Seeking Guidance on Next Steps After PSM I and PSM II
Hello Scrum Community,
I have recently completed my PSM I and PSM II certifications, and my goal is to excel in Scrum Mastery. I aim to either work as a Scrum Master or become a trainer in the future. I’m seeking advice on what certifications or learning paths to pursue next to deepen my expertise and broaden my skill set.
Are there any additional certifications or courses you would recommend? Also, in what order should I pursue these to maximize my learning and impact as a Scrum Master?
Thank you in advance for your insights!
Are you currently working as a Scrum Master, trying to apply what you learned as part of your certifications?
Damien Reed - Yes, I am currently working in a capacity where I apply Scrum principles, though not officially as a Scrum Master. I’ve been managing operations and HR responsibilities in a startup, and I have started incorporating the Scrum framework into our processes.
Are there any additional certifications, courses or learning paths you would recommend? Also, in what order should I pursue these to maximize my learning and impact as a Scrum Master?
PS: I do not have a technical background.
My recommendation would be to get a job as a Scrum Master and get some hands-on experience. There's a lot you'll learn that certs, courses, and learning paths can't teach.
Rizwan, I can offer my opinion here
If you want to work as a Scrum Master then observe current market trends and adapt accordingly. Not much beyond that.
If you'd like to work as a trainer then well, training people is hard earned money. There is a lot of well-educated and well-skilled competition on the rather fierce market. Find your niche.
If you'd like to be a full time (freelance or otherwise) trainer then it's a path full of thorns indeed. You will not be able to compete with big training companies who already have big client bases as a solo lone wolf and/or you will not be able to earn enough cash to live a decent life in the first 1-3+ years of this endeavor.
Being an "only Scrum" trainer is a very risky thing in the market, unless you have found your niche. Scrum trainings & courses are commodity now, one can buy a well made Scrum course on Udemy for what, 10 $? How to compete with that? And there are bazillions of Scrum related content in the interwebs.
I also teach Scrum from PeopleCert, but it's an occassional class here and there. As a professional trainer you'd need to find your own specialty and some adjacent topics that you feel good with (like MS Excell or PowerPoint or whatnots). Sure, it's not all fireworks, glory & honor every time, but it surely pays to teach people in a decent way, even if the topic seems "boring". Some people do call back.
And training people IS a hard work, even though quite some people think otherwise due to commoditizaion of training services.
Anyways, good luck with your training endeavours.