Scrum Master Certification - what are the benefits?

Following on from our previous blog articles regarding introduction to Scrum Agile and also career opportunities in Scrum Agile, we have now uk-job-market-2investigated the benefits of IT Professionals taking their Scrum Master Certification, highlighting where people can take the courses, the cost involved and also the direct impact it can have upon their career.

We started our research by posting several questions within Linked IN to a number of Scrum Agile Professionals, asking them why they took their Master Certification and what they believed the benefits were.

Here is a summary of their feedback, followed by the essential information regarding gaining your Scrum Master Certification:

What is Advantage of holding a SCRUM Master certification ?

Agile is a mindset and SCRUM is an Agile methodology. A key ingredient of a successful, self sustaining and continuously improving Agile rollout is Agile minded people. It is less about money, software or hardware. A certification gives exactly that, people who have Agile mindset. Trained minds will boost mutual employee-employer confidence, minimize rollout cost and eventually minimize risk of failure.

What would you need before going on scrum course?

Prior to attending the CSM course, students should have read the Scrum Guide (see attached). Delegates would also benefit from having some prior experience using Scrum and Agile methods on projects although this is not essential. You should ideally have an understanding of the Scrum terminology; delegates would benefit from also reading Agile Project Management with SCRUM (Microsoft Professional) by Ken Schwaber, prior to attending and watching this podcast, featuring Ken Schwaber talking about Scrum.

Where can you attend Scrum Certification Course?

Skills Matter offers Scrum Certification courses at its central London training centre. The centre is based in Clerkenwell, close to Farringdon and Barbican undergroud stations. We also offer training courses on the customer site as private classes plus we have public scheduled courses running in France, Denmark and Poland.

How much does it cost?

The 2-day Scrum Master or Scrum Product Owner Certification course costs £1095+VAT per delegate. There is a 10% early bird discount available for bookings made at least 1 month prior to the course start date. Note that the price includes the certification cost.

There is also a 3-day Scrum Master Certification Plus Kanban course which costs £1250+VAT per delegate. There is a 10% early bird discount available for bookings made at least 1 month prior to the course start date. Note that the price includes the certification cost.

When does the Scrum Master course during the year?

You can find out the latest dates for Scrum Certification training by following these links:

Course are usually held every 2 weeks throughout the year at their London training centre.

How long is the Scrum master course?

The standard Scrum Master Certification course is 2 days. There is also an extended course emcompassing more exercises and some additional skills on lean and kanban techniques which is a 3 day class.

What Benefits will the Scrum Master Course offer?

  1. You will understand how you can leverage Scrum to optimise value creation and customer satisfaction.
  2. You will be able to create a realistic release plan, stock the product backlog, write user stories and refine requirements.
  3. You will know how you can increase productivity, level the workload, and steer the project proactively.
  4. You learn how to deal with the change management associated with implementing Scrum in your organization.
  5. You will be able to lead retrospectives
  6. You will be able to Estimate & Plan
  7. You will be equipped to deal with conflict
  8. The course also leads to a recognised certification and includes a 2 year membership with the Scrum Alliance where member only documents, information, downloads and reports are available.
  9. In addition, PMI members can claim up to 21 PDUs upon completing this course.
  10. You will ultimately be more employable, increase your skills and demonstrate that you are able to be an effective agile and Scrum team member.

What will this mean in ‘real terms’ with regards to my career in Scrum Agile?

When we are placing Scrum Agile professionals we immediately look for those who have their Scrum Master Certification as we find that our clients respond so much more positively to those candidates.

We’ve also found that interview success ratios are extremely high for those IT Professionals who possess their Master; almost a 1:1 success ratio. This means that almost all of them are taken on as soon as they are interviewed.

The final benefit is an obvious one - you can earn more money! We find that those who have their Master tend to command daily fees which are roughly 25% higher than those without the certification. Therefore, your course investment is quickly re-couped.

Summary:

We hope this article has given you a good overview of the benefits of gaining Scrum Master Certification and if there is anything the Team at Jenrick IT can do to assist you in developing your career within the Scrum Agile sector, please do not hesistate to contact us via any of the methods below:

Website: Latest Scrum Agile Jobs and other IT Jobs

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 10:52 am and is filed under Jenrick IT, Job Hunting Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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