this cartoon… never mind).

So what does this have to do with Scrum?

As a consultant, I am constantly working with both prospects (those who have not engaged me for any services yet) and current / past clients. I have a strong relationship with people in the industry, and consider myself a person who is not afraid to speak up and give the honest truth.

Not a lot of people like doing that.

Sometimes, as we saw, clients do not like to hear the truth. They want to keep doing waterfall, and make the conscious decision that in the end they will succumb to what is known as the, “Iterative and Incremental Death March.”

They will then go find someone who will say, “Yes” to anything they ask of them.

And this occurs with most organizations trying to use Scrum on more than one project in an organization.

It is a choice.

What about the small minority of organizations that succeed with implementing Scrum in their organization?

Wow.

Incredible things happen.

To the people as individuals, as team members, and the organization as a whole.

These are the organizations I enjoy working with; however, as you can see, they are a small minority in the world.

You know what I have started doing more and more lately (which uggg is hard for me!)?

Saying “No.”

And working only with organizations and teams and people who sincerely want this Scrum thing to work.

Sometimes I get conned into thinking an organization is truly interested, and get burned. Life happens.

We all learn and move on.

This is not the majority of time though, and yes, even I need to assume positive intent.

Why am I telling you all of this?

First and foremost… think about where you are today on your team and within your organization.

Are you constantly saying, “Yes” even when you know it makes no sense?

Do you need help saying, “No” sometimes?

Where can you go for that help?

And remember… a dead ScrumMaster is a useless one.

DO NOT commit career suicide.

But remember… you DO have a choice.

Always.

Gotta run! Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

You can also enter The Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!

Well, we have done it again. The boys (Dominic – almost 8 and Kenton almost 5) spent this evening adding some audio comments to an older strip that was created last year.

If you’d like to see the original posting, please go to http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2007/09/04/scary-team-retrospectives-part-one/.

Remember, this is from the point of view of my children, who are awesome at talking about what daddy does in English that everyone understands.

To see the video, look below:

As usual, comments and emails are welcome.

Thank you.

- mike (and Dominic and Kenton) Vizdos
www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com

More to the point — useless meetings.

You know the type. Let’s have a meeting to have a meeting to discuss what we talked about at our last meeting and review what we have not completed but might get done before we have the next meeting in a few weeks.

Ug.

Breath.

This idea started with an email my wife got from a friend last week that basically said, “I am in a meeting and want to stick a pencil through my eye.”

I know the feeling.

This familiar to you?

Then… I am reading one of the copies of CIO Magazine (specific link here) from when I was gone last month and….

Let me recap what Scrum and “Meetings” have in common (this is correlating an the “five tips” talked about in the brief article I read by Diann Daniel):

1) Schedule only when necessary.

OK. In Scrum, you have a daily standup meeting. Fifteen minutes max. This is your daily planning.

You also have a Sprint Review meeting — where your outside stakeholders can come and see what is happening — working software is preferred.

You also have a Sprint Retrospective — where you and the team work on things that went well, went not-so-well, and what specific few items you can work on improving in your next iteration.

2) Reduce the frequency.

So it may seem that Scrum has a lot of “meetings” to some people.

Hmmm.

These “meetings” should ideally start turning into how people do work together on a daily basis.

3) Create an agenda.

This one is easy.

Daily — The three questions. What have you done since yesterday, what are you going to do today, and what are your impediments.

Keep it simple.

4) Recap.

If there are impediments (things in your way)… the ScrumMaster is responsible for making sure the impediments get removed. This does not mean the ScrumMaster must remove them; however, it usually takes a ScrumMaster role to make sure that things are getting out of your way. One of the ways this gets accomplished is by working with the team in showing them how to remove their own impediments. Cool when it works.

5) Do the minutes.

So in Scrum (and agile in general) one of the items in the Agile Manifesto is, “Working software over comprehensive documentation.” To me, this means that you should not ignore the fact that risks (possibly impediments) need to be tracked in an organization (see my blog entry on compliance!). Remember though… do not overkill it. Do what is needed and move on.

When people are transitioning from “old waterfall” development techniques to this agile stuff (Scrum in particular), sometimes they have a hard time remembering that the old ways they did meetings were ineffective and gave people a bad taste in their mouths (translation: UGGGGGGG WHY AM I HERE?!@@?).

