Over the last few weeks you may have seen a number of LinkedIn posts, articles, and tweets relating to the Scrum Mastery Pathway™. Hopefully those artefacts have sparked your interest in what is a new and exciting development journey for Scrum Masters. Based upon the RE-TRAINED model from Geoff Watts book Scrum Mastery, the Scrum Mastery Pathway™ is a continuous learning pathway to help Scrum Masters go from ‘good to great’.
Although it is possible you may have heard about it, you may still be wondering how the Scrum Mastery Pathway™ is different from the training courses that are currently available. While considering how details about the pathway could be shared and how the may be interpreted, I recalled a card in Geoff Watts Persuasion Pack entitled ‘Make It Familiar’.
This persuasion technique suggests that individuals, teams and/or organisation may be more open to things that they are more familiar with compared with somethings that may come out of the blue. Couple this technique with ‘Association’ and a new idea may become more easily adopted. The Scrum Mastery Pathway™ is that new idea.
In order to help make the Scrum Mastery Pathway™ more familiar I decided to write this post. But what could it be associated with, whilst at the same time sharing some of the benefits that could be realised? I began to cast my mind back to the beginning of my own Agile journey reminisced on the things that help me take those initial steps in understanding the new world that I was entering.
One of the items that helped me at the beginning of my journey, and which has continued to help me ever since, is the Agile Manifesto. Over the years I have seen the structure/format of the Agile Manifesto be re-used used in order to share information about a topic and I wondered if I could do something similar.
I’m sure that most of you reading this post will already me familiar with the origins of the Agile Manifesto. Unfortunately I was not at a ski resort in Utah when I started exploring this idea, but I did have a network of supportive Scrum Mastery Pathway™ Trainers who were happy to bounce ideas of each other to incrementally create the following:-
We are uncovering better ways of developing Scrum Masters. Through this work we have come to value:-
A continuous learning pathway over a one-off course
Group exploration over individual reflection
Guided navigation over a solo journey
An immersive adventure over personal surety
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
So how does the above relate to the Scrum Mastery Pathway™?
Although a two-day course provides an introduction to Scrum and the basic concepts of the Scrum Master role, you only get those two days. The Scrum Mastery Pathway™ breaks the mould of the traditional one-off training course, providing delegates the opportunity to go on a ‘continuous learning pathway’ from being a good to great Scrum Master over an extended period of time.
Following any training course you are likely to undertake some individual reflection where you consider what you have learned and how it can be applied within your role/organisation. The Scrum Mastery Pathway™ allows you to go beyond that individual reflection through a structured support system, ensuring that you are not alone. You will receive continued support of your cohort to ‘explore’ the topics that have been discussed through a dedicated forum where you can ask questions and share experiences.
For some Scrum Masters the application and implementation of Scrum can feel like a solo journey – the Scrum Mastery Pathway™ changes this. Delegates receive guided ‘navigation’ through monthly sessions where they can discuss the challenges of applying the skills, tools and techniques examined in the explorer workshop in their day-to-day working life.
The final statement considers the Scrum Mastery Pathway™ to be an immersive ‘adventure’ where attendees are encouraged to dive in, go deeper, and learn through experience in order to uncover the nuances of the underlying theory before practicing it in real life. This compares to following one’s established ways of learning, diligently researching the right answers, evaluating and memorising the details at the surface level and applying the established theory to one’s personal situation.
The items on the left of statement above illustrate the 3-stage stages of the Scrum Mastery Pathway™- Explorer, Navigator and Adventurer. Starting with a 2-day Explorer workshop you will cover every aspect of the RETRAINED model. This is followed by five monthly 3-hour Navigator sessions covering real-time challenges and question. After six months of guided support you will attend a final 2-day Adventurer workshop that goes deeper into each aspect of RETRAINED.
It is acknowledged that the Scrum Mastery Pathway™ is a bigger investment for students and organisations both in terms of commitment, time and money, the benefits could be tremendous.
Still wanting to know more? Visit the Scrum Mastery Pathway™ page or contact me to see how I, as a Scrum Mastery Pathway™Trainer, could help you on your journey from being a good to a great Scrum Master.