by John Turner
Posted on March 14, 2011
Last week, I attended Mike Cohn’s Certified ScrumMaster course and I must say it was a great opportunity to learn from someone with such a vast amount of experience with Scrum and Agile.
In addition to authoring 3 books on Scrum, Mike publishes many of his presentations on his website, Mountain Goat Software. Having read his books and much of his published material I was quite familiar with what was being presented but still gained so much from listening to Mike’s views on the issues people were raising and his experiences of consulting for a range of companies adopting Agile.
Mike’s presentation style was relaxed and he welcomed questions from the floor throughout. He answered questions with great ease and a confidence that can only come from having experienced many of the issues raised before. His enthusiasm is infectious and for anyone floundering in their Agile adoption, this in and of itself is a great asset.
The two day course includes a number of group activities that reinforce the material and encourage attendees to consider their own experiences with Scrum and Agile. It was very encouraging to hear about how others were adopting Scrum, what issues they experienced and how they addressed them. With everyone coming from different backgrounds and adopting Agile in different ways, I gained a lot from these activities.
I would highly recommend that anyone who is considering adopting Scrum or is acting as Scrum Master consider attending this course. In my opinion, the main differentiator for such courses is the experience of the trainer. In this regard, Mike’s course has to be the benchmark.