Professional Scrum Master

Learn Professional Scrum and How to be a Better Scrum Master

Professional Scrum Master™ (PSM) is an interactive, activity-based course where students gain a strong understanding of Professional Scrum and the role of the Scrum Master. 

Through a combination of discussion and exercises, students develop a deep understanding of the underlying principles of Scrum and the Agile mindset while learning the practices applied by successful Scrum Teams. 

The course also includes a free attempt at the globally recognized Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) certification exam. 

Course Overview

In this workshop, students are challenged to explore the Agile and Scrum principles so they can better understand what to do when applying Scrum to support their teams and organizations.

The course, developed by Scrum.org, uses a combination of instructor-led and activity-based learning where students work together in teams. Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs) bring their own Scrum Master experiences and stories to the class. They use their skills as professional trainers to deliver the material using their unique delivery style. The result is an engaging, enjoyable learning experience where students deeply understand Scrum theory and principles, the Scrum Master accountabilities, and why each element of the Scrum framework is important.

Students leave this course with an appreciation for Professional Scrum, the agile mindset, and how to deal with common myths and impediments to agility. They gain knowledge and understanding about choosing and applying the appropriate practices and techniques that will be most beneficial for their Scrum Teams.

View the different Focus Areas covered within this class and others.

Course Topics

• Scrum theory and principles
• The Scrum Framework
• The Definition of Done
• Running a Scrum project
• Working with people and teams
• Scrum in your organization
• The role of the Scrum Master

Course Learning Objectives

• Help Scrum Teams deliver value to their organization
• Understand the theory and principles behind Scrum and empiricism
• Understand how each part of the Scrum framework ties back to the principles and theory
• Understand uncertainty and complexity in product delivery
• Understand the meaning and importance of the Scrum values
• Learn what Done means and why it is crucial to transparency
• Know how to use the Product Backlog to plan with agility
• Understand the importance of self-managing teams, interpersonal skills needed, and the Scrum Master role
• Clarify the leadership role a Scrum Master plays on the team
• Learn the skills and traits, and behavior shifts required to be a Scrum Master

Why Scrum.org

Scrum.org provides the highest quality Scrum training, training materials, and certified Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs) to teach them. Our training materials are created and maintained by Scrum co-creator Ken Schwaber, Scrum.org, and the PST community members who teach the courses, helping to ensure that they are in tune with what’s happening in organizations and always up-to-date with the latest practices.

Professional Scrum Trainers bring their own style and experience to the courses but use the same materials so that students learn from the same content regardless of who teaches the course or where it is taught worldwide.  Read more about the differences.

What John Coleman's Students Say

• Google reviews
• TrustPilot reviews 
• VocalReferences reviews

Read more about our PSM student surveys and their feedback

Our Course Steward Model

Each Scrum.org course is assigned 2 Stewards.  The Stewards are ultimately responsible for collecting input on the course materials, both those that exist and potential additions to be made, reviewing that input with the community along with Ken Schwaber, and providing updates as required. 

Each course is stored in GitHub, allowing version control, feedback mechanisms, distribution, and much more, unlike the code Scrum Teams deliver for their products.  Through GitHub capabilities, a PST can submit feedback on course materials, its delivery content, speaker notes, exercises, and much more, with PSTs around the world teaching the materials, that provides a fantastic number of people to provide excellent feedback to improve the content and quality of the courseware.  

PMI PDU Credits

Students of Scrum.org courses are able to claim Project Management Institute (PMI) PDU credit: 14 PDUs after attending the Professional Scrum Master (PSM) course. Please note that PMI PDUs are earned for course attendance, not for passing a Scrum.org assessment. Students can claim PDUs under PMI's "Education courses provided by other third-party providers” category. You can claim your PDUs online at https://ccrs.pmi.org.  Find instructions here.

​Profile of the trainer

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John Coleman is an active practitioner with 15+ years of experience in growing sustainable agility. Learn from John's breadth & depth of current case studies with the "old reliable," the latest trends, and some leading & not yet well-known patterns. 

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 Why John Coleman?

