Curious about the impact an Advanced Certified Scrum Master (ACSM) course will have on your earning potential? John McFadyen takes some time out to explain how the course will benefit you.
Very few companies will increase your salary based on your attendance of a course, regardless of how long that course takes.
What companies do reward is increased competence, capability and creativity within the working environment. In other words, the greater the impact you have on your organisation the greater the rewards you will receive.
We are absolutely in love with the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course and believe it offers a host of benefits to each delegate but it will take time for you to integrate the new tools, techniques, and learning from the course into your daily practice.
The Advanced Certified Scrum Master course was designed by the Scrum Alliance to act as a bridge between the Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course and the Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master (CSP-SM) course.
The thinking behind the course is that as you pass through your apprenticeship as a Scrum Master, you would need an assist after about a year of working in the field to help you upskill in a number of areas relevant to a professional Scrum Master.
One of those areas is coaching and facilitation.
As you progress in your career as a Scrum Master, you will naturally find that you are coaching more people, within and outside of your scrum team, in Scrum.
You will be actively helping people to find great answers to complex problems and you will be helping a team of professionals to create products, services and features that truly delight customers.
To do that effectively, you need to be coaching and facilitating at a professional level.
The Certified Scrum Master course does not teach you how to do that, you would actively need to invest in a coaching and facilitation course or the Advanced Certified Scrum Master to upskill at the next level.
The ACSM also validates your skillset as an advanced Scrum Master and then provides you with the tools, models, techniques and insights you will need to continue your journey as a professional Scrum Master.
These include service to the team, service to the product owner, and service beyond the team. It also includes understanding organisational change and scaling Scrum.
As you master these elements, and actively practice what you have learned in the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course, you are naturally going to be creating and adding more value to the Scrum Team as well as the organisation.
As you master the coaching and facilitation elements, you are naturally going to have a greater impact on the organisation as well as on the teams you directly work with.
That impact translates into better products and services being created in less time than it would ordinarily take. In some cases, it translates into competitive advantage for the team and organisation.
At this point, you will be earmarked for promotion or salary increases due to the impact you are having on the team and the organisation.
So, in summary, the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course will not earn you a promotion in and of itself, but it does play a significant role in how you grow as a scrum master and the kind of impact you can have within your organisation, which in turn will lead to promotions and increases.
People who succeed in the role of professional scrum master are people who are curious about progression, continuous improvement and having a greater impact on their team.
The ACSM is well suited to that natural curiosity and will reward people who come prepared with questions, scenarios, and challenges they are actively seeking answers to. Actively wanting advice, recommendations and insights into how to overcome their challenges.
In this way, the ACSM can have a significant impact on your career trajectory. The Certified Scrum Trainers have a great deal of experience working in the trenches on the front lines of product development and scrum teams, and will be able to give you the tools, techniques and models you need to overcome your current challenges.
As before, the greater an impact you have on your team and the organisation, the greater your earning potential. If you invest in the Advanced Certified Scrum Master course, you are almost certainly going to be setting yourself up for career success.
After a year or so practicing as an Advanced Scrum Master you will also be perfectly positioned to progress toward the Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master course. The next step in your progression and evolution as a Scrum Master.
If you would like to advance your career as a Scrum Master, visit our Advanced Certified Scrum Master course page.
If you would like to get an idea of career progression, visit our Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master course page.
If you like the idea of mentored and coach-driven skills development, visit our Agile Coach Academy course page.
If you want to start growing your coaching skills, visit our on-demand Introduction to Coaching course page.