Anyone here working as a Scrum Master?

[Hullabalooo]

Exactly that! I'm thinking about changing careers but utilising existing skills and thought this kind of work in the IT sector but people focussed would be a possibility.

Anyone know much about it/ how to get into it?

I dont even know what it is ?
Nothing to do with rugby i take it ?

Managing IT teams and helping them to deliver projects

I didn’t even know scrum master was a stand-alone job. In my company different members of the team take it in turns, so their actual job might be technical architect or project administrator or anything in between. So, I’ve learned something new today.

Hi, I have done a scrum master certification and sort of do it in my role. But my actual role more than just being a scrum master.

That said, there are a lot of scrum mater combined with project manager roles available in the market.

What do you do now? Just having scrum certs won't let you walk into this job, you'd need programme management skills and experience gained working in across a variety of programme/projects.

Ah thank you Hullabaloo. Every day is a school day as they say !

I'm currently a project manager with certification but in the arts rather than IT though i dohave some very out of date experience with IT sector.

I think you would need to take a much more junior role and build your IT skills and knowledge. Being an agile scrum master will teach you agile techniques like running daily stand ups, design sprints and retrospectives etc but in can't teach you what to direct people to do during those sessions.

In my role I recruit Scrum Masters and have recruited around 15 in the last year. When looking for a SM I avoid Project Managers, programme managers. Scrum master is a very different role and is very much about softer skills, with a serving leader focus. Project managers are more ‘tradional’ command and control type leadership.

Certification is only one way to get in. If you have no IT background but have people management experience I would push these skills in your CV. I have recruited some with no SM experience but great people skills.

Flapjackfairy - it does have a connection to rugby as well!

We have dedicated Scrum Masters - this allows for continuity and to have one person whose eye is always on the ball with regards to delivery. It means we're always properly prepped for the ceremonies and that our retrospective actions get followed up on in the next sprint. They do pick up traditional project management as well, e.g. resource tracking etc.

I'd say the difficulty with moving over into being a Scrum Master is you need to be techie enough to understand what the devs are on about - not every nuance of course but enough to work out what is a problem that can be solved by them and what is one that requires outside intervention, that they may resist. A lot of that is about people management of course, but you need to have credibility with them.

It might be worth looking in the government sector as there is a big push to adopt Agile coming out of the Government Digital Service.

I'm a certified scrum master, though I'm a product manager - in the move to Agile they wanted everyone to be clear on how it was all supposed to work. In our org, scrum masters are very much not about being project managers or managing the team and more about managing the flow of work, monitoring if work estimates are appropriate, seeing if product requirements have been specific enough. I guess maybe its like micro projects, but soft skills are crucial

That's really helpful to know. What great advice. So is it doable do you think? I'm 43 so making a big jump if I do but the arts is $^$$ed due to ongoing austerity measures and isn't sustainable any more for me as a freelancer so trying to work out next steps.

Wondering whether to contact some smaller local IT companies to see if i can do some informal job shadowing to test the water

I think the trouble is that many projects would have commercially sensitive aspects that would make job shadowing difficult. It's definitely worth asking, but I know my most recent customer would have vetoed it.

I don't think your age is factor - you are younger than my last scrum master (and me!) He does have a lot of experience in the role, mind you. But I was at a Women in Tech event on Friday and the strong message from all of the speakers was to look outside the traditional resource pool and look particularly at returners and people looking to shift careers. If you're in the North of England, Hullabalooo, PM me and I'll give you some names it might be worth contacting.

Thanks @tribepot I'm in the South East so unfortunately a fair way from you but thanks for your generous offer.

@cmotdibbler how long have you been working as a Scrum Master for?

My current product isn't on an Agile dev path as Agile isn't great for a hard/firm/software project though we try and use a lot of the principles where they do make sense.
I qualified 3 years ago, and I think I've done some Agile for 5 years - possibly more now as time flies!

Thanks. Was the agile course worth it and do you make a decent salary (if you don't mind me asking! )

The course I went on was really good, but the trainer was excellent and was able to talk in depth about relevant examples to our industry. I can see very easily how a course could be totally pants.

We don't (as far as I know, possibly at one of the software houses I don't work with) have anyone who only runs scrums- everyone involved does other things as well.
As a product manager my job is to write use cases, break them down into product requirements, work with engineering to break them down further, review prototypes, deal with validation and be the voice of the user in the whole process.

I've been a scrum master (but not exclusively). My qualifications are basically a) a decent understanding of the methodology b) experience of project delivery and c) decent people and negotiating skills. I'm certified for it (but, in all honesty, that basically means fuck all except that I'm decent at passing tests).

Agree with the servant-leader aspect that was mentioned - disagree that this isn't required in traditional PMing (unless you're happy with a piss poor PM/dictator sitiation).

From a personal perspective: a scrum master, IMO, is a management job - even if it's an assignment that doesn't directly involve financials etc. SMing will involve stepping on people's feet at times - especially managers' feet - and to be successful in it the SM will need to be able to hold their own. I've made the mistake of making a junior (but bright) person SM on my team and the outcome wasn't as desired in that she had the right instincts but not the means to make herself heard at the level she needed to in order to remove impediments that kept the team from working. I also think experience of working in an agile team is beneficial and a high level of personal maturity is essential for the job.

That's a great help. Thanks!

What would a SM /PM c.v look like?

Ooh, this is interesting. I too am a project manager (not my exact title) in the arts, and looking to get out!

What would a SM /PM c.v look like?

Mine is rather straightforward in that I got into my line of work after uni and basically worked my way through a variety of projects, increasing my seniority and the size of project I worked on along the line.

When I have to do my CV, I definitely make sure to include a section about my important projects in addition to the actual positions I've held. I list methods, tools, etc. as well as my role.

@diliana that's helpful. Is there a chance I could email you a copy of my current one or if I could see yours to look at where to make changes?

@cmot could I check if your course was a two day one? That seems to be the most common as far as i can see