Every PST has his/her own strengths. John Coleman is one of the few LeSS-Friendly Scrum Trainers. He regularly interviews leading lights on his YouTube channel. His podcast, XAgility™, consists of wisdom from some of the most famous faces in the agile world. John is a prolific blogger on advanced topics, and he leads content creation for Scrum, Lean UX, measurement, Kanban, scaling, de-scaling, Executives, people & change. John teaches Marshall Goldsmith's techniques at all of his workshops in a #payitforward fashion. All of John's workshops feature Liberating Structures. John Coleman offers a number of practice tests where they are needed. John's client base consists mainly of non-native English speakers (English is the 3rd/4th language) in continental Europe. John's clients give rave reviews on Trustpilot, Google, and VocalReferences, and they get great results as long as they also put the effort in.

Review & Ratings for John Coleman of Orderly Disruption on Google, VocalReferences & Trustpilot

Reviews & Ratings for all of John Coleman's workshops are available on: 

• Google - http://bit.ly/GoogleJohnC
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• TrustPilot - https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.ace.works
  
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• Vocal References - http://bit.ly/VocalRJohnC
  
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It's not just about Reviews & Ratings

Reviews & ratings are limited by nature. John needs to understand if the learning made a real difference back in the office. So, John checks in up to 12-18 months later. He sees a pattern of improvement and regularly gets pleasant vibes from successful agility inspired by ideas in the workshops. For example, see this experience report.

Content writing

John Coleman is a Professional Scrum Trainer, a candidate LeSS trainer / LeSS Friendly Scrum Trainer, organizer of ELNA (Executive Leadership Network for Adaptiveness), co-author of Kanban Guide, and author of Kanban for Complexity™ aka Kanplexity™ with lots of attribution to Dave Snowden & Cognitive Edge for Cynefin and related theory. See https://kanbanguides.org. 

John did one of the most comprehensive comparisons/contrast of the scaling/descaling frameworks at https://valueglide.com/blog and https://orderlydisruption.com/blogs/grow-agility-for-your-why/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-preamble-to-1-of-4  ("Mirror Mirror" series). John Coleman's blog posts on executives, Scrum, Kanban, Nexus Vs. LeSS, are available at https://bit.ly/JohnColemanBlog. John blogs prolifically at orderlydisruption.com, valueglide.com, Medium, CIO Water Cooler, and The Digital Transformation People. 

Practicing what he preaches, except he doesn't preach -- he doesn't sell, huh?

John helps teams, managers, leaders, change agents, and execs. He can answer all sorts of up-to-date questions with ease. John coaches, teaches, and consults for sustainable growth of agility in non-software as well as software. He created Broad and Deep agility (BaDa) on top of the shoulders of existing theory & practice. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUen2CeyTDk. John himself is broad & deep from the points of view of agility, people & change.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

John is a systems thinker who happens to be a huge fan of Cynefin and sees the benefits of both, erring on the side of Cynefin where they clash. Most importantly, John takes an independent view. John is also a people & change thinker; he uses Spiral Dynamics Integral (certified to level 2) and other models; even if they are criticized in some quarters as pseudoscience, John finds aspects of Spiral Dynamics helpful in structuring better conversations with people. 

More proof he knows what he's talking about and has done what he talks about

John's Scrum+Kanban Nexus+ case studies can be found (international payments company, European bank) at https://www.valueglide.com/blog/nexus-nexus-and-scrum.org-certifications. 

John is grateful to be part of Marshall Goldsmith's #payitforward campaign and, in so doing, offers free coaching/mentoring/co-training to a selection of potential agility chefs. John is a member of the #MarshallGoldsmithLead60 group, a cohort from the 16,000+ #MarshallGoldsmith100CoachesApplicants. It was a privilege for John to be one of a lucky group of 60 people; Marshall Goldsmith himself taught that group in Salt Lake City in February 2018. All of John's workshops #payitforward Marshall Goldsmith content, including Marshall's advice to John himself.

Client list

John typically practiced with many of his clients for 18+ months. He is switching to shorter-term engagements. John's client list (directly or indirectly) includes Japanese Tobacco International, Shell, Barclaycard, Vocalink Mastercard, Centrica / British Gas, the Musgrave Group, RR Donnelley, DELL, Nordic Aviation Services, 84.51, Intralinks, PaySafe, Vodafone, Ericsson, NASA, Sky, and BP. 

Workshop Environment

Assessment preparation tends not to be covered in the workshop. The workshop focuses on attendees getting ready to apply new skills back at work immediately after the workshop. 

There is an expectation that attendees will attend some free post-workshop Zoom calls and watch recordings of their own group (or previous groups) doing tough practice tests, sometimes including John Coleman's own practice tests, which address the same learning outcomes, albeit from a different angle. 

