I survived - does it make me to a certified Scrum master or Scrum mistress?

No I have nothing to write about. Or too much. My brain is still like minced meet after two days of Software Developers Conference at Göteborg and three days of "Agile fundamentals and Scrum master class" with Alistair Cockburn at Stockholm. I am however now a certified Scrummer. I not only survived Alistair´s class - I learnt a lot too. I listened to a lot of great speeches at the conference. I meet a lot of interesting people making me feel good. And I had F.U.N all the time.

I am happy to say I am not surprised about Alistair´s teaching ability. To be surprised is namely the eight deadly sin due to the Agile world. "Never surprise your customer". The way Alistair presents himself  - on his website and all youtube clips - and other peoples reviews made a potential customer like understanding what I could get. So I knew what I "bought" when I once e-mailed him in December and he delivered just that kind of class I wanted. Just that kind of class that makes me understand and learn the very best. It was actually worth some pain to get there.
Except for being an excellent teacher Alistair is a really good listener. He saw subtle gestures from the students and got back asking if there was any questions or explaining things that could have been misunderstood. An amiable person with an excellent presence in the room.

There are a lot of new impressions I will take care of in time. A few hightlights are::

• the way you can trim a project team with help of retrospective
• the value of self organizing teams and 
• the need of involving the customer even more than I do today

The class content was both familiar and new to me. No surprises but deepening my knowledge and made me understand better. The mixture of workshops and talks was excellent to achieve the goals.

I was happy anyhow when I at third round of the hectic ping-pong-ball game could recognize myself and one of my old roles in project teams. I was the last person just before throwing the balls into a basket. I screamt "we are doing great" at about third set. At fifth round still screaming "the quality is still improving - there are three balls all the time,WE ARE THE CHAMPS!" while we had shuffled the balls three and three at a frenetic speed making us sweat and getting lactic acid in our legs. It felt nice that old Bettina had a place in this "new" world.

No it is not a new world - it is my world. It is just that I haven´t had an label for it yet. And without a label I have had hard to get the managers with me. I am a natural Scrummer my boss told me - I just needed some theory and lots of practice. With a well known "method" it will  be easier I think. At least to get the managers with me. The team members must be convinced by acting.

When we had the last Aha moment that day I remembered what a pain "big balls" was in the ping-pong ball game. They took just as much energy as three small ones and gave only one point. I recalled how easy it is to run for "bad balls" and fix problems that actually not is within current project. So of course I said:

"Do not accept big and hairy balls"

I am definitely not a Scrum mistress (getting back to title of this post). Not the way those word can be misinterpret anyhow. But as always I like to explore words - amused by the way they change meaning. (And I am also a fan of bad jokes...as if you wouldn't have noticed)

Once upon a time the mistress was the wife of the master. A person with respect taking care of house, family and servants. But it also meant power. Something a Scrum master do not have. Something the word Scrum mistress may or may not associate to now a days depending on your own back sack of experiences and preferences. (Wiki about mistress)

Anyhow - I am the one I always have been. Just more prepared for the future and new projects coming in. For the moment I am too tired to figure out next step but I do recover well. Soon I will be back on track again. 

There is more to be said about this class and Agile development. But not today - not tonight. Tonight is reserved for catching up with bills. And simply sleep.

Links
Pictures from SDC 2011
Pictures from Scrum and Agile fundamentals
"It has to be fun" while learning the background why I initiated setting up this class and inviting Alistair to Sweden

Elvira lives at my office and she was very
happy for the "I survived pin"

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It has to be fun, or else we cannot make it