SCRUM, it hurts because it is interesting?

Over the last 2 days I attended a course for Certified ScrumMaster given by Bas Vodde and Jens Oestergaard.

In the past I read some about Agile and SCRUM. And were involved in an Agile project. I noticed that it is a different game you play as tester. Bas and Jens were able in 2 days to give you a feeling how different this game can be. Come up with examples which can be translated to your situation without the disturbance how you can improve your project into something what looks like SCRUM. They are able to stick to the main thought of SCRUM.

It was also fun to see how they are able to adapt to each other. And how they pulled the best out of the class.

I could give more information about the content of this course. Only then it would be just another source, since there are already enough books about this or weblogs. It is more fun and informative to attend a course like this yourselves.

If you want to attend this course yourself you might check out for dates and locations yourself on Scrum Courses

Some books you might take a look at are:

• Agile Software Development by Alistair Cockburn
• Agile & Iterative Development by Craig Larman
• Agile Software Development by Robert C. Martin
• Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Back
• Agile Software Development with SCRUM by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle
• And somewere during this year (2008): Scaling Lean and Agile by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde

Though I learned and heard a lot and in the class and still processing that information. Some slogans of those lessons are:

• Inspect and Adapt
• It depends
• The team decides
• If it gives you a headache it is assumable not your problem
• Facilitating the team
• There is no direct need for a test manager or test coordinator

Especially the last 2 items hit me like a truck. I always thought I was facilitating my teams. I turned that I was politely with best intentions directive towards them. I also thought there is always a need for test managers and test coordinators. Also in SCRUM. They were able to convince me that in an actual SCRUM project there is no need for them. And that hurts.

Though I think we don't become redundant. As there are organizations who embrace SCRUM. There are also organizations were it is not possible (yet). Does this make the course a waist of time? I strongly believe it is NOT. There are practices in the framework which might help me in the future as test coordinator/consultant. And it helps me to share my knowledge about testing within a team. As it depends if you can use it or not. Every organization is unique and every organization needs their customized approaches.

Still I'm looking forward to work with a SCRUM-team.