10 Tips to Pass PSM Scrum Master Assesment

1. I visited the official Scrum course with an official trainer.
2. I read the book: Scrum and XP from the Trenches - 2nd Edition. Why? I thought, if I'm not working doing Scrum, daily, I want to see and understand how it works, how others do. It's not the same to read something as living and having the experience weekly, monthly,yearly.
3. Everyone uses now You Tube, I searched randomly Scrum Videos, tutorials, in english and in my native language to enhance and reinforce what I have read in the Scrum Book(1)and learned at the course. So, instead watching TV, I launched YouTube every night for an hour and learned with free videos.
4. I read the official Scrum Guide, of course we must read this.
5. I scored betwenn 95-97 and 100 points in the open free official assesments in the last 2 weeks fast daily, before teh exam date.(www.scrum.org/Assessments)
6. I tried also the PO and Developer free assesments at the same site a few times, not scoring 100, but to know the stuff and cover other weaknesses
7. I downloaded a free pdf from Management Plaza, with 2 free assesments question and answers at the end of the book.
8. I payed 7.99usd (1 week usage) for an assesment subscription at Agile Boston Site to extend the Q&A spectrum, that was also good so, because I knew i had one week subscription to sharp my knowledge and not extend the assesment date.
9. I set my assesment date inmediately the day after I tried Agile Boston Training. Why? in many certification goals, people tend to study and delay the exam date, even if they feel already prepared. So I thought, If I did my homework and I feel prepared, why delay the assesment?
10. This is just a path guys, everyone can find his way, I just can say you, that discipline, schedules and a strong goal will make almost every certification or objective, achieved. So, go focus on your goal 1-2 months, make your daily homework(little daily goals), learn the stuff, test yourself and that's it. I hope you get this cert also and can promote you to the job you desire and better your life.

In the next days I will share you the section/area from the assesment which I found difficult and is maybe the generalized weakness in this year for some guys who can not pass the exam.(Cross-Functional and self-organizing teams).

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How did I Prepare for SCRUM PSM Exam?

First of all I'm going to tell you if this certification (in my opinion)is a difficult one or not, if it's for you, if it has a value in your job.

All guys in IT in our company, visited the official course, we are 21 IT Pros, only 2 of us passed the exam.  Strangely, passed, the NetworkAdmin and the Support And Service Supervisor. But....where is the magic?

Scrum is a cert mostly thought for Senior Developers who act as "Team Leaders" but, want to expand there skills to SM's (Scrum Masters). In the last years (2009-2010) I was that team leader for the development group, we executed and closed some good software projects through the traditional way, that means, the waterfall model.

So, where is the key ??? What do the Networkadmin and me have in common ??? The answers will give us a possible approach to answer if this is difficult, valuable and if these path is for you.

Let me tell you a little bit of background:

• I'm a spanish native speaker, I learned english in the school period 
• I'm not working now in software development
• Iam surelly acting as Project Manager in some other IT Projects
• I had one month and a week for visiting the course and study for the exam
• I had no experience in Scrum Teams
• I write only in this blog what for me worked but can work for you. 

So for now, that's it. All the above wroten is just my experience, my opinion, it can serve you or not, I hope it does.

So, for the first tips:

• Work in Projects, as member or Project Manager for at least one year, the time is not as important as the speed for learning something.
• I began reading Scrum and XP from the trenches, why???? because I had NO Scrum Experience and "form me",  these book opened my eyes.
• Sure I visited the Official Course, but, honestly, you don't have to, I considere myself autodidact, so I "normally" don't expect someone teaching me something with a Power Point, but, only if there were LABS in a course or other technical requirements for learning the stuff I would go and visit a course.
• The big problem, for the whole world that are not native English speaker, the language. If you don't have an intermediate english level and are  not acquainted with the technical words, the exam will be a nightmare for you. The exam is in only in the english language available.
• Begin with the Scrum Org simulators, they are free and a basis for the exam
• GO ahead with the official Scrum Org Guide:

Official Scrum Guide

Finally passed the Scrum Exam !!!

I dont know if it was the pressure of taking the official exam for PSM (Professional Scrum Master) or simple the point that I had to do it. I scored 85% in the exam. Now I want to share with you how i did it in the next posts. For further evidence, please go to the following link:

https://www.scrum.org/Assessments/Certification-Lists?AssessmentName=PSM%20I

introduce my last name "Rojas" and there you are, in the next days Im gonna share the material and tips for passing this exam.

Visiting the Scrum Course

Hi people, finally we visited in our enterprise in august 2015, the whole TI guys, Infrastructure, Development, Support and Service Teams.
For all the good purposes, the firma payed the course and the exam for becoming a Scrum Master for all of us. In fact we were announced from the CIO, that we all people must attend the exam until the 8th october.
The course was really not long, we had 16 hours and had it in 2 days done, there was an international Scrum Instructor in the classroom just for us,so, at the end of the course, we went through the scrum.org free question and answers review.

We didn't score 100% with help from the SM but it was really nice to know that there are free practice exams in the official Scrum Site. You must initially take this:

Open Assessment:

:: Free assessments measuring basic knowledge of Scrum, Scaling Scrum, and professional software development

https://www.scrum.org/Assessments

Let's go for the Scrum PM

Guys, I know, it has been a lot of thinking for evaluating what to study, so as a matter of fact, we were ordered to attend an Oficial Scrum course in our enterprise in august 2015.
Is these luck? or just my destiny. I am supervising the Service Process in these enterprise for now, so I'm not directly delevoping software, but, we act alwalys as PM's (Project Managers) for some projects,not necesary software projects and of course as members for other projects.

So let's see what happens

Certs differences , which one to choose?

I was wondering if I go through the PMP, Prince2, or Scrum cert, in fact we have planned in our enterprise to visit a formal course for the Scrum Master Certification.

But what's Scrum? it 's an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing product development. It defines "a flexible, product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal", challenges assumptions of the "traditional, sequential approach" to product development, and enables teams to self-organize by encouraging physical co-location or close online collaboration of all team members, as well as daily face-to-face communication among all team members and disciplines in the project.

Dou you really need to certify?

No you don't, it's just a title more for you, the experience you can collect in years of project management does show valuable knowledge, but these experience + your cert, makes you invaluable as a Pro, mostly for better job opportunities or if you are seeking to increase your salary, it all depends of your job situation.