John expects attendees to attend the calls, as assessment preparation does not scale on a 1:1 basis. Signing up for this workshop is effectively signing up to attend these calls.

Sometimes, John Coleman will have a co-trainer, someone already qualified or building up experience. Please inform John Coleman if you need him to bring an assistant trainer who speaks your language via john@orderlydisruption.com; economics will hopefully be in our favor to allow that if there is enough demand.

Live Virtual

• Each segment is 60-75 mins long with 15-30 min breaks. Attendees can spread the workshop over several days if advertised or if other attendees are ok with that —no recording of the workshop to improve openness. The workshop size is limited to 20 attendees.
• Workshop attendees will use Zoom/Teams, Mural, Slack, StoriesOnBoard, Strategyzer, Kanbanize/SwiftKanban, and John's physical flipcharts.
• Learning online is almost as effective as face-to-face. The critical difference is working together online; it takes longer to do things. A "funnel" gets added to the Kanban Board for optional best efforts and additions to the official curriculum. Most questions will get answered to the satisfaction of the attendees, one way or the other.

Rules to follow:

• cameras on
• mics on - let's avoid delayed interventions
• be on time for every segment
• no meetings/phone calls/emails during the active segments
• be self-aware and conscious of the needs of others to have their say
• no hijacking of the agenda; a free coach session is on offer per attendee; use that instead.

A Scrum Reset is often needed in the workshop

If the class attendees demonstrate additional ability, bonus content may get covered. However, as per pre-class communications, the class pace can get set to a slower pace by even one attendee who has not prepared for class. While John Coleman's style is to assume zero knowledge, some attendees may have negative knowledge, and preconceived ideas that are incorrect, according to Scrum.org.

Negative knowledge creates drag for a training class. Hence John Coleman sometimes performs pre-training-screening-calls. While there are no formal pre-requisites for Scrum.org classes, the trainer may request in pre-training phone calls that some attendees go to Profesional Scrum Foundations/Scrum Master (by any Scrum.org trainer) to ensure a smooth learning experience, even if the booked class ticket needs to be postponed to another date, refunding if necessary less banking fees. Either way, at the beginning of each workshop, some kind of Scrum reset takes place to align attendees and reduce the potential for learning drag later.

Payment, fees & cancellation

• Payment in advance is required, with no exceptions. All documentation requirements for invoice payment by the training date must be declared at the outset. 
• VAT additional for UK clients only. 
• No responsibility is taken for costs resulting from cancellation/postponement.
• A minimum quorum is needed for this class to proceed.
• It's unusual for courses to get canceled. Some classes require a minimum number of attendees. No responsibility is taken for costs resulting from cancellation/postponement.
• You may cancel up to the specified online ticketing deadline, and if so, depending on the payment engine/approach, the refund could have deductions for bank transfer fees.
• You may postpone your ticket with a minimum of three business days' notice; thereafter, your lack of attendance at the booked date will be treated as a cancellation with zero refund (due to planning & venue costs for class numbers). Best efforts will be made to fit you into a later workshop.
• Electronic manuals and Scrum.org assessment fees are included. Physical manuals are not provided.

GDPR etc.

Subject to GDPR or other regulations:

• Attendees may be asked to optionally consent to receive communications, e.g., follow-up email newsletters.
• A booking is not a guarantee of attendance. The trainer may need to contact attendees to assess their readiness for the training class. It is possible the trainer will recommend additional training/reading before you can be accepted into the booked class.
• In order to get an assessment, the trainer must submit your name and email address to Scrum.org; Scrum.org may, in turn, send you regular newsletters. 
• Attendees will be invited to a slack channel for the class to enable communications before, during, and after the class.
• Photographs and/or video permission will be requested in class for follow-up marketing purposes.
• Reviews & Testimonials will be requested in class; you can add the same review and star rating to each of VocalReferences, TrustPilot, and Google, to be performed optionally in class. Attendees may also be asked to provide feedback to Scrum.org. For these requests, additional bonus learning content will be delivered regardless of the response.
• A limited number of free-of-charge post-training Zoom/alternative calls are offered. To book, attendees can arrange to meet me via  https://calendly.com/johncolemanagile 
• Attendees may be asked to join compatible communities, e.g., the LeSS community.
• See the privacy statement at orderlydisruption.com.