How is a SAFe Scrum Master course different to a Certified Scrum Master course?
Scrum is a lightweight agile framework intended for small teams. You can cover the theory of scrum within a very short space of time because the scrum guide itself is less than 20 pages long.
Certified Scrum Master Course
The Certified Scrum Master course will present the basic foundations of scrum and then progress to inform students of what the role of a scrum master is, in the context of scrum, and how they can be of service to both the scrum team as well as other members of the organization.
The course will introduce the artefacts of scrum as well as the events that govern lightweight scrum, and illustrate why they are necessary and valuable components of the framework.
Since you will be working with a maximum of 10 people in a scrum team, including yourself as the scrum master, it is relatively straightforward and much of what you need to know you will learn as a scrum master in that environment so there isn’t much need to teach you about scaling or how to work with interconnected teams of teams on an integrated solution.
Simple. Straightforward. Effective.
SAFe Scrum Master course.
In a traditional scrum environment, the scrum master can sometimes be treated like a personal assistant who books meetings, runs interference for the team, and gets administrative work done, but in a SAFe environment, things are very different because of the complexity involved.
The SAFe scrum master course teaches you everything that you will learn in a Certified Scrum Master course, for example, the purpose of the events and artefacts in Scrum and how a Scrum Master must leverage these elements to create an environment where the team can thrive.
Because SAFe, also known as Scaled Agile Framework, deals with multiple teams of agile team working on interconnected, integrated solutions, it requires us to go a lot deeper into the SAFe framework and the complexity of scaling agile in a large organization.
So, you would learn about the responsibilities of a scrum master beyond the team level. You would learn about the responsibilities of a scrum master in the context of a scaled solution, working with other SAFe scrum masters across multiple Agile Release Trains and a Large Portfolio SAFe environment.
- What do you need to be aware of in a team of agile teams environment?
- How do you coordinate efforts across multiple, interconnected teams of teams?
- How do you coordinate efforts on an integrated solution across multiple teams?
- How do you ensure transparency across teams of agile teams?
And so forth.
In scrum, you would have a sprint review for a single team but in SAFe you are part of a Solution Demo that involves multiple teams, customers, and stakeholders. How does that event impact a scrum master and influence how they work?
In scrum, you would have a sprint retrospective for a single team but in SAFe that event would need to involve teams of agile teams, and require those individuals to examine how they could improve processes, systems, and behaviours in a coordinated fashion across the Agile Release Train.
So, the complexity escalates fairly significantly because you have a more complex framework to work within, and you have a great deal more people to work with.
A scrum master is known for helping to remove impediments in the scrum environment, but in a SAFe environment there are multiple impediments between different departments and divisions so it needs a coalition of sorts to be effective.
A single scrum team may have a few dependencies, but the nature of the small team is to remove as many dependencies as possible through cross-functional capabilities and skills. In SAFe, we have multiple teams of agile teams, working on an integrated solution, and so there are more dependencies that need to be managed and coordinated for a SAFe Scrum Master.
So, there are significant differences in the skills, capabilities and responsibilities of a SAFe scrum master compared to a traditional scrum master, and that is reflected in the course curriculum.
About Value Glide
Value Glide are a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) consultancy, coaching practice, and training specialist who work with organizations to align business objectives with customer needs and wants.
As deeply experienced agile coaches and practitioners, our team are invested in continuous learning through each client engagement and use the data and evidence we gather from each implementation to inform our training, coaching, and consulting services.
In a nutshell, empirical process control or empiricism.
If you are thinking of adopting agile within your organization and have identified SAFe as a great agile framework to adopt, implement and improve your business agility, visit our SAFe Quickstart ART Launch program page or view our SAFe Consulting Services page.
If you have identified a need for an agile coach and SAFe coach to help your organization adopt and implement SAFe, visit our SAFe Coaching Services page.
If you want to know more about SAFe and how to lead SAFe, visit our SAFE Training page for a host of options, from Leading SAFe to a SAFe Release Train Engineer course.
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