Scrum Master is a servant leader who enables teams to self-organize and self-manage. He acts as a coach to the team, makes sure the agreed agile process is being followed, helps remove impediments and fosters a collaborative environment of continuous flow and relentless improvement.
Did you know that there are 800.000 SAFe® (Scaled Agile Framework®) certified professionals in the world and more than 20.000 enterprises that have implemented SAFe? On top of that 70% of US Fortune 100 enterprises employ SAFe trained professionals. This means, getting certified with SAFe could bring you bigger and better career opportunities, higher salary and many other benefits. If you want to start your agile journey as a Scrum Master, you are at the right place.
Scrum Masters play a unique role in Agile
Scrum Masters spend most of their time helping other team members create products of high value. They help increase team’s productivity by helping them understand their goals and scope of any product domain. Their role includes teaching and coaching team practices and making sure team members communicate, coordinate and cooperate. They implement and support SAFe principles and practices, they facilitate team events, such as Daily Stand-up, Iteration Planning, Iteration Review, and Iteration Retrospective, identify and eliminate impediments, support Product Owners and facilitate flow. But Scrum Master’s role in SAFe environment isn’t only limited to that. They also help teams coordinate with other teams on the Agile Release Train (ART) and they work with the extended Scrum Master community, including Release Train Engineers and Solution Train Engineers, to increase the effectiveness of SAFe across the enterprise.
You can learn more about Scrum Master responsibilities in SAFe environment here.
How to become a Scrum Master
Every journey starts with learning new skills. Scaled Agile offers unique courses that are based on didactic and dynamic group activities that call for active participation, which is proven to improve knowledge retention. Additionally, all the courses are facilitated by our highly experienced trainers and coaches. With immense real-world experience, they enrich a carefully curated course syllabus with real-life examples to help students see how Agile principles and practices apply in day-to-day life.
Path to becoming a Scrum Master starts by attending 2-day SAFe Scrum Master course. Although anyone can attend the course, regardless of experience, we suggest getting familiar with Agile concepts and principles before the beginning of the course. A great way to do it is by exploring resources on our website or go over rich article and video database on SAFe website.
Scrum Master course is instructor-led and includes the exam. Attending the 2-day course is mandatory, as only completion of course gives you access to the exam and all related study materials. Although attending the course alone should give you enough knowledge to pass the exam, this heavily depends on your previous knowledge and experience. You should keep in mind that SAFe certified professionals are highly respected for their abilities and knowledge and that passing the exam requires some preparation.
With the course you will get access to your personal Learning Plan in SAFe Community Platform, where you will find all necessary study materials you should use to prepare for the exam, study guide and access to practice test. You can find more details about the exam here. Upon passing the exam, you will receive a PDF certificate, an online digital badge, and access to groups filled with other certified professionals.
What are the benefits?
SAFe Certification has become the standard for Lean-Agile enterprises, and it was named the most widely used method for scaling Agile, making the value of holding a SAFe Certification greater now than ever before. Therefore, holding a SAFe certification, will provide you with immense knowledge, an opportunity for a big breakthrough in your career, chance to earn higher salary and climb the career leader. More benefits of holding a SAFe certification are described in the article 5 Benefits of SAFe Certification.
Is Scrum Master course for me?
Being Scrum Master is not for everyone. Although course will give you the necessary skills and knowledge to successfully upgrade your career and succeed in your organization, there are some of the characteristics that separate good Scrum Master from a great one.
A great Scrum Master should be knowledgeable, patient, transparent and the real team player. Your team will often need support more than guidance – at the end of the day scrum master’s goal is to help his team become self-organizing and self-managing. Giving them all the answers will not help – being patient and letting them find their own solutions, on the other hand, will. Being a great team member and able to collaborate with every member, regardless of disagreements, is also very important. But transparency is the skill that really makes the difference. Because Scrum Masters are servant leaders, transparency allows good communication, creates credibility, strengthens the bonds between team members and enables better business results.
Want to start right away? Take a look at our course schedule and reserve your seat now!