As a ScrumMaster, part of your daily workings with the team will involve them in talking to one another.

Some people call that “meeting.”

Time to get over it and start working together.

Getting some ideas of how to help get this working in your organization?
Gotta run!.Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

You can also enter The Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!

This week Tony and I complete the last of a three part series on Retrospectives. Part one is here and part two is there (smile).

This week we are covering a topic near and dear to a lot of people in the Scrum Community.

Retrospectives. Part Deux.

Last week I covered the “old way” team have done them.
This week.

How some teams do it today.
So called, “By the Book.”

Ooops.

But Mike, “It LOOKS so easy!”

Three Questions:

1) What went right?
2) What went wrong?
3) What can we improve the next iteration?

If a team begins to mature and grow, this type of format will become mind-numbing and create no real value to the team.

Think about it.

And. I mean this in the nicest way.

A lot of team members are technical.

And a lot of them can be introverted.

This means they may not like answering the same darn question after every Sprint.

Ug.

Even extroverts will get bored by this.

Really.

And then things start going South.

Your teams become less effective.

And.

Team members that are in this situation may recognize there is a problem.

In real life, they may not say anything. Usually — and this is unfortunate — they do not say anything.
Productivity suffers.

People start questioning what they are doing.

And the ScrumMaster may not have a clue.

Yikes.

What next?

The next part of this series will discuss what you as a ScrumMaster can do. And even as a team member on a Scrum Team.
If you are on a team today and see this is a problem, please get the word out that NEXT WEEK I will reveal some great solutions that may help you and your team become more effective.

Or at least take a shot at it.

Stick with it!

This week we are covering a topic near and dear to a lot of people in the Scrum Community.

Retrospectives.

[Edited April 5, 2008] I added a youtube video of this cartoon with my two sons — Dominc and Kenton. Check them out here:

I have been wanting to write about this topic since day one of this site; however, it kept sliding down my product backlog.

Why?

Mostly out of respect for this topic and the people in the Scrum Community who add to this valuable technique. Namely Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, and Norm Kerth.

This is going to be at least a two part series — maybe three.

Today’s posting looks back at the “old” way a traditional post-mortem was completed.

Think back. Or look at how you may possible be doing them today.

At the end of a project, management may have declared a project “successful.” This can take many formats, including actually delivering working software; however, many times in my own past I have attended these for one reason and one reason only — to complete a “check mark” on some project manager tick sheet. For compliance reasons.

We quickly talk about “lessons learned.” And of course they get filed away into the project notebook (or whatever you use for compliance and auditing).

NEVER to be looked at again.

Gulp.

And.

The team knows the project was a complete disaster.

Management is flying high because a date was “met”.

In the background, they are slapping high-fives with their peers because their project burned through two marriages and one person left the company because they were totally pissed off.

I have seen this happen.

And.

It makes me sad.

In the meeting, everyone gets around to sing happy camper songs and congratulatory awards are handed out.

“Congratulations. Katie worked 100 hour work weeks until the end and pulled in through for the team. And Joe, well, without him, the project would not have been where it is today.”

And them some $25.00 gift cards are handed out.

“Good job,” says the manager.

And.

The team is totally demoralized.

They know the product they delivered was not up to their own personal standards.

They know the product shipped with many bugs (but, because compliance says a product cannot ship with “severity one” bugs, mysteriously the night before all those pesky things were “downgraded” to a two or three — “Wahoo,” say the managers, “We shipped without any high severity bugs!”

Gulp.

So.

It may not be that bad where you work.

Unfortunately, I have seen this — sometimes many times.

And then people leave that project team to start a new project all over again. And guess what? They do the same thing again.

People become numb to the process.

People stop learning.

And.

It happens with both traditional waterfall teams and Scrum teams.

Today.

Is it happening with your team?

In the next part of this series, I am going to give you some solid techniques for dealing with this part of the process.

And not just “deal” with it.

But.

Make is a positive experience for everyone.

And.

Help improve your team and its interactions.

Sound like a dream?

At least it will not be a scary one.

There are things out there to help you.

Really!