RE: Certified ScrumMaster
Mike Cohn <mike <at> mountaingoatsoftware.com>
2003-03-02 16:25:15 GMT
Like some others who responded, I'm generally opposed to any form of
certification. It has always seemed that "those who can't get
certified"--and do so to prove they can. I was hiring a bunch of Java
programmers about two years ago and when I'd get a resume from someone
showing one or more certifications earned during the previous couple of
years I was shocked they had time. During that period of the tech boom here
were programmers who had time to get certified--everyone I knew who was any
good was so busy doing actual work they didn't have time to get certified.
If we (Scrum, agile, or Software Engineering in general) had a way of
certifying that an individual has a fundamental understanding of principles
and that, more importantly, she knows how to think through new situations
there might be value to that. So much of Scrum/Agile, though, is doing
things by what has probably become intuition to us. We can't set up rules
like "if you have less than 1 hour of meetings today your team is agile" and
then ask people how many minutes of meetings they can have each day. It
might be agile to have a full day of meetings at some points (painful, but
agile).
I looked at a sample PMP test on the web recently. I can't imagine there'd
be very many Scrum-based questions we could ask:
What question is not asked during the daily scrum?
[ ] What did you do yesterday?
[ ] What are you planning to do today?
[ ] When the hell are you going to finish task 37?
[ ] What's in your way?
On the other hand, I'd love to know if a project was run by a credible
ScrumMaster or someone who flew through the book, created a Gantt chart
based on it and decided to do Scrum. The only way I can see to do that would
be to rely heavily on the use of essay questions perhaps in the format of
case studies (e.g., I'm thinking of the very useful and interesting ones in
Harvard Business Review each month) and possibly on an interview. I don't
think a test based on multiple choice questions like the example above will
prove anything and it will focus the aspiring ScrumMaster on memorization
rather internalization of the knowledge, which is exactly what we want to
avoid.
A certification process along these lines could be useful. One that is
similar to PMP with many multiple choice questions would be useless.
I'd most definitely suggest avoiding anything like DSDM where I can't even
read their materials without joining and I don't think I can even refer to
my project as following DSDM unless I'm a member. That type of proprietary
approach is wrong and unnecessary and will only stifle acceptance.
--Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Schwaber <ken.schwaber <at> verizon.net>
[mailto:ken.schwaber <at> verizon.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 2:31 PM
To: scrumdevelopment <at> yahoogroups.com
Subject: [scrumdevelopment] Certified ScrumMaster
Over the last year, I've seen more and more bad Scrum implementations
(do we really need daily Scrums? why can't I tell the people what to
do during the Sprint?). I've also seen and heard about even worse
implementations (or claimed use of) XP. Although we've made every
attempt to help people understand Scrum and XP with our books,
websites, talks, and articles, we're still coming up short.
I talked with Mark Paulk, one of the authors of CMM. He is pleased
with his efforts, but discouraged at what CMM has turned into. His
estimate is that over 2/3 of all CMM implementations are "trash."
These are implementations that focused on getting certified, not
improving the software process. Cnsultants did it to make money even
though they really didn't know what they were doing.
Scrum isn't something that is intellectually apprehended. As Mike and
I wrote in our book, it has to be experienced, with management
becoming facilitators, telling the teams what to do. And the teams
owning the entire development iteration, the how to do it. Yet this
has tremendous trouble getting across. And it's getting worse, both
as we move from early adopters to the mainstream, and as more people
start to scale Scrum and XP. I think people mistake iterative
development for agile development and let it go at that.
I had a long conversation with Martin Fowler about this and he
suggested that we launch the idea of the "Certified ScrumMaster."
This is someone who really knows Scrum, getting it both emotionally
and intellectually, through reading, thinking and - most important -
experience. When we hear of a bad implementation, we can ask, "did
they use a Certified ScrumMaster?" Or, when someone wants to get
going, we can recommend a Certified ScrumMaster to them.
I'm considering implementing such a program to do what I can about
ensuring the consistency and quality of Scrum. I'm early in thinking
about this and want to solicit your comments and conversation
regarding whether to do this (I'm pretty set on it at this point, but
could be swayed) and how to do it (suggestions are welcome).
Thanks for the help!
Ken
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