UPDATED Scrum Professional Developer course – insights

Scrum logoORIGINAL POST: 18 september 2015, UPDATED: 7 oktober 2015
I am following followed the Professional Scrum Developer (PSD-I) course
via my employer, Valid, and I liked it! It was a 4 evening course and there were some useful takeaways.
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Read about ’em after the break

The most useful things that were eye-openers during the course are:

  • You don’t perform SCRUM and are not delivering SCRUM results unless you’re following the official (16 page ) SCRUM Guide’s rules. You either do it as a whole or you’re not doing it. 
    It basically is like a card house; each part is keeping the mill going and not only focusses on result, but on improving (during) the proces as well
  • Scrum starts with the sales of your company, not at the assignment that’s being dropped on a developer’s desk
    When you want your company to do scrum you have to take in account that there are three factors for software development: time, money and the functionality being delivered. You need to be able to sell at least functionality as a variable because if that’s fixed, you are not respecting SCRUM’s agile and learning-while-you-progress characteristics. You need to be able to sell to customers that they WILL get a working product but that it is uncertain how much functionality it will get. Being able to produce at least the MVP or proof that your SCRUM approach delivers results within budget would be nice though
  • Developer Focussed
    Where Scrum Master certification gives an overview of the theory and focusses on applying the SCRUM methodology as a whole, Scrum Professional Developer has a focus on applying best practices from a developer viewpoint. Things like CI, TDD and how they make for a better Scrum experience are being discussed. This all makes the course more practical, applicable for your daily work if you will.
  • PSD isn’t about learning theory and learning documents inside out (besides the Official Scrum Guide, of course)
    It’s about learning the theory, knowing how to apply it and having the technical (developer) skills and mentality to work alongside with other people in a team. You need to be able to interpret the scrum principles to day-to-day situations and evaluate what actions need to be done and how the scrum process is applied clean and effective.

Loved to learn from this course and I’m going to get that PSD-I certificate by taking the exam any day now.