Practical Agile Blog

Practical Agile Blog
BostonAgileTraining.com

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Who makes a better Scrum Master: a developer or a project manager?

 Who makes a better Scrum Master: a developer or a project manager?

I am guessing that this is a contentious topic, so it is that much more fun to talk about…

The Agile Manifesto was written by software developers. There weren't any “traditional” project managers in attendance, so, it is safe to assume that Scrum Masters were expected to come from the ranks of software engineers.

I attended Scrum Master training with Ken Schwaber in 2000 and again in 2011, and on both of those occasions, it was clear that the role of a project manager was not needed or wanted on Scrum projects. I agree with the sentiment about the role of project manager, but I still believe it is acceptable and even sometimes highly successful to have a former project manager become Scrum Master.

I am a project manager by education (Industrial Engineering), by training and by certification (PMP) and ultimately by birth. I have been managing primarily software development projects since 1996, even though the last time I coded was using Fortran in college, unless you count my ability to use <bold>html</bold> in my blog. Given my technical limitations, I still consider myself an above average project manager and an even better Scrum Master, not because of my background in either discipline, but because of my real life experience and exposure to incredible leaders and people managers throughout my career. Early on, about 20 years ago, I was told by my boss and mentor, "Just because you are right, that does not mean people will listen to you or even agree with you." I was a practical project manager surrounded by academics, artists and other creative minded people. In order to successfully lead them and organize them I had to develop skills in listening, persuasion and influencing without authority. This began my path to truly understanding servant leadership.

So, the reality is that the "average" project manager or developer makes a poor Scrum Master. The “best” Scrum Master will be found by identifying individuals that are well-trained, educated and passionate about Agile and servant leadership, regardless of their background.

It is well known why some project managers make poor Scrum Masters. They use their “command and control” attitude on the Scrum Team. What most Agilists with software development backgrounds don’t understand is that many project managers who were trained as professional project managers, were never intended to use a command and control style. I was trained early on in my career as a project manager that we were most effective if we could motivate and lead our teams without using a carrot or a stick, but by engaging them in the vision and ultimate success of the project. PMI actually promotes the concept of influencing without authority. Throughout my career as a project manager, I never had any functional power. The developers never reported to me, I wasn't the technical expert, so how was I successful? By being a servant leader! We were trained to remove impediments, make sure there were minimal distractions for the team, and you know what? We were trained when projects were high-risk, we should meet every day with the team to remove impediments. Sound familiar? Granted, as with Scrum Masters today, most project managers were assigned from the ranks of functional managers who were familiar with a directive style of management, and many loved the “hero” status reserved for those overachievers, but that was never the intent. Those project managers that I worked with, who were trained as I was, and those that I trained later in my career would make excellent Scrum Masters today.

It is the same story with developers. There are many developers who see being a Scrum Master as a promotion. It gives them the opportunity to play the elusive “tech lead” role and drive the technology. How can a developer with a strong opinion on how something should be built sit back and let the team self-organize around a solution that they don’t technically agree with?

To be an effective Scrum Master, you have to embrace the core values of the Agile Manifesto. I believe there is an equal chance of both failure or success when selecting a Scrum Master from the ranks of developers or project managers. Regardless of where you find your Scrum Master, it is much more important that they have the requisite skills needs to be a servant leader; including trust, passion, and enthusiasm for both Agile and for helping their teams succeed.


Dan Tousignant, PMP, PSM I, CSPO, PMI-ACP. etc., etc. etc.
Cape Project Management, Inc.
www.BostonAgileTraining.com
www.AgileProjectManagementTraining.com




Tuesday, May 20, 2014

How much does Agile Training cost?

Agile is the most popular project management methodology being promoted today by project management training and consulting organizations. This is due in large part to organizations finally realizing that “the way we are working is no longer working.” Agile can be seen as a silver bullet. In some cases this is true, but in many others, Agile is facing many of the same challenges as traditional project management techniques. The success or failure of Agile implementations can be tied back directly to how Agile was launched. At Cape Project Management, the home of BostonAgileTraining.com, we believe a successful Agile implementation starts with a world-class training for individuals and organizations. All of our instructors are active Agile practitioners. They have real life experience as Scrum Masters, Product Owners or Agile Coaches.
Boston is the birthplace of Scrum and has a very active Agile community including the Agile New England and Agile Boston user groups.

Finding training in the Boston area is often complicated since so many companies show up in a search engine but don’t actually offer public classes, so I put together a quick reference list of companies offering Agile training in the Boston area this spring and summer. This list of companies was identified in the first couple pages of Google by searching on Agile Training Boston Ma.  BostonAgileTraining.com is happy to be offering competitive public course rates for both its Scrum Master and PMI-ACP®
classes as well as they are only one of two companies providing rates for on-site delivery.


Course Cost for Boston Public Agile Trainings
Organization
Scrum
Master
2 days
Product Owner
2 days
PMI-ACP®
Prep
3 days
Onsite Delivery
Cost/day
AgileTraining.com
n/a
n/a
n/a
?
AgileU.com
n/a
n/a
n/a
?
AMA
$1,495.00
n/a
$1595.00
?
ASPE
$1,495.00
$1,495.00
n/a
$12,500.00
Big Visible
$1395.00
$1395.00
n/a
?
BostonAgileTraining.com
$975.00
n/a
$1375.00*
$4950.00
CollabNet/
ScrumMethodology.com
$1275.00
$1275.00
n/a
?
Conscires
n/a
n/a
n/a
?
cPrime
$1250.00
n/a
n/a
?
Scrum.org
n/a
n/a
n/a

Scruminc/Scrum Foundation
$2000.00
$2000.00
n/a
?
ScrumStudy.com
$1199.00
n/a
n/a
?
Simplilearn
$999.00
n/a
$1699.00
?

Notes:
Course costs reflect non-discounted rates. Many companies offer “early bird” pricing. Pricing is as of May 20, 2014.
n/a= no public classes currently offered in Boston as of this date.
* BostonAgileTraining.com offers a PMI-ACP 2-day training for $975.00 and offers the 3rd day as an optional class for reviewing questions from AgileExams.com.