Our Trainer Community Program Director, Daphne Harris, was clear about the goals of our Face-to-Face Meeting, one of which was to strengthen our Professional Scrum Trainer community through getting to know each other, syncing with Scrum.org, and exchanging ideas. The other was to create stuff together that we could use to improve as a community.
Having been part of this recent activity, allow me to share with you my personal account of my first Global Face-to-Face meeting with the Trainers Community.
MY JOURNEY WITH SCRUM.ORG
Who would have thought that a brown bag session could lead us to Scrum.org. Some years ago, I was asked by our president at RCG IT Philippines, Richard McGonegal, to do a session on Scrum with our delivery directors. At that time, we were just starting to adopt Professional Scrum into our organization.
The brown bag session led to my first Scrum training to a group of enthusiastic development team who was working with me on a project.
Earlier this year, I have shared our story on how Scrum changed our corporate culture. https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/scrum-how-it-changed-our-corporate-culture
The Guinea Pigs, My first Scrum class at RCG Global Services
L-R: Sarah Sampan, Mark Vila, Suzette Dimasaca, Larry Ragunjan, Jane Kabigting, Karl Esculano, Rickson Chew, Jason Justiniani, Merck Ogoy, Tristan Lopez
Professional Scrum Masters at RCG Global Services. Aside from doing Business Applications, Advisory and Data & Analytics, RCG is also a member of Scrum.org Professional Training Network.
GLOBAL FACE-TO-FACE WITH FELLOW TRAINERS
Peter Götz was one of my mentors at Scrum.org. I was a trainer candidate back then. The process to becoming a trainer involves various steps and multiple assessments. I met Peter in the latter part of my journey wherein he gave me a lot of encouragement especially during the last challenging stages. I remember doing Google Hangout with him and numerous email exchanges pushing me to go forward with the next steps in the process. Surprisingly, Peter was there at my peer review. What touched me the most was when I was patiently waiting for the results, he told me, “I already welcome you to our community.”
In 2014, a few days after I submitted my trainer application with Scrum.org, I was introduced to Jill Graves. She has been a trainer for a while and one of her initiatives was to help other trainer candidates get acquainted with the process.
From then on, Jill and I went through my journey together. She was there to celebrate with me after successful assessments and comforted me during challenging times. I was in the final phase of my masters program at that time and I was also going through the peer review process of my application. When I felt like giving up, Jill was there to give me some encouragement to continue.
Jill and I became friends and she even became my thesis mentor reminding me to “self-organize” myself in meeting my deadlines. She was my Scrum Master.
I had a clear vision in my head why I wanted to attend my first Global Face-to-Face at the Headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts. Firstly, it is where my coach Jill usually attends. I was hoping to meet her in person. Secondly, I was hoping to meet Ken Schwaber. I must have done something good in my life to have the opportunity to meet both. I told Ken that I’m a trainer from the Philippines.
I’m an avid reader of the Head First books. I love the visuals and the way they were written was conversational. Some years ago, I got fascinated with Head First Object Oriented Analysis and Design. I didn’t know that this is how I would meet the author. Dave West is the CEO of Scrum.org.
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
Coming from the other side of the world, I was almost clueless as to what to expect from the Global Face-to-Face meeting. Being there I realized how important the community is for us trainers. There were a lot of sharing of our experiences from our diverse background. It’s an opportunity to learn from each other. Having come from different backgrounds and culture, I learned a lot from my fellow trainers in terms on how they facilitate their meetings as well as how they run their classes. Aside from the learnings on how to better improve our ways of working, one of my key takeaways is the mentorship program within the community and how the culture of our community continues to be supportive of each other.
I’m coming home confidently that I have become a better trainer. But if there’s one I know, this is just the beginning.
The journey continues.