You will certainly have the tools, techniques, and theory to help you become a great deal more effective, but it is going to take time for you to practice and evolve as an Agile coach.
The Scrum Alliance have designed the certification pathway with active practice in mind.
It starts with the Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course followed by a years’ worth of practice as a Scrum Master before you sign up for the Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM) course.
After a years’ worth of practice as an Advanced Certified Scrum Master you can sign up for the Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master (CSP-SM) course.
The thinking is that you will have a strong theoretical and skills development platform followed by 2 years’ worth of experience actively working in the field before you start the Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master course.
A scrum master is often a coach within the organisation and helps the scrum team to create an environment where everybody can excel. An environment where the product owner, development team and scrum master collaborate toward creating the most valuable products and services that delight customers.
So, by the time you start the CSP-SM course you should already have a significant amount of practice as a Scrum Master and will have a working context that you can use as a frame of reference in the training and coaching you will receive.
You will also have insights into the challenges of being an effective coach in a dynamic organisation.
This is valuable because it provides a context from which you can learn.
In addition to teaching, the course also features group discussions where people share their challenges and experiences. Conversations that help you identify what others have faced and how they have overcome their challenges.
In many cases, people bring questions to the course with the objective of getting actionable insights and recommendations to overcome those challenges.
That’s where you Certified Scrum Trainer really comes into their own.
Diving into our own experiences as a Scrum Master and practicing Agile coach, we are able to help you with the challenges you face and provide you with war stories, insights and recommendations that have helped us overcome the very challenges you now face.
The Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master course features LEAN theory, service to the scrum team, service to the product owner, coaching and facilitation, and service beyond the team as the primary pillars.
Each of these elements will strengthen your capability as both a scrum master as well as an Agile coach.
You will be learning advanced coaching and facilitation skills, tools, techniques, models and frameworks that will help you evolve as a professional coach.
You will need to actively practice these elements and you will find that over time, you are able to achieve the desired outcomes and objectives of your team because of your strong coaching capability.
The scrum team also benefit from your advanced facilitation skills and will derive even greater benefits from Scrum events such as the sprint reviews and retrospectives.
After a few years’ practice as a Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master, many people choose to start the application process for a Scrum Alliance Certified Team Coach or Certified Enterprise Coach.
The CSP-SM provides you with a strong foundation from which you can practice and develop your coaching capabilities in the field and is a great launchpad for further certification programmes down the line.
If you are interested in advancing your skills, visit our Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master (CSP-SM) course page.
If you like the idea of mentored and coach-driven skills development, visit our Agile Coach Academy.
To get started with coaching as part of your practice as a Scrum Master, visit our on-demand Introduction to Coaching course page.