Over the past year I have been working with some great folks at SolutionsIQ. Before taking this job it was apparent to me that the Scrum and Agile movement is where I felt most comfortable. Applying the values and principles along with the Scrum framework and XP practices I have seen an increase in success for many of my projects. I must say that working in an environment such as SolutionsIQ where Agile is the norm, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, lifted my passion for software, teams, facilitation, training, and coaching. That is why I recently applied to become a CST (Certified Scrum Trainer).

After working on Agile teams for a while I thought back to when my own career started on this path to empowered teams, removal of waste, and just-in-time development of requirements. I was brought back to a cellular corporation where I was the first developer on the team which was looking to provide a customer service portal. I started out creating prototypes to show directors and managers in the company what this portal could do. Once the project was funded I helped to pull together the initial requirements for our first release and worked with a new team to deliver it. After a couple of releases I went to PMI training and had a good instructor, although I had no idea they were so good at the time, who discussed a release planning method with customers, project managers, SME (subject matter experts), and the development team. Immediately I tried this method out for the next release of our product with great excitement. We had already delivered for 3 straight quarters to production and our customer was quite satisfied with the work we were doing. The project had sub-components which were rated first and third on the list of top initiatives for the entire division. We had done this while flying under the radar since we were their first ever externally facing web application and we had architectural control over infrastructure and design.

We started out that meeting with huge stacks of post-it notes and everybody we needed to do release planning with a recently increased team size. We had a list of functionality which we hoped to deliver this quarter and the whole group worked on breaking this functionality down into smaller units of work that could be estimated more easily. Although the iteration was for 2 months, the theme of the meeting did seem similar to what I now do today. One big difference now is that I almost never plan for more than 2 weeks. We started placing post-it notes onto the white board and discussed them amongst the team regarding design and any dependencies we might have with each piece of functionality. Approximately 12 feet of white board space was plastered with post-it notes from top to bottom. Notes were written along side the post-it notes on the white board to signal particular areas of interest in the plan. After four hours of planning in that room we ended up with a rather good understanding of what we could deliver in the next product increment.

That quarter we had great success in the delivery of a release and incorporating new people into the team. We had grown from 5 to 12 before the third release and up to around 20 people before starting the fourth release. I remember going into my manager’s office after managing the 12 people during that third release and saying “I don’t think it is good for me to manage that many people at once”. I suggested that we promote two other people on the team to lead sub-teams and my manager was very helpful in implementing this plan. I appreciated that very much. I now live by the “7 + or - 2″ rule with only minor exceptions.

I began my application process to become a CST in September and found an ever increasing twist in my gut due to excitement, late nights, and even reflection about where I am in my business and personal life. Having a great mentor like Brent Barton to help me along the way has been incredibly helpful. After finishing my application I felt relieved but also a slite bit of trepidation about my prospects. There are so many great ScrumMasters and Agile coaches out there who are probably in line for CST certification. I hoped that I had the right stuff to make it on the list for this year’s Scrum Gathering interviews.

On Thursday, October 5th, I got my invitation to be interviewed at the Scrum Gathering event on November 15th. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a chance at becoming a CST and working with some great people in our industry. Please wish me luck as I take the plunge. Thanks.