Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (A-CSM) Course (In-Person)

Charlotte, NC – In-Person

Available to the first 20 people. The A-CSM course will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET (USA), Thursday and Friday. The course is normally followed by an Agile Release Planning (ARP) workshop. This will need to be scheduled for another week.

Our Next Level Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM) course is unique.

We offer 16 hours of course.  It’s 16 hours of interactive A-CSM course.  There is also an option for the 8-hour ARP Workshop.

The Next Level A-CSM Course

The purpose of this course is to prepare you for and assess that you have achieved the next step to CSP-SM (Certified Scrum Professional – SM).

But the real purpose is to help you become better.

The A-CSM course helps you get to the next level. The more important movement is from some success to much more success — and also the movement from CSM to A-CSM. The next level after that is the CSP-SM course, after which you gain a CSP-SM certification.

The contents of the 2 days are explained more below.

The Unique Agile Release Planning Workshop 

The separate Agile Release Planning workshop is an option, that you might add on to the A-CSM course.

It is very hands-on.

This is a major difference. No other CST offers this workshop, although virtually all the ideas in our workshop are similar to what Jeff Sutherland teaches.  Plus a few other ideas.

Our workshop allows you to take real work (from one of the workgroup of four) and do Agile Release Planning with it. It takes the real work of the identified Product Owner at each table, and the table team does the Agile Release Planning for that work.

This is an excellent way to take some key ideas from the A-CSM Course and make them practical, giving you practice building the initial Product Backlog, and showing you how to show your colleagues how to use these ideas, and get “started on Monday.”

The ARP Workshop involves practical experience in key skill sets. These include building stories, estimating Business Value, estimating effort and slotting the stories into Sprints, as well as identifying a Minimum Viable Product. These skill sets and the underlying ideas behind Agile Release Planning must be understood well enough that you could explain them convincingly to anyone.

Purposes of the A-CSM Course

For this course, we have 3 main purposes:

• To enable you to take your team(s) to the next level
• To enable you to be recognized as at the next level (A-CSM)
• To help you on your way to the CSP-SM level

To be fair, the CSM Course and your own native talents and experiences should have done a lot to enable you to be successful. This course will add significantly to that.

We believe there will be both personal and career rewards for achieving this next level.

The intent is that you leave this course with renewed energy to help your team, your organization and your customers achieve more success.  You leave with new practical techniques to make that happen.

Course Content

During the course, we will talk through how to evaluate a Team.  And how they are doing with Scrum.  And not just the Team, but also their situation.

We will talk about how to make a case to do Scrum better.  Both generally, and about specific ideas and practices.

We will discuss specific techniques and tools for getting your team to execute the basics more fully and more successfully.

Most of the time will be spent on more advanced topics. Beyond the basics, we will address these Learning Objectives as defined by Scrum Alliance. (You should download the LOs at that link.) Most of the time will be spent on these Learning Objectives, either learning about them or assessing them.

Part of the course is that you demonstrate to the Educator that you can enact or you know the Learning Objectives reasonably well.

Learning:

Part of the course is about learning and practicing.  And seeing how others act or talk about the same thing.  Not just learning about agile-scrum, but about the relevant 18 domains to be more successful with your product.

So, we ask you to learn before the class, during the class, and after the class.

When Should You Take This Course?

You can only be put forward for A-CSM when you have (a) a CSM certification, (b) pass the A-CSM assessment in the Educator’s judgment and (c) obtain 12 months of experience as a ScrumMaster.

But you may take the course and be assessed by the Educator as at the right level before the 12 months has been obtained. For example: 4 months after taking the CSM course.

So far, everyone who has taken the course has been assessed as worthy of an A-CSM.  I cannot guarantee that that trend will continue.

Note: There is no Scrum Alliance test for the A-CSM currently.

What You Get

Upon completion of the course, you will receive 16 SEUs (Scrum Educational Units) and 16 PDUs toward PMI requirements. In addition, once you meet the qualifications described earlier, you obtain the A-CSM certification.

If you also complete the ARP workshop, you will also receive 8 more SEUs (Scrum Educational Units) and 8 more PDUs.  In addition, you obtain an ARP Workshop certification from LeanAgileTraining.

In addition to the PDUs and SEUs, when you have fulfilled the requirements you receive:

• Recognition by the Scrum Alliance as an A-CSM
• A 2-year membership to Scrum Alliance
• A copy of the course materials
• Other Scrum-related materials from Scrum Alliance and LeanAgileTraining
• A free copy of our draft book, “A Scrum Introduction”
• A free copy of our book on Agile Release Planning
• Fibonacci estimating cards, for use in estimating with your team (if you attended an in-person course)

Meet Your Trainer

Joe Little has 10+ years of experience as an Agile coach and CST and will lead this course. He has co-trained 8 times with Jeff Sutherland (one of the co-creators of Scrum) which will give you more “real Scrum” when taking this course.

Joe has an MBA and 20+ years of senior level Big 4 and related consulting experience. He also has in-depth practical experience in helping teams become very productive with Scrum and Agile. He often co-teaches these courses with other great Scrum trainers. Take a look at Joe’s blog.

Prerequisites

• You must have a CSM.
• Normally you must have been doing Scrum for at least 3 months before you take this course, and normally for at least 3 months since you received your CSM. (The A-CSMrequires 12 months as a Scrum Master on a team over a 5-year period. Some of that experience could be earned before you got your CSM.) Let’s talk if this is not true for you.
• Re-read the “Scrum Guide” by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber.
• Read Joe Little’s draft “A Scrum Introduction.”
• Read another one of Ken Schwaber’s or Jeff Sutherland’s books. (We assume you had already read one of their books.)  Tell us which one you choose. If you have read all of their books and prefer to read another Scrum-related book, please tell us which one you choose.
• Read one of the articles in our list of articles, and suggest 1 article or video to be added to our list of articles and videos.
• You must describe yourself, your situation and your experiences with Scrum. We will give you more details about this.
• You must give a preliminary evaluation of yourself across all Learning Objectives. You must provide what evidence you can that you have skill in each Learning Objective (or not, maybe, in some of them). We will provide more details on this. The course will help you with this.
• You must write 1.5-2 pages of Agile/Scrum advice, which will be read by the group. It can be specific advice for a specific situation. Make it relatively specific and actionable.

Registration and Fees

• We may change the pricing at any time.
• If you need us to hold a price for you for a couple of days (e.g., to get approval), please contact us and we probably can do that.
• If you are a member of a local Agile group or PMI chapter, you can get an 8% reduction in these fees.
• Alternately, there is a 10% discount for any group of 3 or more.
• In addition, there is a 2.5% discount for cash. That is, 2.5% off the net due if you pay with cash (i.e., cash, not check, at the beginning of the course). To receive the cash discount, you must make a $100 non-refundable deposit (which normally is just a pre-payment) by credit card.

Policy for Changes and Refunds

If for any reason you cannot make a course, you may send another person in your place for free (no additional fee). You must identify that person before the course starts.

Fees or extra costs are more likely if you need to cancel within 16 days of the course start. Click here for more information regarding changes and refunds.